Under 500 miles, which covers Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Portland, the band is $450 to $900. From 500 to 1,500 miles it is $900 to $1,600. From 1,500 to 2,500 it is $1,250 to $2,100, and the West Coast, which is genuinely beyond 2,500 miles from here, runs $1,600 to $2,500. Those are national bands applied to Manchester rather than a Manchester rate card.

Because Boston is a different market with its own demand and its own figures, and a number lifted from it would be a guess wearing a local name. We have not completed enough loads in southern New Hampshire to call a Manchester figure measured, so we publish the bands we can stand behind and point you at the calculator for the real number.

Availability and timing rather than a price. Boston is one of the densest freight markets in the Northeast and Manchester is 55 miles north of it on a straight interstate. A driver who has just unloaded down there can be at your door the same afternoon, and would often rather come north for one more car than head back out empty.

Usually, yes, and Manchester is the exception. A city of 115,000 is normally a thin market where you wait longer for a truck to happen along. Because carriers work the I-93 corridor constantly, Manchester places cars about as readily as a much larger metro would. That is the single most useful thing on this page.

All straightforward, and for the same reason. Nashua, Derry, Londonderry, Salem, Bedford, Goffstown and Hooksett sit on or close to I-93 or the Everett Turnpike, so a carrier reaches them without leaving good road. We have separate pages for Nashua and Concord if you want either city covered on its own.

Your collection window comes first, six days on standard service or three on expedited, counted from the date you name. Then the road: one to three days inside 500 miles, two to five up to 1,500, four to eight beyond that, and seven to ten to the West Coast. Pickups here are not usually the slow part.

It really is. Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco and Seattle are all past 2,500 miles from Manchester, which puts them in the top band. That is a true coast-to-coast trip and it wants three or four weeks of notice rather than two. Anyone quoting five days for it is quoting something federal driving-hour rules do not allow.

Honestly, on a trip that short, often. Boston is under an hour and New York around four hours. The cases where shipping genuinely beats driving are specific: you would be buying a flight or a one-way rental to get home, the car is a second vehicle with nobody in it, there are two cars and one of you, or you bought it sight-unseen and were never going to fetch it.

October and November, heading south. Cars leave for Florida, Arizona and the Carolinas through the fall and southbound trailers fill up. April is the mirror image as people come back north. Three weeks of notice is sensible in those windows and four is better.

Often, yes, and it is the nicest piece of news here. A driver who has just delivered a full trailer into Florida in November would much rather come back north with your car than come back empty. If your timing points the unfashionable way, you are the easiest booking of his week.

January and February. They are usually the best value on the whole calendar here, and the roads are more dependable than people outside New England assume. If your dates are open and you want the friendly end of a band, midwinter is it.

Less than the reputation suggests. A storm can push a collection back a day; that is the realistic extent of it. Carriers working New England have done this winter after winter and treat snow as a Tuesday rather than a crisis. Build a day or two of slack into a January booking and you will barely notice.

Think about salt rather than snow. New England roads carry a heavy dose of it from December into March, and a hard-sided trailer means none of it reaches the paint or the underside. The premium is roughly 80 percent over open, so it depends what the car means to you, but it is a reasonable question to ask in February.

Across most of the area, right at the curb. Bedford, Hooksett, Londonderry, Auburn and the newer west-side neighborhoods have room to spare. The tighter spots are the millyard blocks along the Merrimack, the streets off Elm, and the older East Side grid where parking runs down both sides. There a wider road nearby solves it at no extra charge.

Doable, and a different proposition from Manchester. The approaches are long and some roads are genuinely tight in winter. The sensible answer is usually a meeting point nearer the interstate. Tell us the address and we will give you a straight opinion rather than send a driver up there hopefully.

There is not, and we would rather tell you than let the page imply one. New Hampshire is a market we cover: carriers do the driving, our staff handle your order on the phone. Since the car travels from one address straight to another, a local counter would serve no purpose. Registered business address: 4208 Six Forks Rd Ste 1000, Raleigh, NC 27609.

Eight or nine other cars are on that trailer, each with its own address, and the driver works through them in the order the route dictates. Being third or eighth changes your day by more than a promise made a week out could ever account for. So instead you get a phone call the night before with an actual time, which is the thing you can plan around.

In the fall rush, yes. Expedited halves the collection window from six days to three, and in October and November everybody wants the same dates. The rest of the year Manchester places cars easily enough that standard service usually does the job.

It can. A winch-equipped truck handles it, and there is no flat surcharge, so figure $200 and up depending on the car. We only need three answers before booking: will it roll, will it steer, will it stop. Say so honestly even if the answer is no to all three, because the wrong truck showing up wastes a day that neither of us gets back.

Routinely. Bring it to about a 50 percent charge, name the model when you book so the driver can work out where the extra weight sits on the deck, and disable anything that keeps the car awake. Sentry and similar always-on features will drain a pack over several days of standing still, and a run to the West Coast is a lot of days.

Get the fuel down near a quarter, then wash it. A clean car makes the condition report worth something, and your own photographs of existing chips and scrapes are worth having too. Fold the mirrors in, drop the antenna, pull the toll tag, kill the alarm. From December onward add one job: brush the snow and ice off, because a car nobody can see is a car nobody can inspect.

Within limits, yes. Keep it to the trunk, stay under about 100 pounds, and leave anything you could not replace at home. Some companies refuse outright; we would rather give you a workable answer. The two caveats: household goods sit outside the carrier cover, and a hundred pounds per car becomes half a ton across a full trailer.

The carrier, under Carrier Cargo Insurance. No truck gets dispatched by us without it, and the certificate is checked while it is still current rather than after the fact. We will email you a copy on request. Worth knowing as well: your own auto policy may already extend to a car in transit, so one call to your insurer is time well spent.

Not at all. Add their name and a cell number when the booking goes in. They need to be over eighteen, willing to walk the car with the driver, and willing to sign the delivery report. That last bit is the part that matters: the signed report is what settles any question raised later.

It does not. Outbound sales calling is not part of how we work. The figure is yours to keep, compare and sit on for as long as you like. Nothing is charged for the quote and nothing is charged to book, and if you would rather have the conversation out loud, the line is open.