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Aloha,
I'm moving to the islands (thinking Oahu) at the end of the year.
I had the great idea that when I shipped my vehicle that I would just load it up with everything I was going to be taking and fly over.
Well from what I've been reading every one so far does not let you pack anything in your car besides what's bolted down.
I was wondering if anyone knew of any company that lets you pack a few boxes in your car as you ship it. Seems like such a waist of space to me.
As an alternative I've thought about shipping a trailer attached to the vehicle loaded up (not sure if that will fly or not)
Or using a shipping company shiptohawaii.com to ship boxes over costing me 2x the amount to ship the car
Location: Was in Western New York but now in Hilo Hawaii
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From my understanding the only way you can load your car with anything is to put your car inside a container. Defeats your cost savings huh!
At this point this is exactly what I'm doing because I have more than the AFB containers and less then a full container so to save $1200 on the car it goes in the container full.
Good luck in figuring this out its driving me nutz.
The shipping companies certainly dont make it easy, do they?
Be prepared to wait a few weeks for your vehicle.
You can google shipping companies and can request quotes...we've requested from ABF, Yellow Freight (YRCW), West Point Relocation, Matson, Horizon, UPS & even FedEx. It'll save you a ton of time if you can estimate how much in cubic feet and approx. weight of items you'll be taking. You might want to go on West Point Relocation and you'll see a calculator (along the toolbar). You can get a rough estimate by completing that and use that as a ballpark figure for your other places you request from.
We have a 3 bedroom house (with small furniture) we're trying to "move" and we're looking at approx 7,000 lbs...so far our quotes are running about $8-10k, 45-60 days for delivery, and that is with us coming from AZ to Oahu. I'm seriously thinking about selling the furniture and going to WalMart or Target once there in Hawaii and replace it, because its cheaper to do that rather than pay additional for shipping it there.
The last time we moved to Oahu (2004) we sent the car by Matson and shipped almost 200 copy paper sized boxes by FedEx ($2800) and sold all the furniture. Returning to the mainland a year later, we sent the car back with Matson, again sold the furniture, utilized 3 crates with boxes, and sent it back by Yellow Freight for $3600.
Remember that since you're going to be flying over, you can also pack some additional items in the suitcases and check them. Just be aware of how much they weigh, since the airlines charge for overweight baggage.
To minimize your wait for your vehicle, look closely at the shipping dates. If you miss a companies weekly shipping date cutoff, you will not got your vehicle for about 10 additional days.
They do not let you stuff your vehicle because they know that your stuff will be stolen.
We just had our container dropped off in front of our house from the company ABF, they were on time and courteous, so far so good. I was hoping it would be a little larger but I agree; we can buy what we need when we get there. The container 8X6 cost mid 2k. It seems like the easiest thing to do.
Agree, container shipping is probably the easiest to do since theyll drop the container off at your place now, let you load it up, pick it up and then drop it off at your new address..
When you ship your car they let you know that they're not liable for anything that you leave in it, so it's totally at your own risk. Call ahead of time and drop off a day or two before the cutoff and you won't have a huge wait...when I shipped my car to LA w/ Horizon Lines, I had about a two week total timeframe w/out my vehicle, most of that time sitting on the dock in Honolulu as the cut-off date is a few days before the actual ship sails...otherwise I think the boat actually only takes 5 or 6 days to / from the west coast...
Thanks for all the great infomation, So what's the cost difference if i ship my car loaded down in a container? I've looked into shipping over a 5x5x4' worth of boxes (which should be all that I'm needing) thru shiptohawaii.com for about $600 plus the car $900, seems to be my cheapest I've found so far.
Has anyone else ran into anything more cost effective?
I'm not to worried about time to much i've got an uncle on the island that said hey take my truck I don't drive it anyways, haha.
Location: Was in Western New York but now in Hilo Hawaii
1,234 posts, read 4,588,408 times
Reputation: 454
Quote:
Originally Posted by daloux
Thanks for all the great infomation, So what's the cost difference if i ship my car loaded down in a container? I've looked into shipping over a 5x5x4' worth of boxes (which should be all that I'm needing) thru shiptohawaii.com for about $600 plus the car $900, seems to be my cheapest I've found so far.
Has anyone else ran into anything more cost effective?
I'm not to worried about time to much i've got an uncle on the island that said hey take my truck I don't drive it anyways, haha.
It depends on where you are and how much stuff 20' shipping containers are dont by how much you can stuff inside not by weight. small containers like AFB have a up limit price from Calie its like $2500 up to 2000lbs then they surcharge you over weight.
My issiue is that I have been Married to long to just give up and sell all my stuff. I have to much stuff for 2 AFB containers 6x8 but cant fill a 20' container. The only good thing is that my car is small low and if I build a shelve over it I can get all I want and more for the same low low price. Or was that lolo price? Hey Uncle what was that again?
I'm planing on driving out to LA (or where ever my car is going to be shipped from) to make it as cost effective as possible. I know I can drop off my boxes at the shiptohawaii.com ports so no cost inquired there as well.
Policies may have changed since I moved to Maui 5 years ago, or perhaps they vary by shipping company. But when I moved, Matson did NOT allow the transport of any vehicles in the shipping containers, not even a moped. The reasons I heard were:
No ramps provided with containers, so how are you going to get your car up there? If they provide ramps, too much danger of people driving off the side. Also of people not knowing when to stop once they get inside. Can you imagine how many people would plow into the back of the container or else into their stacked household goods?
The dangers of explosive liquids, since people could not be trusted to load an empty gas tank. With shipping your car over separately, the gas tank must be at the very empty mark when you leave it at the docks or they won't take it onboard.
The vehicle may not be well-secured inside the container, so the movement of loading/unloading plus the movement of the ship might cause the vehicle to roll or slide around. That would not only cause damage to the vehicle and the contents of the container, but also to the walls of the container and possibly to others stacked alongside it.
Insurance liability - even though they don't insure your contents, the insurance companies for the shipper don't want to deal with the same issues. Just a note, you can buy insurance from a 3rd party for your container contents.
When your container arrives at the destination, you choose to either empty the container at the docks or have the container delivered to your door. If the former, they would have to provide ramps at the destination and that's storage and hauling around big metal objects. PLUS they would have to postion the containers to leave room to drive a car down the back of the container. Too many containers that need to be moved out of there quickly to mess around with that.
If you get your container delivered, then the trucking company doesn't want the liability of all of the above either.
If you have found a company that will allow you to load your vehicle into the container, better check all the requirements and arrangements.
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