Transporting a third vehicle across country

[jakabedy]

Originally Posted by lae60

Ask a friend or relative to drive it and pay for their air fare back home. You move it for the cost of gas, hotel for driver, food for driver and air fare back. though this likely is pushing the cost of having it transported for the $1200 with out putting the wear and tear and mileage on it.

^^ This. But I'd actually pay the friend to drive the nicest, newest car you have. YOU should drive the 20+year-old Thunderbird. That gut check about driving it 1,800 miles should tell you if it's that important to you to keep it. Or, get rid of one of the other cars.

*We moved last year from Alabama to New Mexico. We had three cars. We got rid of two older ones and purchased a nicer newer one for me to have out here. We pulled it on a hauler behind the rental truck. When hubby moved out a few months later, he pulled his on a hauler behind the second rental truck.

[urbex]

Originally Posted by Wheeldude5

Car hauling companies want about 1,200 bucks to haul it! Hell, I only paid 2,200 for the car! How can I justify paying 1,200 to haul a 2,200 car?

Easy...can you find another in similar condition for $2,200?

I often chuckle at the "I'm not paying X to do Y to/with that car! That's more than I paid for the car" Or in your case, half of what you paid...but the concept is the same. Some time ago, I was given an old truck that had an absolutely mint body on it that was stashed in the back of a garage...the fabled "barn find" kind of thing. My original plan was to make an off road beater out of it, but upon realizing how clean the truck was, I ended up selling it.

But had I kept it, would it have been nuts of me to put any money into it at all, since I basically had about $100 into it? (The cost of my fuel in my truck to go pick this thing up, lunch, cost of paperwork, etc) This is the kind of truck that you don't just open up Craigslist and find a dozen of at any given time to go buy. I typically see maybe 2 or 3 a year go up for sale, and more often they've been beat on their entire life. If I had to move it across country, I wouldn't bat an eye at $1200 to get it done, even though it's $1100 more than I paid for it.

Same in your case - do you REALLY like this particular '89 Tbird? Personally, I'm not sure why someone would be that enamored with an '89, unless it's a super clean SC, but then plenty of people assumed I must have had some screws loose when I intentionally went out in search of a clean Chevette, so I get it :P I'm not familiar enough with the Tbird market to know if $2,200 really was a screaming deal or not, so I don't know if you'd be able to get another for a similar price.

If you were to sell it now, would you be looking for another later model Tbird to replace it? Would you likely be able to buy another in similar condition for either a similar price, or for less than $3400 (the price you paid + the cost to move it)? Do you have any kind of attachment to this particular car that another identical car wouldn't have?

That's how you determine whether it would be worth it to spend X to move the car with you

[JanND]

We tipped 100.00 per mover....course, that was 10 years ago...they seemed happy with that.