What to Expect When You Ship a Car with Montway—The Sundbloms’ Move

Montway Auto Transport is one of our top recommendations for shipping your car across state lines or from coast to coast. In August 2019, we put its services to the test with a real-life move from Washington to Utah. The company got the job done, but not without a few hiccups along the way.

We’ll cover our experience with Montway’s pricing, customer service, and more below.

Want to learn how much Montway will charge to ship your car?

Scott and Nadine Sundblom and their three kids, dog, and cat moved from Kent, WA, to Provo, UT, in August 2019. They shipped one of their vehicles using Montway Auto Transport and their remaining belongings using U-Pack moving containers.

To learn more about the Sundbloms’ experience with U-Pack, check out What to Expect When You Move with U-Pack.

Our experience with Montway’s pricing? What you see is what you get. We paid exactly what we were quoted for the vehicle type, date, and details of our move. We were initially planning to ship a different car than the 1987 Jeep, so our price did increase slightly when we updated our reservation, but there were no surprises after we agreed to the above estimate.

In our comparison shopping, we found Montway’s prices to be in the same ballpark as other car shipping brokers (and cheaper than some competitors).

At first glance, Montway communicates a lot with customers. We received dozens of emails and had to confirm every individual detail of our booking. However, the company didn’t step in when our assigned carrier failed to show up for our pickup. We had to call Montway to find out what was going on and to request a new carrier.

Because Montway is a broker—meaning they contract with third parties to pick up, transport, and deliver your vehicle—the company doesn’t have much control over what happens after a carrier is assigned.

That said, we would have appreciated a proactive heads-up from Montway and reassurance that the company was working on a solution. Plus, if we’d been in a hurry or unavailable outside of our initial pickup window, this would have thrown a huge wrench in our moving plans.

We did get a replacement carrier, but their truck broke down a few miles from the pickup point, and the driver asked the Sundbloms’ family for a ride to an auto parts store. This ate up even more time. Again, while Montway doesn’t manage individual auto transporters, we found its selected carriers disappointing. We’d like to know that Montway is more rigorous in vetting its carriers.

As we’ve mentioned, we were disappointed that Montway didn’t proactively communicate or provide updates when our assigned carrier missed the pickup window. We also felt that the second carrier’s request for a ride from Nadine’s parents to pick up spare parts after breaking down was a bit unprofessional.

However, once the Jeep was on its way, the carrier (Schulz and Sons Transport) kept us informed while en route and, despite the delays, met our original delivery date expectation.

Our experience with Montway was about what we expected: not outstanding, but not bad. We appreciated that the company’s pricing was clear and consistent and that we paid what we budgeted for based on our quote.

Our only real frustration was the lack of communication about our delayed pickup. While we’d use Montway again in the future, we’d recommend booking further in advance for the possibility of cheaper rates and researching the carrier you’re assigned (i.e., asking questions of Montway and reading customer reviews for the carrier itself).

Finally, we always recommend comparison shopping with a few other auto transport companies to ensure you get the best service at the right price.

If Montway sounds like a good fit for shipping your car, hop on over to their website to request your quote. If you’re still shopping around, check out our Best Car Shipping Companies list to compare Montway with our other picks—and learn more about our moving grants!