Open Car Transport

What open transport actually is

An open carrier is the two-level steel trailer you pass on the interstate with seven to ten cars strapped to it. There is no roof and no walls. Roughly nine out of ten vehicles shipped in the United States move this way, including almost every new car delivered from the factory to a dealership, and it is the default we quote unless a customer asks otherwise.

Because one truck carries eight to ten vehicles instead of two to four, the cost of the driver, the fuel, the insurance and the trailer is divided across far more cars. That single fact is why open transport runs roughly 30-50% below enclosed on the same lane, and why capacity is easy to find in almost every corridor.

What it costs, and what moves the number

On our own published lanes, open transport runs about $300-$550 for short interstate hops, $450-$1,050 across a thousand miles, and $1,100-$1,700 coast to coast. The range on any one lane is real, not padding, and these are the things that decide where inside it your quote lands:

• Vehicle size and height. A sedan takes one slot. A dually pickup, a three-row SUV or anything with a lift kit or roof rack takes more deck space and sometimes forces a top-deck-only position, which prices higher.
• Whether it runs. A car that starts, steers and brakes rolls onto the trailer under its own power. One that does not needs a winch, and fewer trucks carry one.
• How far you are off the corridor. A pickup two miles from an interstate exit is cheap. A pickup ninety minutes up a mountain road is paid for by one car instead of ten.
• Season. Snowbird routes into Florida and Arizona tighten from October, and reverse in spring. Summer is the heaviest relocation window nationally, and August adds the college rush.
• How tight your dates are. A three-day pickup window is the cheapest thing you can give a dispatcher. A named day is the most expensive.

The honest case against it

Your car is outside for the length of the trip. It will arrive dusty, and in a Midwest winter it will arrive with road salt on it. Over a long run there is a small but real chance of a stone chip, the same exposure the car would have if you drove the route yourself. Cars are loaded nose-to-tail with a gap between them and strapped at the wheels, not the frame, so contact damage between vehicles is rare — but weather is not something an open trailer protects against.

For a daily driver, a lease return, a dealer transfer or a student's car, that trade is almost always worth 30-50% of the bill. For a vehicle where a stone chip is a five-figure repaint, it is not, and enclosed transport is the right call.

Top load or bottom load

An open trailer has two decks. The top deck is exposed to less road spray and no drips from other vehicles, so it is mildly preferable, and some carriers charge for it. The bottom deck is where taller vehicles have to go because of bridge clearance. Unless you have asked and paid for a specific position, the driver assigns decks by height and weight distribution, which is a safety decision rather than a preference one.

How a shipment runs, start to finish

1. Quote and booking. We price the lane from real pickup and delivery ZIP codes, not state names, because the corridor matters more than the distance.
2. Dispatch. Your vehicle is assigned to a carrier already running that corridor. This is the step a flexible date window speeds up, sometimes by days.
3. The driver's call. You get a call ahead of pickup to agree a time and a workable spot. A car hauler can be 75 feet long; on a narrow residential street or in an apartment complex the handover happens at a nearby lot or wide cross-street, which is still door-to-door service.
4. Inspection and the Bill of Lading. You and the driver walk the car and record its condition. Photograph it yourself in daylight first. That document is the only record of what the car looked like before it loaded.
5. Transit. Carriers run legal hours-of-service limits, so a 2,800-mile lane is seven to ten days, not three.
6. Delivery inspection. The same walk-around in reverse, against the same form. Note anything before you sign.

Preparing the car

Wash it, so pre-existing damage is visible and photographable. Leave about a quarter tank — enough to load and drive off, not enough to add unnecessary weight. Remove the toll transponder, or it will bill you across several states. Take out personal items: carriers are licensed to move vehicles, and cargo insurance does not cover the contents. Fold the mirrors, retract or remove an aftermarket antenna, and disable an alarm that can drain the battery in transit.

Where we run open carriers

We book open transport in all 50 states, with the densest capacity on the corridors that carry the most freight: the I-95 spine, I-10 and I-40 east to west, I-75 and I-65 north to south, and I-5 on the west coast. Browse popular shipping routes for lane-specific prices and transit windows, or find your city to see what we quote from there.

If you already know your dates, get a free quote — it takes a couple of minutes and the number comes back route-specific rather than as a national average.