yet another car shipping question.... (sales, insurance, loan)

[Jack-E-Son]

I know a lot of people here say to ditch the car and buy a new or go without one, BUT with me there are a few circumstances in which i can not ditch it and go without it.

1. Its still being financed.
2. Out of the 2 remaining drivers. None like to drive my car.
3. I'm in Kauai with little to no public transport.

SO, my question is, Which carrier should i use, shipmyvehicle.com/horizon or Pasha Hawaii? Quotes are $1996 and $23xx, respectively. Pasha doesn't list height requirements and said that I would need to call to confirm even after booking thru their website and Horizon needs the car to have 6" of ground clearance, mine has 5.6". Found another site, American Auto Transport Inc (ship-auto.com), and says the vehicles are shipped in an container, quote is $2075, from the email they sent me, it seems like the best deal and the best way. (they prob all say that, ill attach it)

i know we can't bash on the companies, so which one would you recommend? I haven't really talked to any of them yet, so i still have options.

oh, the important details.. car is in NY/NJ so i can go to Linden, NJ for Horizon or Edison, NJ for Pasha Hawaii and AAT will pick up. Ground clearance is 5.6" and 6" is required on Horizon. Pasha is unknown and AAT is in a container so its good.

thanks in advance

[Dreaming of Hawaii]

Have you checked with Matson? They are a very popular shipper.

Sounds like having your car shipped in a container would be the way to go. I'd suggest going to the Better Business Bureau and checking to see if any complaints have been filed against AAT.

[Jack-E-Son]

I have checked BBB for AAT but it doesnt list the exact specifics

hese complaints concerned :
+ 3 regarding Advertising Issues
+ 2 regarding Billing or Collection Issues
+ 1 regarding Delivery Issues
+ 3 regarding Refund or Exchange Issues
+ 2 regarding Sales Practice Issues
+ 1 regarding Service Issues

These complaints were closed as:
+ 9 Resolved
+ 3 Administratively Closed

I checked Matson, and the only reason why i didnt look further into them is due to the fact they offer shipping from Hawaii to the West Coast. Since they didnt offer or mention anything for the rest of the mainland, i didnt check it.

[mdand3boys]

There are only only three real shippers to Hawaii.
Matson, Pasha, Horizon. All others are brokers who will use one of those three anyway. Yes, you MIGHT save a little, but with all of the issues with using a broker, why take the chance?

I doubt your ground clearance is an issue, unless the vehicle is not stock.

Your other option is to drive to the West coast so as to drop the vehicle off at the port yourself and fly one-way back. It might save you money and time. Your vehicle could then be in Hawaii before you get there. It is about $1050 from West coast ports to Hawaii.

[Jack-E-Son]

My contact person from Horizon is on vacation till August 2nd and when i sent a email to the general email address i got a pre-booking confirmation instead of a response to my question.

Matson is west coast and Pasha i still need to contact, had to go into work before.

Vehicle is stock but like i said has a ground clearance of 5.6" and it requires 6" and still didnt get a response yet.

Other option is very very expensive to me. Take a week off of work (-$500) Fly back to NY to pick up my car (-$600). Drive cross country to West Coast (-~$300) in gas. Fly back to Kauai from LAX (-$350) so the total sum is ~$1750 in expenses + $1050 west coast shipping. $2800 total.. this is due to I'm already in Kauai and have been working for the past 6 weeks.

[Joliefille]

Originally Posted by Jack-E-Son

My contact person from Horizon is on vacation till August 2nd and when i sent a email to the general email address i got a pre-booking confirmation instead of a response to my question.

Matson is west coast and Pasha i still need to contact, had to go into work before.

Vehicle is stock but like i said has a ground clearance of 5.6" and it requires 6" and still didnt get a response yet.

Other option is very very expensive to me. Take a week off of work (-$500) Fly back to NY to pick up my car (-$600). Drive cross country to West Coast (-~$300) in gas. Fly back to Kauai from LAX (-$350) so the total sum is ~$1750 in expenses + $1050 west coast shipping. $2800 total.. this is due to I'm already in Kauai and have been working for the past 6 weeks.

Yeah, with all that...it does seem more expensive to do it your self. I looked at drive away services, but they all had such bad BBB ratings, I ended up having my unemployed sister pick my car up & drive it to CA. But, I had several free tix on SW, so her flights were free.
WE shipped a Saab & Porsche and I have no idea what their clearance is, but both are pretty low type cars.
What about finding a retired or unemployed person to drive it out? Then buy a one way tix back to the eastcoast.

[OpenD]

As was mentioned, there are three vehicle shippers... Matson, Pasha, and Horizon. Going through a broker will still put your car on one of these three and add complexity and probably some cost to the transaction.

I know Pasha offers 15 mainland terminal points. Edison, NJ seems to be the closest for you. They truck the car to the west coast for embarcation on their ship. For me the closest terminal point was Dallas, and it would have added $700 to the cost. You have to weigh that against your other options... time, money, etc.

One thing to consider is that to ship a car that has a lien on it, like an auto loan, you have to present a letter from the lienholder giving you permission to take the vehicle off the mainland. Don't assume this permission will be automatically granted, or will be quick.

Coming mainland to Hawai'i you'll get an automatic bump in resale value that is an offset against the cost of shipping. Going the other way you only have expense. I know several folks who buy a used vehicle whenever they are visiting on the mainland and ship it back when they return, picking up some profit to cover part of the cost of the vacation. But you have to be savvy about buying and selling cars to make that work. Low mileage, rust free cars with high MPG ratings and lots of room for hauling stuff do the best.

Good luck

[Jack-E-Son]

I'm getting the letter written up from my cousin/lawyer so i can get authorization from the lien account then requesting permission to ship. I dont expect my car to be shipped till mid to late august.

Pasha is $2400.. but i guess it would be the best choice since the height doesn't matter. I still have to wait for Horizon to respond, hopefully by then i'll have the lien permission.

yeah.. so far Pasha and Horizon are the ones i'm looking into.

[hotzcatz]

What kind of penalties do you pay if you give the car to the financing company? Can the car be sold to cover the amount you still owe on it? Might be cheaper and easier if you could leave it on the mainland somehow.

These entanglements with cars always seem so weird to me. We always pay cash and buy a beater. No financing charges, cheap insurance, no theft worries and if it gets dented, dinged or scratched we don't care. Go to the beach and get sand all over - we no care. Life is so much easier with old cars. Plus they don't stink like plastic! Ick! I'm sure they are going to find out one day that the fumes from new plastic car interiors cause cancer or some sort of mutations. Anyway, that's just me and this is about your car halfway across the planet. How much of the planet is between Kauai and New York? Isn't it almost halfway?

[Jack-E-Son]

Like I said. I want to keep the car. If I give it back. I'll get nothing back. And still would have to fork out money to get a beater car. The car is only one year old and I domt have to care about maintenance due to the "unknown" history of a beater. I've seen my cousin buy a $2000-$5000 beater and wind up paying more to fix it. Little problems here andthere and reoccurring problems that need to be fixed.