Montway Auto Transport

I called Mel back and when he answered the phone, he was laughing. He said, “I didn't think you'd ever call back. Nobody ever says, ‘Let me call your competitor and I'll call you back." I said, “No, man. I stayed five minutes on the phone with them and I was getting a headache already. So, let's do this deal.” The number he gave me and my final price was $50 cheaper.

Communicating with the driver was a fine experience 'cause I knew what was happening. Talking to the guy on the phone was a little difficult because he had a really thick accent. In my head, I had this angry guy showing up to pick up my car but the driver was so nice. He had the biggest smile on his face. We met in a Walmart parking lot and he gave me a 10-minute head notice, which is what I asked him to do. And when I pulled up, he was already in the parking lot, had the ramps down and everything. I got out of the car. I handed him the keys. He took some pictures and asked if I was good. I said, "Yeah" and he made me sign something. He chained the vehicle down and said he would have it to the recipients the day after tomorrow. When it got to the buyer, I got a notice that it was being delivered that day. Then I got another notice that it had been delivered. They are the bar for transporting vehicles and they are the only company I'm calling if I have to do this headache again.

When it was gonna be at midnight, I said that I was not gonna ask a neighbor to stay up until midnight and he said not to worry about it. The deal was door-to-door and he would bring the car to me. I asked how he would bring the car there. He said he would take the car off the truck and drive it. And I asked how he was gonna get back because I didn't want my niece to be driving somebody she didn't know in the middle of the night. And he said he would walk back. I told him it was a mile and a half, on a two-lane road, in the dark. He said he could handle it. I said okay if that was okay with him. And so, that's what he did.

My niece said that he called when he got to the food line and had the car off the truck. He said he was on his way. He pulled in the driveway where she was standing. I'd given her an envelope to give him for a tip and he asked what it was. She said she didn’t know and that her aunt told her to give it to him. He said thank you and walked down the driveway. So, it was very simple. I was surprised it was going to be delivered in the middle of the night but he didn't have a problem with getting it here. So, that was good.

The only problem I had was when I had originally talked to Montway is that I didn't wanna pay cash to the driver and I'd like to put the payment on my credit card. And they said, "Okay." I was getting a discount because my husband's in the military and when they processed it, they didn't process it right. Montway had written it up that I was going to pay the guy in cash and I said that was not what I’m doing, I told them to put it on my credit card and they charged it. For some reason, it worked out. They had to completely do another contract. They couldn't just change the form of the payment. So, there was a little bit of confusion about that. English was probably the second language of the gentleman that I had been speaking to so, there may have been a problem there. But other than that, Montway was great to work with and they were very easy. They're saying you're not allowed to have anything in your car when you transport it. But if you're in the military, they allow you to have 100 pounds more in your car. I was taking care of my mother and my husband stayed in Alaska, and I just threw my air fryer and my yoga mat in the car. I didn't have to check my air fryer. I didn't have to worry if it’s gonna be broken when it gets here. I had it in the original box but I asked if it was gonna be a problem and they said it was not that much weight. Montway’s reps kept me informed. If I ever have to ship my car back to Alaska, I would definitely use them again.

At some point, something must have changed and Montway had to use somebody different. I had probably taken 100 steps off the plane on the 27th when the guy called and said he was 20 minutes away from my house. I told him he was a day early. I was expecting him anywhere from the 28th to the 31st and that would have given me time. I am a woman by herself who had never dealt with taking trickle chargers off of cars hoping that they started. I wanted to clean the mildew off the seats and steering wheel and make sure the car started.

It was a half an hour's drive from the airport and I had another stop to make. The man was super nice and told me not to worry. At that point, he was sitting and just waiting for us to be ready. I shared that I was frustrated that it was a whole day earlier than I was expecting and I had planned to work all that evening on going through my condo to figure out what I could put in the car. He asked if he could help as he was just sitting in his truck. That was great. I jumped in the other vehicle and picked him up. He came in and he was just a wonderful guy.

The fact that he was so helpful and so nice about everything made up for being a day early. We loaded up and everything went fine from that point on. My son was on this end to accept the car. He really liked the guy as well. I recently gave the company name to someone in my office that asked for the name of a transport.

On the whole, everything went well. This was a historic Navy 7. It was my husband's pride and joy so I paid for the closed-in truck. I would have probably taken the car to a carwash and washed it if the driver had come later. But as it turned out, he took the car with a reasonable amount of mildew on it. He really bent over backwards to be nice. He just jumped right in and he did everything he could possibly do. He appreciated the fact that I wasn't going to be mean and nasty and demand that he not take the car till the next day, which would have kept him overnight. I had so much to do by myself in a six-day window that I was stressed to the max. Getting rid of the car right away freed up the space in the garage for me to be working on cleaning out.

When he got here, he asked for over $700. And we were surprised because we assumed he said, “Oh, I got room on the end of the trailer.” So, he would just gonna throw it on the end of the trailer. I said, “Well, are you sure? Because I was under the impression you're just gonna throw this on the back of the truck. And I understand if you need to be paid for it.” But he got here at 10 o'clock at night. So, between my husband, my son and I, we had to come up with the extra cash to give them for the vehicle. That was a little disappointing. And he was a little snippy about it. But it wasn't bad. And my son was glad to have it.

The next guy was a young, Russian fellow, and he was terrific. He was helpful. We had trouble getting one of the vehicles off, and he went out of his way. He got here the night before, and he didn't bring the load until the next morning. And the people with the moving truck, it was just one motorcycle, and they were nice, and everybody that I talked to through Montway. I could tell that they were all from other countries because they all had accents, and that didn't interfere with anything. They understood me. I understood them. And they were very kind. We were happy. We would use them again if we have to.

I didn't know how much lead time I would need. So, I initially reached out three months before I needed the actual transportation because I didn't have a sense of how fast they could respond. But we made contact the day before. So, I knew roughly the time of arrival and it was right in line with what expectation that they set. We had to meet the courier, which was disappointing because we didn't have a car. And the reason that they gave was they said the truck could only get in certain areas because it was a big one. But the place that they picked was 12 miles away from our condominium. So, we had to take an Uber 12 miles to go to this place where we would pick up the car, which defeated the whole purpose. And I find it hard to believe that there aren't roads closer in that the truck could go because big moving vans come in here all the time. And maybe the truck is bigger even than a moving van, but it seemed odd that we had to meet them there.

The same thing happened on the pickup. Originally, they said they would come to the house to pick it up, but the driver called me an hour before the pickup and said, "Hey, can you come meet me at this Walmart?" It was 15 miles away. And I said, "Well, there's a Walmart that's walking distance from my house. If you can get to a Walmart, you can get the Walmart that's by my house." The driver did that on the pickup. On the delivery, they didn't. They said the car would be at this other location, which was a staging ground for the company. Also, the issue that I had was by the time I actually got ready to move the car, the fuel prices had gone up. So, the quote had to be revised upwards because of the increase in fuel charges. It ended up costing more than I thought it would originally be, but it was very reasonable.