What it really costs to ship an auction car

Transport is the invoice line buyers forget when they set a maximum bid, and the storage clock makes it urgent: both auctions give you only a few free days after payment before daily fees start. Price the tow before you bid, not after you win.

What moves the price

• Distance and lane. Open transport on a busy corridor is cheapest per mile; a rural yard off every trucker's route costs more than the mileage suggests. Short hauls carry a minimum charge that dwarfs the per-mile rate.
• Whether it rolls. A non-running car needs a winch, and one that neither runs nor rolls needs a forklift on both ends — auction yards provide theirs, but your delivery point usually does not. Say so when you book, or the driver refuses the car and you pay for the trip anyway.
• Open vs enclosed. Enclosed costs roughly double and makes sense for exactly one kind of lot: the high-value car whose remaining paint is most of its value.

Who to book

Three routes: the auction's own transport (bookable at checkout, convenient, rarely the cheapest), a broker who posts your car to the dispatch boards truckers actually work from, or a direct relationship with a carrier if you buy on the same lane repeatedly. For international buyers, forwarders quote yard-to-port including the export paperwork — see the import guide for the Canadian path.

The arithmetic

Transport belongs inside your maximum bid, next to the auction fees: market price of the fixed car, minus repairs, minus fees, minus transport — what is left is the most the car is worth to you. On a cheap lot the tow can be a quarter of the all-in cost, which is exactly why the cheapest car at the furthest yard so often is not the deal it looks like.