2024 Montway Auto Transport Review

Montway Auto Transport is undoubtedly one of our favorite best car shipping companies. The auto shipper not only has some of the lowest prices (and no up-front payments), but it’s also the innovator of an online price calculator that many other companies now use. And while Montway’s guaranteed pickup dates cost extra, rest assured that means you don’t have to worry about canceling or postponing your plans at the last minute.

See where Montway Auto lands on our list of best car shipping companies in 2024.

In 2024, the average cost to ship a car with Montway Auto Transport is approximately $994. Prices range from about $450 to transport a small car a few hundred miles on an open carrier to as much as $1,689 to ship a large truck across the country in an enclosed semi. And on top of their stellar pricing, Montway doesn’t require an up-front deposit to place a reservation—and you can even get a refund if you need to cancel a rush job (unless Montway already assigned a carrier, which happens within one to five days of your “first available shipping date”). Need an added bonus? The company also has discounts available upon request for military members and returning customers.

This year, Montway Auto Transport’s pricing is about 10% lower than the industry average, which—good news—is a pretty significant increase from 5% in 2021. The auto shipper’s average price of $994 will actually save you about $114 compared to the competition, and it has even better savings for midsize cars.

For example, Montway’s average price of $900 to ship a Toyota Corolla is about $250 lower than what you’d expect to pay elsewhere. And even if your final price goes up (most final prices are about 25% higher than the original quote), you’ll still be receiving some of the most competitive pricing across the industry.

Note: Montway’s prices compare well to other car shipping companies, but it doesn’t have guaranteed prices. Granted, almost no one has fully locked-in rates, but we’ve come across a few places that guarantee your price up to a few hundred dollars.

That means your final bill with Montway may end up being upwards of 25% more expensive than your initial quote. That’s how car shipping pricing works with most companies, but Montway isn’t most companies. We’re a little surprised it doesn’t have any kind of guarantee.

Montway—along with most of its competition—advises that there are several factors that can impact the cost of shipping your car:

• The closer you live to major cities like Chicago or Los Angeles, the less it costs. On the other hand, the farther drivers must go out of their way to reach you, the more you pay. Rural areas far from the freeway are the priciest.
• Costs are higher in the summer and winter (the peak auto shipping season). But you’ll also pay more during seasonal weather if it slows down the drivers.
• Delivery time frame. You can save hundreds of dollars if you place your reservation a couple of weeks before you move. But you might pay twice as much to ship your car on 24 hours’ notice.
• Transport type. There are two types of transport available with Montway: open and enclosed. Open transport is the cheapest, but it leaves your car “open” (or exposed) to the weather. Meanwhile, Montway’s enclosed transport costs about 40% more because your car is protected inside a trailer.
• Vehicle modifications. Expect to pay more if you’ve made modifications to your vehicle, like lifting or lowering it. The more the size, height, and weight differ from the factory standard, the more it costs to ship.
• Vehicle weight and size. You pay based on how much your vehicle weighs and how much space it takes up on the carrier. Lightweight cars will always be more affordable than SUVs or heavy-duty trucks.
• Personal items. Montway doesn’t recommend you leave personal items in your car and warns that it may cost extra if your belongings add weight to the vehicle shipment. Plus, leaving things in your car makes them liable to theft or damage.

In order to protect your vehicle’s safety, Montway Auto Transport only uses carriers that have at least $100,000–$250,000 liability insurance coverage, protecting you against driver negligence whether you choose open transport or enclosed shipping. As an added bonus, Montway also provides an additional $250,000 of no-deductible coverage if your carrier’s policy doesn’t pay—which is almost unheard of in this industry.

Montway offers customers five auto transport services ranging from affordable open transport services to more costly expedited vehicle shipping in an enclosed carrier:

1. Door-to-door. Montway picks up your vehicle from one home and delivers it to another (as opposed to terminal-to-terminal shipping, where you have to pick up your car at a car shipping depot).
2. Open transport. You’ll save hundreds of dollars on your shipment by sending your vehicle on an open carrier. Since the truck doesn’t have walls or a roof, your car is likely to accumulate some dirt along the way—but almost all customers use open transport.
3. Enclosed transport. It’ll run you about 40% more to transport your vehicle inside of a fully enclosed trailer, but you’ll avoid issues like damage and dirt . . . which is why we recommend enclosed transport primarily for high-end automobiles like classic cars and custom vehicles.
4. Expedited transport. You can have your car picked up a little faster for an extra fee (it’ll vary based on your shipping details), and if you change your mind before Montway assigns a carrier to your shipment, you can get a refund.
5. Hawaii shipping. Montway has car shipping services in all 50 states, including Hawaii, which is no easy feat. But the auto transport broker brings its nearly 15 years of port-to-port logistics experience to get your vehicle from the islands to Los Angeles, CA, within 8–12 days, on average.

Montway will guarantee pick up of your vehicle's on a specific date, for an extra fee. But that’s a bigger deal than it seems because it allows you a lot more control over your move timeline because most car shipping companies can’t guarantee their pickup dates.

So usually, if you have to get on a plane, say, Tuesday at 5:00 p.m. but the truck driver doesn’t make it on time, you’d either have to miss your flight or make other arrangements for your car. With Montway, however, you can make travel plans and keep them.

Montway is one of the only companies with legit GPS tracking. The company fields thousands of calls each day (we checked), and most of them are people asking where their cars are. It’s something customers really care about, and Montway goes out of its way to make GPS tracking available.

The auto transport company can’t guarantee the service across each shipment, because drivers must agree to be tracked—and they don’t like being followed any more than you or I. So ultimately, it’s the luck of the draw whether the carrier with the lowest price will also allow GPS tracking. Silver lining? Montway tries to stack the deck in your favor by working with 300 of the nation’s largest GPS-enabled carriers.

You should know, we’ve used Montway’s online chat feature lots of times, posing as customers. Why? Because Montway gives fast answers to just about anything. And agents can give you quotes in a matter of minutes. Plus, you can also dig deeper into specific details like the amount of expedited shipping fees or insurance coverage info.

Ultimately, we’re super impressed with this feature. There is a tiny flaw, though: Montway’s website has an annoying pop-up ad that gets in the way of your chat. But when that’s our biggest gripe, it’s safe to say the company deserves its spot in our Best Car Shipping Companies list.

Montway gets consistently high customer reviews. We’ve looked at a dozen review sites and determined that Montway has an average rating of 4.7 out of 5 stars…meaning the overwhelming majority of customers appear to walk away feeling satisfied.

Montway also goes out of its way to provide winning customer service by working hard to turn bad experiences into good ones. The car transport company responds to every negative review. And considering we found more than 45,000 overall Montway reviews, that’s saying something.

Montway is also one of the only companies on our list that promises 24-hour customer service. Whether you must deal with a last-minute crisis (or you simply enjoy being a night owl), you can reach Montway anytime, day or night. And chances are, you’ll enjoy the experience. But if you don’t? Expect them to reach out and try to make it right.

A review of Montway Auto Transport over time shows that the transporter has an ability to influence the industry more than any one of their competitors. For example, when we call other companies and pose as customers to ask for prices, many of them will offer some variation of, “We’ll do it for Montway’s price,” which means they’re paying very close attention.

This shows up in the data too. An analysis of thousands of car shipping quotes over 3 years shows that Montway has continued to beat the industry average—by 10% in 2022.

We expect to continue seeing the company set the bar in other ways too. For example, we noticed a huge Montway service change in 2021: it’s now the only car shipping company we’ve seen that gives customers a GPS tracking option for the delivery. Montway continues to try to innovate in an industry that doesn’t see a whole lot of change, and for that reason we expect it to fight to maintain its spot in our best car shipping companies for years to come.

It should be no surprise by now that you’ll consistently find Montway Auto Transport on our Best Car Shipping Companies list. And between their instant online calculator that’ll churn out low prices in minutes (which is so effective that other companies will immediately offer a price match) and Montway’s average 4.7-star rating across more than 45,000 reviews, it’s no wonder why it’s a customer favorite. Montway is even open 24 hours a day. From top to bottom, you’ll have a hard time finding a better auto transport company.

Like what you see in Move.org’s #1 car shipping company?

Move.org calculates industry averages and identifies pricing trends by following a fourfold research approach:

1. Compare quotes. We collected nearly 700 quotes from 10 different companies. The car shipping quotes included prices for a motorcycle, car, SUV, and truck across 11 distances with both open and enclosed transport.
2. Mystery shopping. We contacted auto transport companies posing as customers to gather pricing data and learn how the brokers formulate their prices.
3. Site visits. We invited several industry leaders to visit our headquarters in Salt Lake City, UT, and explain what goes into their pricing. We then compared their answers to information we independently obtained to verify accuracy.
4. Annual calendar. We repeat this process every year and save our data to compare trends over time.

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