Tips and Advice for Shipping your Golf Cart

How to Get Your Golf Cart Across the Country Without Having to Leave Your House

1. How to Successfully Coordinate Your Shipment
2. How Far Ahead to Schedule Your Golf Cart Shipment
3. The Cost of Shipping a Golf Cart
4. How You Can Easily Prepare to Ship Your Golf Cart
5. Final Word

First things first, the image shown above is how NOT to do it 🙂 Special shoutout to Andrew Hopper for capturing this hilarious photo. Thanks for sharing, Andrew!

There are a few reasons that you might need to move your golf cart a long distance. One could be that you bought one from a private seller several states away and require that special golf cart shipping care. Another could be that you want to take your new golf cart with you on a trip to play on a course like Pebble Beach or Bethpage Black. Maybe you just want to be able to cruise around some open acres of private property that you or someone you know owns. Regardless of the reason, it would be a major inconvenience to move your golf cart hundred or even thousands of miles by hauling it yourself.

Thankfully, you will always have the option of shipping your golf cart wherever you like. Doing so is actually quite easy too. However, there are a few things that you need to know first, including what you need to do in order to successfully prepare for your shipment and how the price is calculated.

Once you realize that you want your golf cart shipped, you immediately need to identify a few things. First, you will need to figure out an exact pickup address and an exact delivery address. Keep in mind that if these addresses are on small streets where large trucks are not allowed to drive, you might need to take your golf cart to a nearby parking lot to have it picked up or, conversely, meet there to receive the delivery. Next, you will need to know exactly when you need your golf cart delivered by.

After that, you should research potential shipping companies. You just want to be sure that any company does in fact ship golf carts and, more importantly, that they have a good history of dealing with customers and safely shipping their vehicles. You can always ensure a company ships golf carts by simply calling them and asking them. You can also check their website as vehicle shipping companies will frequently list the specific types of vehicles that they ship online.

In order to check out a shipping company’s reputation, you can check sites such as Google and TransportReviews.com to see feedback from past customers. Both of those sites rank companies based on a five-star scale. You will be able to read specific customer experiences on both sites. We would not recommend shipping with any company that has lower than a three-star rating.

You should also not be afraid to ask questions when you finally choose a company to ship with. You will always be able to call or e-mail them with any questions or concerns that you might have. Do not book your shipment until you are completely comfortable with a company.

One of the most important parts of shipping your golf cart will be how far in advance you schedule your shipment. Typically, shipping a regular car across the country will take about three weeks from the time that the car is picked up to the time that it is dropped off. If it is a shorter shipment of only a few hundred miles, it might only take seven to ten days. However, with special shipments, such as a golf cart, it could take a bit longer.

The reason for this is that vehicle carriers which are equipped to transport something like a golf cart are in much smaller supply than typical car carriers are. Thus, they need to make more stops to pick up other specialty vehicles such as golf carts, ATVs and mopeds.

With all of this in mind, we recommend that you book your golf cart shipment at least a month in advance of when you need it to be picked up (This means nearly two months before the date of delivery). You should also know when it comes to shipping a vehicle, whether it be a golf cart or car, the dates of both the pickup and delivery will be “windows”. This means there will generally be an agreed upon period of about two or three days when your carrier will arrive to pick up/drop off your vehicle. So, if you need your golf cart delivered somewhere by a specific date, such as for a golf tournament, you should make the arrangements so that it is dropped off early.

The cost of shipping a golf cart will vary based on multiple factors. These factors include how far you are shipping it, what time of the year you are shipping it, the cost of fuel at the time of shipping and the supply and demand of vehicle shipping at the time of your shipment.

Generally, it will run just under a dollar a mile to ship a golf cart. So, if it costs 90 cents per mile at the time of your shipment and you are shipping your golf cart from San Francisco to Las Vegas, your shipment will cost about $500. That is because that shipment will travel about 550 miles. If the shipment were from Los Angeles to Dallas, it would likely cost about $1,000 because the shipment is will travel a bit over a thousand miles. However, with all the variables we mentioned above, it could end up costing you more or less than the above prices.

The time of the year that you choose to ship your golf cart has a big effect on the overall price on your shipment. If you ship during a busy time of the year which tends to be the late spring and throughout the summer, your price will be higher due to simple supply and demand.

There are other variables which can also affect the cost of shipping your golf cart. For example, this year’s global pandemic caused a significant increase in the price of vehicle shipping because many more people choose to ship their cars rather than driving themselves.

If you want to keep the cost of shipping your golf cart low, there are a few things that you can do. You can decide to ship your cart during the less busy time of the year which are the late fall through early spring. You can also schedule your shipment way in advance, at least two months. Finally, you can always comparison shop by getting free quotes from multiple vehicle shipping companies.

Coordinating your shipment as well as scheduling it are both simple as long as you know what you are doing. Preparing for your shipment is no different. When it comes to shipping a golf cart, preparing for the shipment will entail removing any personal items or loose parts from the cart, making sure the golf cart is clean and taking pictures of the golf cart right before it is picked up for transport.

Removing any personal items and/or detachable parts is an important part of the preparation for shipping your golf cart because if these things are lost or damaged during the shipping process, they will not be covered by the vehicle shipping insurance. It is a very rare possibility that this would occur, but it is always better to be safe than sorry.

The golf cart needs to be clean so that when your vehicle transport driver arrives, they can conduct the required visual inspection for preexisting damage. This inspection always occurs and is required so that the shipping company will not be held liable for any damage on the cart the existed prior to the shipment. If the golf cart is dirty, the inspection will still take place and be completed, it will just take a considerable amount of additional time that will require your presence.

As we mentioned, damage occurring a shipment is extremely rare, but it is unfortunately a possibility. So, the vehicle shipping insurance will obviously cover you in the event that any damage occurs to your golf cart. However, it will greatly help expedite the damage payment process if you have pictures with date stamps proving the previous condition of your golf cart.

Moving your golf cart a long distance is a much easier task when you choose to ship it with an auto transport company rather than hauling it yourself. You will be saving yourself from driving hundreds of miles while hauling a golf cart with you. Doing this will also save you a bunch of time and stress.

In order to successfully ship your golf cart, you need to know the specific details of your shipment, research the reputation of any companies that you are considering using, ask whatever questions you have before booking, be sure that you book your shipment early and perform the necessary preparation for the shipment. Doing all of that will allow you to to have the most stress-free shipping experience possible.