Questions to Ask Before Choosing a Car Transport Company in South Africa

Moving a vehicle between cities — whether you’re relocating, sending a car to a family member, or arranging a dealership transfer — means handing over something valuable to a company you may never meet in person. With so many car carrier options between major cities like Johannesburg, Pretoria, and Cape Town, price is often the first thing people compare. But price alone doesn’t tell you how your vehicle will actually be treated, or whether it will arrive on time and undamaged.

Before booking, here are the questions worth asking any car transport company — including us.

1. How long have you been in business?

Car carrier transport is a specialised operation. Loading, securing, and driving a fully loaded carrier over long distances safely takes experience that’s built up over years, not months. A company with a long, continuous track record has handled thousands of vehicles across all kinds of conditions — festive season traffic, bad weather, breakdowns, route changes — and has the systems in place to manage them. Ask how long the company has operated under its current name, and whether it’s a registered, VAT-registered South African business. This is easy to verify and tells you a lot.

2. What is your actual delivery timeframe — and how firm is it?

“Fast” and “affordable” delivery timeframes can mean very different things. Ask specifically:

• – What day will my vehicle be collected, and what day will it be delivered?
• – Is this a fixed schedule (e.g. a dedicated door-to-door run) or does it depend on the vehicle being consolidated with others at a depot first?
• – What happens if there’s a delay — how will I be kept informed?

Depot-to-depot services are often cheaper, but they typically involve longer, less predictable timelines, and require you to drop off and collect the vehicle yourself. Door-to-door services, where your vehicle is collected from your home and delivered directly, tend to be faster and lower-risk simply because the vehicle is handled and driven fewer times.

3. Is my vehicle insured while in transit — and have you confirmed this in writing?

This is one of the most important questions, and one people forget to ask until something goes wrong. Ask for:

• – Confirmation of Goods-in-Transit insurance cover
• – What the insurance actually covers (theft, accident damage, weather damage)
• – Whether you need to separately notify your own vehicle insurer that the car will be transported (most insurers want this noted on your policy)

A reputable company will answer this clearly and without hesitation. If the answer is vague, that’s worth paying attention to.

4. How will my vehicle actually be loaded and secured?

Ask whether the carrier is an open or enclosed car carrier, how vehicles are secured for the journey, and how many vehicles will be on the truck at once. Ask whether the same driver(s) stay with the vehicle for the full route, or whether it changes hands at a depot along the way. Fewer handovers generally means lower risk of damage.

5. What happens if my vehicle is damaged in transit?

Ask what the process is if damage does occur — who assesses it, how claims are handled, and roughly how long resolution takes. A company that can answer this confidently, with a clear process, is one that has actually thought this through — not one hoping it never comes up.

6. Can I see recent, verifiable reviews — not just testimonials on the company’s own site?

Anyone can put nice quotes on their own website. Look instead for reviews on independent platforms like Google Reviews and HelloPeter, ideally recent ones (within the last 6–12 months), and read a handful of the less glowing ones too — they usually tell you more about how a company handles problems than the five-star ones do.

7. What’s included in the quote — and what isn’t?

Ask for a full breakdown before booking:

• – Is the quoted price genuinely door-to-door, or does it assume drop-off/collection at a depot?
• – Are there additional costs for narrow roads, estates, or areas the truck can’t access directly?
• – Is there a cancellation or rescheduling policy, and what does it cost?

A lower quoted price sometimes reflects a more limited service (depot-to-depot, no insurance included, no fixed schedule) rather than the same service at a better rate. It’s worth comparing like-for-like before assuming the cheaper option is actually cheaper.

8. Who will actually be driving and handling my vehicle?

Ask whether the company uses permanent, employed drivers or subcontracted/independent operators that vary by trip. Long-serving, dedicated drivers tend to bring more consistency and accountability — they have a direct relationship with the company and a reputation to maintain, not just a one-off job to complete.

The bottom line

None of these questions are difficult for a genuinely reliable transport company to answer clearly and confidently. The value of asking them isn’t to catch anyone out — it’s that the answers usually reveal, quite quickly, the real difference between companies whose pricing looks similar on the surface.

At Autofreight, we’ve been transporting vehicles between Gauteng and Cape Town for 25 years, with dedicated door-to-door carriers, full Goods-in-Transit insurance, and professional drivers who know this route better than almost anyone. We’re always happy to answer every one of these questions directly — get in touch for a quote and ask us anything before you decide.