When shipping a car through a professional car transport company, certain choices need to be made. Each of these choices is important because they will have an effect on some portion of the shipping process, especially the cost of shipping. One of the more important choices to be made would be the pickup/delivery processes.
Options Related to the Pickup Process
When you make the decision to ship your car or cars from one place to another place, the shipping company’s representative is going to ask you: “How would you like them to take possession of your car?”
In case you don’t know it, the answer will be one of two options. Option one is “door-to-door” pickup/delivery. With this option, the shipping company would send a representative to your chosen location to get the car. Thereafter, they would deliver the car to a location of your choosing.
Option two is what is referred to as “terminal-to-terminal” pickup/delivery. Under this option, you would be required to deliver your car to a location of the shipping company’s choosing. Furthermore, the final dropoff location would be a location of the shipping company’s choosing. You would then be required to pick up the car at their designated location.
Going forward, the rest of this writing is going to the advantages of terminal-to-terminal vehicle shipping.
What Are the Advantages of Terminal-to-Terminal Vehicle Shipping?
When making any kind of important decision related to your personal assets, you will want or need to make the best decision possible. The best decision or decisions are usually the ones that would benefit you the most.
While there are significant advantages related to both pickup/delivery options, the evidence suggests that the terminal-to-terminal option might be slightly more advantageous. With that in mind, here is a review of some of those advantages.
Schdeuling Flexibility
With the door-to-door option, shipping companies are very specific and strict about pickup and dropoff times. This is necessitated by the fact they have schedules they have to maintain, schedules that often involve other customers.
The terminal-to-terminal option offers you more flexibility. The shipping company will tell you when your car is scheduled to depart and arrive at their designated terminals. You only have to worry about getting to the departure terminal before the scheduled shipping. If you need to do that one or two days in advance, that’s usually not an issue because the terminals do have storage areas.
As for picking your car up at the arrival terminal, you get the same flexibility. If you can’t be there on the actual arrival day, they can store on your behalf for a day or two.
Fewer Issues With Shipping Equipment
If you have oddities related to your vehicle, a shipping company like SGT Auto Transport might need special equipment to load and secure your car. That makes the terminal-to-terminal option better because the shipper’s terminal probably has the right equipment on hand. Door-to-door shippers usually have limited access to special equipment.
Elimination of Access Issues
If the pickup or dropoff point is in a small rural area or small neighborhood in a big city, the shipping company’s semi might have difficulty traversing narrow streets. That can cause scheduling issues, resulting in the shipping company having to charge more for their services.
With the terminal-to-terminal option, such issues are irrelevant because your car will be heading into areas more suitable for semi-trucks to navigate.
Affordability
The simple truth is that terminal-to-terminal shipping is more affordable. Why? It’s because of the other advantages listed above. They charge less because it’s your responsibility to get the car to the departure point on time and hit the arrival point when possible. Also, they save money by not having to bring extra equipment or traverse narrow streets. They are happy to share these savings with you by offering lower costs.
Conclusion
While both of these shipping options have advantages, the terminal-to-terminal option offers the biggest advantage. That comes in the form of more affordable pricing, something most people appreciate when they are trying to budget for the relocation of all of their assets.
