Shipping Costs
 

Anyone have a rough idea what it would cost to ship a hardtop from CA to MA? Are we talking $200 or $500?

How would someone even ship? Does the sender need to make a crate? I've never dealt with sending something this big.

Thanks,

David

check out https://www.uship.com/ or

Use FedEx Freight rate calculator to get an sense of what freight companies will charge. FedEx Freight is always on the higher end.

If correctly I recall, I believe I paid $100 to have the humps shipped from somewhere in the midwest. A hardtop is heavier and bulkier. If I were having a hardtop shipped, I'd want it secured in a wood crate, and tightly secured inside with foam... not peanuts. Peanuts float all over the place.

$$$

Get a quote from NexShip. They use UPS or FedEx and have rates that are much, much lower. Very surprised to have FedEx truck show up to gather the wheels/tires I sent to a forum member in GA. They arrived in GA a day early as well. Reviews are good as long as you don't ship out of the USA.

100% yes! The sender needs to pack it like a troop of gorillas with rabies are handling it. I imagine the crate will be over 48 inches in one of dimensions. That will raise the cost. I'm guessing $600-750 range but wouldn't be surprised if it went as high as $1000.

I have an account with Freightquote.com and I was quoted $382 with insurance. I guessed 60x60x36 500lbs.

If you get a quote from FedEx Freight be very careful. If the crate ends up being slightly heavier or larger you will get a bill for double or triple the quote. This is based on my personal experience.

I've shipped bumpers, wheels, and an '03 soft top inexpensively with Greyhound. They are usually very quick, however, I'm not sure it's a good idea/feasible with something of that size.

Agreed on the warning about FedEx freight - I've ended up with a frighteningly higher bill than expected when using them (1 engine & 1 spoiler shipment).

If you decide to ship be sure to insure it for an appropriate value and have lots of pictures taken showing the condition of the hard top before it was packed and then how it was packed. Every once in a while the Porsche packing crates used to come up for sale on eBay, they were real works of art. Since I got my hard top a few years ago, I stopped my hard top searches on eBay.

Here's a photo of a hard top in the crate used by Porsche. I think a good carpenter could build one for you. I think the details of finding a carpenter, building the crate, and moving the crated hard top to the freight terminal take a lot of time and energy to work out. If you have a really good friend located near the hard top, you may be able to pull it off.

http://986forum.com/forums/uploads02...1541172957.jpg

Here's a link to a similar discussion a few years ago.http://986forum.com/forums/boxster-general-discussions/7519-has-anyone-shipped-hard-top-what-did-cost.html

As detailed in that post, using anything less substantial than a crate risks serious damage.

The hard top weighs about 45 pounds. The crate will add around another 50. So I estimate the total shipping weight to be around 100 pounds. The weight may be less important than the size of the crate when estimating shipping costs.

Good luck