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Military car shipping
A PCS move lands in the same weeks as everyone else's summer move, which is the single biggest thing working against the price.
A permanent change of station arrives as a document with a date on it, and the date is not a preference. Household goods, a flight, a lease and the vehicle have to land inside a window someone else chose, and the vehicle is the piece left until last. A carrier dispatches against a window of its own, filling a truck when the route makes sense, and the windows have to meet.
This site has no military affiliation and no government contract. It does not arrange the shipment; it passes your request to licensed companies and shows what comes back. The panel beside this text shows how the season you move in changes the price, which for orders landing in the busy part of the calendar is where it hurts.
| Month | Against the year-round rate |
|---|---|
| Jan | +10% |
| Feb | +0% |
| Mar | +0% |
| Apr | +0% |
| May | +0% |
| Jun | +12% |
| Jul | +12% |
| Aug | +12% |
| Sep | +0% |
| Oct | +0% |
| Nov | +0% |
| Dec | +0% |
The national curve. Summer is the peak because civilian moves, military PCS orders and student terms all land in the same weeks, and there are only so many trucks.
The report date does not move, so the pickup window has to
Orders name a date to report, and nothing about it bends for a car. The company you book works the other way round: it posts a pickup window, waits for a truck heading that direction to fill, and dispatches when the load makes sense. In the quiet part of the calendar these meet easily. In the season when orders cluster, they do not — and the demand does not spread evenly across a state, it concentrates on the towns outside the gates. Give the widest pickup window your orders allow. A narrow window in that season is how a car sits uncollected while you fly out.
The gate is a credential check, and the driver has to pass it
An installation is a controlled access point. To come through the gate a driver has to clear the visitor center: an identity document the guard accepts, and a background check that returns clean. Some drivers cannot clear it, and installations tighten access without notice, so what worked for someone else's move is not a promise. A driver turned away at the gate is a driver holding your car with nowhere to put it. The usual answer is to arrange the handover off post, and that address belongs on the bill of lading from the start, not the base address.
Overseas, and the time the car spends standing still
An assignment outside the continental United States normally moves the car under the government's program: turned in at a vehicle processing center, collected at a center on the far side. No quote from a company here covers that ocean leg. A civilian carrier is for the domestic ends — home to the processing center, and from the arrival center to wherever you end up living. The same goes for a car left stateside through a deployment: someone has to store it, and a vehicle sitting in an open lot is a different exposure than the same car in transit. Ask who holds the keys and what covers it while parked.
Questions people ask
Is there a military discount on car shipping?
Some companies offer one and some do not. It is theirs, not ours: we do not set it, cannot verify it, and no estimate shown here includes it. Ask the company directly, ask whether it comes off the whole job or only the line haul, and get it written on the booking. A discount agreed on the phone and missing from the paperwork tends to disappear by delivery.
Will the military reimburse me for shipping my own car?
Ask your transportation office, and ask before you book — entitlements turn on your orders, and nobody here can read them for you. What we can tell you is that the price shown is the commercial price, owed to the company whether or not a claim is approved later. If you plan to file one, keep the signed bill of lading and the paid invoice. A claim without them is an argument you lose.
My PCS date changed after I booked. What happens?
Tell the company the day you know. Before dispatch, a changed date is a scheduling matter. After a truck has been assigned it is a cancellation, and what happens to the deposit is whatever the contract says. Read that clause before you sign, because orders slip, and it is the clause that decides the argument.
Can my spouse accept delivery if I have already reported in?
Only if they are named on the order when you book. A PCS usually separates you from the car — you report in, it arrives later, to someone else — so the naming has to happen while you are the one talking to the company. A power of attorney is not a substitute: it lets them sign for you, but the driver is dispatched to a name on the bill of lading, and it has to be there before dispatch.
Where is the car going?
Two ZIP codes. No account, no obligation.
Other things people ask about
Enclosed car transport
A closed trailer costs more than an open one. How much more depends on distance, and it moves the opposite way to what most quotes imply.
Classic car transport
Two things separate a classic from an ordinary shipment: it often does not run, and its value is not what a standard cargo policy assumes.
Door to door car shipping
Almost every quote you will get is door to door. Terminal service still exists, and it is worth knowing when it is actually cheaper.
Luxury car shipping
A modern high-value car is not priced as a luxury; it is priced as a large vehicle in a closed trailer. Those are two separate multipliers.
The cheapest way to ship a car
Four levers change a car shipping price by a meaningful amount. Everything else you will read about saves nothing.
Car shipping insurance
A broker's bond and a carrier's cargo policy are different things that protect different people. Conflating them is the most common error in this industry.