You're moving across the country and the car has to get there somehow. Transport companies will quote you a price in about thirty seconds. What none of them will do is price the alternative properly, which is why so many people ship without ever checking whether it made sense.
Quick answer: On cash alone, driving wins on almost every route — a 1,500-mile trip costs roughly $965 in fuel, hotels, meals and wear versus about $1,500 to ship plus a flight. The decision only flips when you price your own time. At $25 an hour the breakeven lands near 1,500 miles; at $40 an hour it drops to around 1,000; if your time is genuinely free, driving stays cheaper coast to coast.
The mental version of this decision is usually "shipping costs $1,200, gas costs $300, so driving is obviously cheaper." That's true as far as it goes and it leaves out most of the trip.
Here's a 1,500-mile move in a 30 MPG car at $3.10 a gallon, driving eight hours a day:
| Driving | Cost | Shipping | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fuel | $155 | Open transport | $1,251 |
| Hotels (3 nights) | $420 | One-way flight | $250 |
| Meals (4 days) | $240 | Booking, drop-off, pickup | ~4 hours |
| Wear & depreciation | $150 | ||
| Cash total | $965 | Cash total | $1,501 |
| Plus 24 hours of your time | — | Plus 4 hours | — |
Driving is $536 cheaper in cash and costs you an extra twenty hours. Whether that's a good trade is a question about you, not about the car.
Put a value on your time and the answer resolves immediately:
| Your time is worth | Shipping wins past roughly |
|---|---|
| $0/hr (you wanted the road trip) | Never — driving stays cheaper coast to coast |
| $15/hr | 2,000 miles |
| $25/hr | 1,500 miles |
| $40/hr | 1,000 miles |
This is the calculation the transport industry's own content never runs, and it explains a lot of otherwise confusing advice. Someone who tells you shipping is a rip-off and someone who says it's obviously worth it are usually both right about their own situation.
Enter your distance, MPG, and what your time is worth to see the breakeven for your specific move.
Ship vs Drive Calculator →Most bookings go through a broker, not the carrier. The broker lists your vehicle on a load board and drivers bid on it. That auction structure explains almost every strange thing about auto transport quotes — why two companies quote hundreds apart for the same route, why a price can move before pickup, and why nobody will commit to an exact delivery date.
Consistent patterns worth knowing:
Beyond fuel, the honest list includes lodging and meals for every night on the road, plus wear and mileage-driven depreciation. Adding 2,800 miles to an odometer measurably reduces what the car sells for later — ten to fifteen cents a mile is a conservative allowance once fuel is counted separately. There's also the risk of a breakdown a thousand miles from home, which matters more on an older car.
You're without the vehicle for anywhere from a few days to two weeks, and delivery windows are estimates rather than appointments. Carriers typically cap personal items at about 100 pounds in the trunk, and those items aren't covered by the carrier's insurance. Door-to-door often means "as close as a car hauler can legally get," which may be a parking lot several miles away.