Shipping Your Car Internationally: Pros and Cons of Shipping Methods

There are two main transport methods to ship cars overseas: Roll-On Roll-Off (RORO) or container shipping. While either is equally practical and safe for your vehicle, other considerations will influence your choice, such as cost and your port of destination.

RORO takes advantage of the fact that cars are mobile. They can therefore be driven on and off vessels and don’t require crating, packing or specially organised collection and delivery. This makes it obviously a much more inexpensive option, but it is also a quicker process to have your car transported from door to door this way. During transit, it will be securely attached to the decks inside the ship so, although it won’t be protected by a metal box, it will be as safe from damage and bad weather as if it were.

RORO carriers can also transport larger vehicles, from trucks and vans to caravans, motorhomes and even boats – as long as they are on a trailer with wheels of course – which eliminates the need to dismantle them to fit them into a container. When it comes to heavy machinery, RORO is also a more convenient method for the same reason, that is that your equipment won’t need to be taken apart and then put back together at your final destination, making them available for use faster.

One of the drawbacks of RORO is that you can’t ship your possessions this way, and this is when container shipping will be more suitable.

Furthermore, ports able to handle RORO shipments are less widespread and generally limited to large cities and the most popular maritime routes; and some small countries don’t have any at all. So depending on where you are coming from and where you are going to, container shipping may be the only available option.

For further information on vehicle shipping, contact us, phone us on +64 9 303 0075, or get a free quote.

Click here to see our reference guide to making car shipping stress free with our tried and tested 1-2-3 step process.