Most families who PCS overseas ship at least one vehicle with them because the military will pay for it. This also depends on the location that you are going to and if your vehicle meets that Countries requirements. You can also ship a second vehicle at your own cost if you really want to. Learn what you need to know to successfully get your vehicle ready to ship to your new Overseas base in this post!
We have always shipped just one vehicle and then bought a ‘junker’ or what I like to call ‘3 year rental cars’ when we get to the overseas base. With the exception of Japan, since they drive on the other side of the road we had to send our Tahoe to storage, and buy 2 junkers, the Beast and one for Mr. B. Oh how I hated that Beast, but it sure got the job done 😉
The Tahoe has served us well, but now it’s time for Good-Bye
Since we are headed to Germany we were able to ship a vehicle, we chose to ship the Lexus and are selling the Tahoe. Kind of sad to let the Tahoe go, we’ve had it since 2003 and it’s been all over Iceland with us! It only has 89K miles on it too! But there is a time for everything and it’s time for it to go.
So what do you need to know about shipping a vehicle overseas?
The first thing you need to do when shipping a car oversea is to find your nearest VPC location, for us it is Atlanta, GA.
Also if you have a loan or a lean you’ll need a form from your bank to release the car, this can be done around 30 days from shipping the vehicle. I’ve heard that some people have issues with this at times and some Stateside banks but luckily we use USAA and they have always been awesome for us.
Make sure you check the American Auto Logistics (AAL) website for the documents that you need. Our car needed new tags shortly before Mr. B got home from deployment. I dreaded going down there and getting them because there is always a long wait, but I got it done. I came home and put the new tags on the license plate and was pretty proud of myself until…Mr. B came home and was checking the car documents to make sure they were all up to date to be shipped. It was then that he discovered that I had NOT put the new registration card in the car…it was instead in the ‘to file’ pile sitting on the desk…OOPS! So go ahead and make sure you check all the documents just to make sure they really are the current ones, it’ll save a lot of trouble later!
Look over the Vehicle Prep List on the AAL site too! Normally we get the car detailed (inside & out) before we ship it but this time we just paid our teenager to do it for us, it was cheaper and more convenient! Also make sure you take everything out of the car, there are a few things that can be left like the spare tire, some tools, playpen, etc. but it’s best to know before hand what can stay. Also make sure there is only 1/4 tank of gas left when you arrive to drop it off. My friend accidentally forgot and had to drive all over Atlanta to get the gas down to 1/4 tank!
Check with your insurance and see if they can cover you in the Overseas location, we are able to keep USAA in Germany but they did not offer coverage in Japan. They were able to offer us a comprehensive policy while it is being shipped over to Germany which is cheaper than the normal coverage but will cover it if something happens to it in transit. Then the ‘new’ policy for Germany will start as soon as we pick it up in over there.
Watch them when they do the pre-inspection and the codes they mark on the sheet. They tried to say that we had a 6 in dent in the trunk, but after my husband argued with them they marked 2 in dent. Also when we went to Iceland we had some tiny scratches on the bottoms of the passenger door, they marked the WHOLE door as scratched (it was our first PCS so we didn’t know you had to watch them so closely), so they did not have to pay us for a large scratch they put on the upper part of the door. Lesson learned the hard way!
Mr. B drove our car down to the VPC in Atlanta and had his dad follow him down. It’s a little over a 2 hour drive each way from here. The military will pay you a certain amount (xx cents per mile) to drive it down there and drive back, you have to file a voucher with finance afterwards. It’s more xx cents per mile if you are not doing it in conjunction with a PCS. For instance if we were taking it to Atlanta and then flying out of Atlanta we would have gotten paid 20 something cents per mile (I don’t know exact amounts) to get there. Since we were not taking it when flying out we got paid 50 something cents per mile for the round trip (there & back).
From Atlanta to Germany they have 45 days to get the car to Spanghalem. So that left us with the BIG decision about WHEN to ship the car. We had to decide do we go without and be unconvinced here in Alabama or over there in Germany? We knew getting there at the end of November it’d be cold over there so we decided on shipping it from Alabama almost 5 weeks before PCSing. This will put it arriving around the same time as us if early, and a week after if on time. Plus here in Alabama we have friends that can help us out, or pick me up for lunch dates if needed 😉 So while some people choose to keep their car until they fly out, we did not want to wait in Germany for 5-6 weeks for it to arrive and hope we could find a junker right away that we wanted to buy. I prefer not to be forced to buy something out of desperation just because it’s the only car offered, and with it not being PCS season right now we know the section will be smaller in Germany. (Yes, we’ve already been checking out cars online…but you already knew that right?! LOL!)
5 weeks with one vehicle is NO fun! Thankfully we’ve had some friends take pity on us and lend us a pickup so we were only with 1 vehicle for a few days. We have that and the Tahoe until next Friday. Then we are giving the Tahoe to it’s new owners and will have a rental car & the pickup for the last few weeks. We quickly found that we are not a 1 car family! It’s too hard with 5 people going in 3 different directions each morning! The FIRST day after we shipped the car we had the first ‘mishap’ with having one vehicle! Mr. B took Boo to school and forgot his ID card here at the house so he could not get back on base. This gal had to jump out of the shower and hoof it to the gate to take him his ID so he could get on to base and back home. Yeah, he owes me, LOL!
I’ll let you know how the Lexus fares on it’s trip, hopefully with no damage! Another great thing about the AAL site is that you are able to track your vehicle on it’s journey, ours is currently on the boat enroute to Germany! When we got the Tahoe back from sitting in storage for 3 years it had a broken windshield and cracked side view mirror, which is crazy since it was sitting in storage. Here’s to hoping the Lexus has a smooth ride over and no issues when we get it back!
We are getting ready to pcs in a few months and shipping the car is really stressing me out! Do you have any advice for shipping a second car out of pocket?
Hi Shannon,
We have never shipped one out of pocket before. From talking to a few people who have I know you call your local VPC to get a quote to see how much it would be to ship. I think when we called about the Tahoe from Atlanta to Aviano we were quoted $1500, but I have heard prices range from $1000-3000. Also realize that whatever car your shipping needs to be able to pass the inspection for that country so if you are shipping an older car there could be issues.
We’re shipping our second vehicle on Friday. I was actually surprised by how easy the process is. Basically for us, we’ve just had to show up. It cost us about $2000 to ship one to Hawaii from St. Louis.
Thanks for sharing your experience!
We’ve picked up and dropped off cars from the ATL location 🙂 Shipping our jeep from HI to ATL out of pocket was about $1000. We also shipped out Tahoe from ATL to Korea. I was checking that website every day to see if it was in yet! We dropped it Feb 1 and piked it up March 11 or 12.
Thanks for sharing! How much was it to ship to Korea?
This is so helpful! My fiance and I will be PCSing to Germany in just over a year, and we honestly think we might sell both our cars and purchase there. BUT…in the event that we keep one, thank you for all this info!
So glad you found it helpful! We’ve always taken a vehicle because we have always PCS’d with kids and wanted to have a vehicle that fit our family & was reliable. I can easily see it being an option to sell both & get cars there as well if that works for you! 🙂 Best of luck with your PCS & check back as I’ll be posting about shipping Unaccompained Baggage & Household goods soon!
We too chose to ship early! We shipped our car out January 2 and arrived in Spangdahlem February 16. Our car was here 9 days later.
Thanks for sharing your experience! Life is so much easier here when your car arrives! Especially when trying to house hunt!
Mrs B,
We have been enjoying your info on everything. Did your Lexus arrive OK? Any tips on picking it up? Daughter & S-I-L arrive Nov 4. Thanks. Gene
Hi there!
Yes, our Lexus arrived without any issues. We arrived in a Sunday, husband got his license on Tuesday, and our car arrived Wed and we had it by that afternoon! We had no issues HOWEVER we used the old shipping company and there has been some issues since the new one has taken over. I’ve been told stories of people’s cars getting delivered to other bases, etc. Best of luck with the PCS!
Their car made it fine with no damage with the new company and praise God for that. Shipped from St Louis Sept 24, 2014 & picked up in Spangdahlem a little past due date on Nov 12, 2014.
Thanks for the update! Glad it made it with no damage!
Hello there, I was wondering if you knew, can you ship one car overseas and place one in storage ? Thanks in advance for your time. And how are you loving Germany?? We are abot to head to Spain 🙂 We are Navy tho 🙂
No, the military will only pay to ship 1 car or store 1 car, they won’t pay for both. You can however pay yourself to store a car while you are gone. We are loving Germany and traveling as much as possible!
Hi, I was wondering how clean the inside the car needs to be? I have a GSD and am having a difficult time getting all her hair out lol thanks in advance! 🙂
I’d take it to get detailed before you take it to get shipped. We get ours professionally detailed before shipping as well.
We are moving to Stuttgart sometime in the next few months. We have two kids but will probably be having another while living there which renders our compact car too small for all of us to fit in. We’re torn between buying a (brand new) van here and paying out of pocket to send it there or waiting and just buying a larger car there and selling it back before we move. What do you think, what would you do?
You need to do what is best for your family 🙂 With that being said we brought our car over and bought a used van here because at the time we had 3 kiddos here and I was hauling lots of big items. Now however with our oldest at college we no longer use it for trips (we use the car, even on long trips) and it’s much easier to travel. Parking the van in garages is not ideal. I’d say try to get a smaller European style wagon, I’m counting down the days until I can get rid of our van 😉
Thanks for this! We could possibly being going to Korea from Rucker, so I’m trying to get as much info as possible since this would be our first overseas PCS! I feel like there’s so much to do in such a short period of time when you get orders from here. Lol.
Awesome, I’ve heard amazing things about Korea and hope to see it myself soon!
I was wondering how strict they were on the cleanliness of the vehicle? I’m having trouble with the tool box lol
We didn’t have any issues and hubby cleaned the car himself. I really all just depends on the company and who’s working that day.
Hi, my daughter and sil will be pcsing to Spangdahlem. They want to bring their vehicle (an ext. cab pickup truck) but didn’t know if it would be too big for German roads, parking, garages etc.? What are your thoughts and experiences.
Sorry for the delay, I was in the States on Emergency leave. We found our mini van was a very tight squeeze for any parking garage and even other parking areas. We started to just take our car on road trips to avoid parking issues.
Hi,
My daughter is having her car shipped from HI to ATL. I will be flying into ATL to pickup the car and drive it up to her My husband will meet me at my daughter;s. We live in Rochester, NY and her next duty station is in MA. Do you know how long I will have to pick up the car once it arrives in ATL? Also, since its not my car,what will they need to do for me to pick it up?
Thank you so much for your willingness to share your experience.
Carla
Sorry this comment somehow got overlooked in the queue, hope you got it solved!