I finally stopped comparing quotes by price alone after a $150 lesson
I used to sort every auto transport quote from lowest to highest and just pick the cheapest one, which worked fine until it did not. Two years back I booked a carrier out of Phoenix for $750 to move my son's Civic to Denver, about $150 under everyone else, and the car sat in a lot for nine days before anyone touched it. The dispatcher quit answering my calls, and I ended up paying a second company $900 to actually get it done. What tipped me off was a broker in Ohio who asked me one simple question: did I know if the carrier was bonded and insured, or just cheap? I had never once checked that on any of my five previous moves. Now I look at reviews from the past 90 days, ask for the DOT number, and treat the lowest bid as a warning instead of a win. Has anyone else gotten burned by the rock bottom quote, and what do you actually check before you sign?