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I'm brand spanking new here, so I'm sorry if this isn't the right place to post this, but it's the first place I found that would let me. I'm looking to ship my newly purchased 1971, f100, short bed 4X4 from Arizona to Indiana and I was wondering if anyone had done any shipping in the past with a recommendation on who to use and/or who to stay away from.
I'll have to check who I went with. I just shipped my truck not to long ago. Also there is some forums that have a hauling section so anyone making any trips can post where there heading and people can pay them instead of big companies.
Thanks for the replies. I would love to drive it home, but its apparently been burning a quart of oil every 80 mile or so since the rebuild 4000 miles ago. So that'll be the first order of business when it gets here.
I wish I could recommend someone. I shipped my truck from California to South Carolina last Summer and, let me tell you, it was a PITA. The auto shipping industry is a MESS. All the shippers I researched had lots of bad reviews and pretty much everything about the process with the shipper I dealt with was a runaround. AND they damaged my truck!
I would agree with Jowilker: drive it yourself if you possibly can. If it's inop, I would strongly advise that you rent a tow rig and fetch the truck yourself.
I would drive out with a flatbed trailer and tow it back. Dolly's are nice, and work well in a pinch. But a flatbed trailer has brakes, and can easily backup.
Please don't start that pissing contest again. Tow dollies have brakes now. OK
You have to drive the darn truck with your brain engaged, and compensate. I own & have used both. You have to drive looking a little farther down the road.
There were no brakes on trailers when I learned how to use them.
I know of a couple guys who are members of other forums that do shipping. 21Willys on RatRodsRule is a good guy and someone who's word is good. And on the HAMB there used to be a guy who went by BenD and he was also very trustworthy. No big dispatch commercial shippers, just sole proprietors. That's the way I would go.
On trailer versus tow dolly, if I had both sitting there, the tow dolly would never get used. I have a car hauler I built using some old travel trailer torsion axles with shocks. It weighs around 1500 and pulls so nice you hardly know it's behind you and it is completely silent since I didn't make a place to stow the ramps and instead strap them down or haul them in the truck. Most of those tow dollys are clanging noisy things, especially the U-haul ones. Annoying. I also used to tow with no trailer brakes but not in today's traffic, all my dual axle trailers have 4 wheel brakes and I keep them all working.
I had an absolute nightmare trying to get my 69 F100 long bed moved from northern Alabama to the port in New Jersey (to be shipped to the UK). It was originally on some kind of bulletin board awaiting bids from shippers and this process took an age in itself, but then when a shipper eventually 'won' the 'auction' they wouldn't go and collect it until they also had something else in the same area to collect.
After about 8 weeks waiting I gave up on this whole thing and contacted a specialist auto shipper that a classic car friend of mine recommended. The service from that point onwards was top class - speedy collection, regular updates, no damage and a better price than I had been expecting.
It actually worked out pretty well. No real issues. I think I got lucky with a very good transport company. Thanks for everyone's input. It helped a lot.
If you don't mind telling who did you get to transport it? Might be helpful to others down the line when transporting there's. Now let's see pics of this new truck.