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When you’re shipping a car, you may wonder if there’s anything you should do on your end to help it go more smoothly. At Cleveland Car Transport, we take care of most of what needs to happen to safely and quickly ship a car. But there are things that you can do to help us, and therefore help your car stay safe. Here’s how to prepare your vehicle for the shipping process.

Wash it and take pictures

The first thing we recommend for first-time car shippers is to give their car a nice bath. This may seem like an unnecessary step, especially for open transport, because your car is likely to get slightly dirty during transport. However, washing your car before transport is essential. It ensures that you’ll know if any scratches or dings happen as a result of the transport process. Taking pictures of your freshly washed car helps both you and your transporter determine what the transporter is on the hook for. We want you to be satisfied with our service, so we ask all of our customers to take this step. It keeps us honest and ensures that you’ll know if something goes wrong during the transport process.

Take out any personal items

It’s never a good idea to leave too many personal items in your car, but it’s especially important to remove them for transport. Leaving items in your car can entice people to attempt to break into your car while it’s parked. We keep a watchful eye over all vehicles that people entrust to us, but we can’t guarantee that no one will try anything. Removing your property will make your car a less enticing target. Beyond the security benefits, items can jostle around in your car during transport. This can cause damage to your items or even your vehicle! So make sure you empty your car before you leave it with us.

Empty the tank

You may think that it’s a good idea to fill up your tank before shipping a car. That way, when your vehicle gets to its destination, it’s good to go immediately! Unfortunately, this is not a good idea. Gas tanks can leak during the transport process, potentially causing road hazards or damaging other vehicles. And even if they don’t leak, gasoline is heavy. Emptying your tank reduces the strain on our vehicles, making your shipment more efficient, and therefore faster. Of course, you’ll need a bit of gas on the other end, so we recommend bringing your car to us with about a quarter of a tank left in the vehicle.