The San Francisco Port and the Oakland Port in the San Francisco Bay Area are two of the major ports in the entire country which facilitate the shipping of products over to different countries, as well as, different continents. If you’re moving out of the US and have a car that you need to be shipped, you can bet that it’s the either of these two ports from where you can have your car shipped to your destination.
The Oakland Port is more likely and suited to ship and transport automobiles and other vehicles. Let’s take a look why.
Port of San Francisco
Once the busiest port on the West Coast of America, the Port of San Francisco unfortunately had to hand this onus over to the port of Los Angeles. And although cars and other vehicles are still shipped internationally to other countries from here, the prevalence of the logistical challenges that are faced in automobile shipments have made it less suitable. A few of these obstacles are limited capabilities or complete inability to handle containerized and roll-on/roll-off services.
Port of Oakland
The Oakland Port, contrastive to its sister port in the Bay Area of San Francisco, is very efficient in handling loads of containerized cargo shipments, along with shipping vehicles overseas to other countries. One of the busiest ports in the entire nation now, the Port of Oakland is way more equipped in managing, shipping and receiving huge cargo shipments. The construction of shipping terminals specifically designed for bigger containers is also underway, making it an even more suitable option if you have a car that needs to be shipped to another country.
Methods of International Shipping
The advantages of getting your car shipped overseas from Port of Oakland rather than the Port of San Francisco are quite a handful. For the unversed that still don’t understand this, here is how it’s more advantageous: containerized shipping method is the primary way of shipping cars internationally. Since there are containers that are over 20 feet long, even 40 feet long containers are not uncommon; it allows you to accommodate a lot of your other stuff in the container along with your car to be shipped overseas. If you are relocating to another county definitely would want to have everything shipped together – making it easier for you to keep tabs on all of your stuff.
While, on the other hand, the Roll-On and Roll-Off method, or the RORO method as they call it, can be opted if you are only shipping a vehicle and nothing else. It is required that there is nothing inside the car and that the car is thoroughly clean both on the inside and the outside. This method is generally used by automobile companies to ship cars to their international consumers.
You must keep these things in mind as you consider having your car shipped internationally. Weigh down your needs and pick an option that best suits you. In case you don’t happen to live nearby the San Francisco Bay Area, you will have to get your car transported to the port through overland transportation. At Bay Area Auto Transport, we ensure that all federal and state regulations are adhered to when we transport your vehicle across the states or internationally. You must also make sure to get the whole shipping contract in writing. Nothing is contractually binding unless it’s in writing. No promises made over the phone or a website will be deemed as the ultimate word. Moreover, you must not make any payments before you’ve read and agreed to the shipping contract, either.
Documentation for International Shipping
While there may be a plethora of questions just maneuvering in your mind, one question that you must ask is what documents are needed to ship a car to another country. There are definitely some fundamental documents that you must possess but some countries require more documents than the others. Hence, it is a very good idea to contact either the U.S. Embassy or the relevant Consulate of the country you are considering shipping your car to.
