Car Shipping - SGT Auto Transport — Local services in Town of Islip

COMPLETELY HORRIBLE EXPERIENCE ALL AROUND - unprofessional supervisors, lack of transparency and unwillingness to take ownership of, overall, poor service.

While I did eventually get my car in one piece, the overall experience was an utterly awful and stressful one.

First, my car was being kept at a friend's home when originally picked up. I expressed this to SGT and asked that they inform me of the time window of the car pickup, so that I could make sure that I didn't inconvenience my friend and make sure that she would be home. They didn't reach out to me. They just reached out to her the day of and didn't notify me. Also, when the car was picked up, the set up was less than professional. So much, that my friend sent a pic (see posted pic). Next, I was given an expected delivery date, so I called SGT a couple days before to confirm the day/time to make sure that I would be home. I called for 4 days, some of which were after the expected arrival date, and SGT couldn't give me any update or information about the location of my car. They literally told me that they were unsure of where my car was because they were unable to get through to the third party that they used. There were no true apologies or explanations as to why they couldn't reach the third party. Finally, a representative from the third party reaches out to me and expresses to me that he will deliver my car the same day if I'm home. He then says something where I can tell it's his intent to drive my car to my home, and that it's not arriving on a truck. I asked for clarification and expressed that this wasn't in the contract or what I thought I was paying for. He responded saying it was a normal practice, that he does it all the time, and that my car will be fine. I was completely confused and highly uncomfortable. At this point, I was almost worried if I'd been scammed, so I just say please bring my car. I don't reach out to SGT because I'm totally frustrated and my previous interactions with SGT were't helpful due to the lack of follow through and transparency. I also believed the representative from the third party when he said that his driving a car was a common practice. I know they might use a smaller truck for more local deliveries, but I definitely found this very odd and not unprofessional.

My car arrives, I check it out, and it's fine. I'm just happy the experience is over. I watch the man walk down the street to where I don't know.... I just wanted to remove this experience from my mind because I feel like I didn't get what I paid for. But, weeks later, I realized that the man from the third party actually went through a toll during the ride to my home without telling me. This is completely unacceptable and when I reached my limit, so I called SGT. I expressed that the rep from the third party drove through NYC tolls without informing me and that I happened to notice on my EZ pass bill. Thankfully, I had set up an EZPass account well before my car arrived. But, imagine had I not had my EZPass already set up and linked to my license plate #. This could've led to fines, penalties, or, worse, registration suspension. This is huge! Also, I recently moved. Where would the notification be sent? The first rep I dealt with said well we’ll provide you a waiver to get your money back to which I responded: absolutely not. I then spoke to a manger and he blamed me. He said had I told them sooner, they could’ve not paid the third party and reimbursed. This is admission that things didn’t go right. Yet in the end, I was just reimbursed for the toll. No apology. Nothing.

I would NEVER use them again nor recommended them. I'd also give .5 starts, if possible.

6/17/25 Update - A manager called me to apologize for my horrible experience, taking responsibility for parts of the experience that could’ve been handled better by SGT. I appreciated the call, ownership of their issues, and her attempt to try to rectify the situation. So, I changed my review...

SGT seemed like a great fit at first, they even offered our son a student discount to transport his car for a new job many states away, which seemed fair bc the car transport fees were not inexpensive to start. They had GREAT reviews on-line. We first communicated with Felix and then Allison and all seemed fine.

But after that, we never communicated with Felix or Allison again and we realized that SGT was not as organized as at first glance. We received multiple calls regarding the same issue and it seemed as if they were not communicating internally.

I am not sure where the call center was located but the phone numbers never matched up and although the Customer Service Reps (CSRs) were VERY polite on the phone they lacked knowledge on how to resolve our issue beyond the blanket statements that they provided with each of our inquiries. Therefore no real value was realized from the interactions with the customer service reps.

Reaching an actual human for assistance was another challenge. Wait times on hold were very surprising. Think minimum 20 minutes on hold per call. You could usually reach someone by email but again the lack of seeming internal communication was frustrating and the emails were similarly blanket plug and play responses without much resolution.

We made our original reservation for car transport for a specific price and a specific time. We made the reservation 2 months in advance. I made the original reservation but bc it was my son's car SGT required a new contract with him directly. Okay, sort of made sense since it was his car, but I was the one initiating the car transport on his behalf. He is a very busy student but made the time to answer SGTs questions to give me permission to speak on his behalf. Then SGT switched the contract back to my name the week before the scheduled transport. All under the original contractual arrangements. Okay, whatever, just wanted to get the car transport resolved so our son could start his job in a new state off on the right foot.

SGT told us to have the car available for a 2-3 day window for pick-up at a pre-agreed upon timeframe. Not a problem. However, when the three day window started they had no one lined up to transport our vehicle and seemed unaware of the lack of transporter assignment until I called to check on the status. I called SGT again at the end of the 2nd day of the 3 day pick-up window bc we had still not heard from anyone at SGT regarding our pick-up day / time.

It turned out that SGT was just a broker and not an actual transporter. The CSRs had no idea what the status was for a car pick-up.

SGT brokered our car transport out to another BROKER who eventually signed us up with a transporter. SGT charged us additional fees that were not in the original SGT contract. The SGT CSR literally told us the fee went up by $200 bc "the transporter was going to accept the highest bidder for who would make it on to their truck". This was a literal last minute change communicated by SGT when it was too late for us to work with a different company and too late to just drive the distance to arrive on time for the start date of the new job. We paid the difference bc not every college age student has an extra $200 laying around.

Due to the disorganization of SGT the car was picked up a day later than the 3 day window that was promised. We had already left town headed to the new state. And because the car was picked up later than promised it was therefore delivered a day after the window promised. And a day later than when our son started his new job.

The Transporter himself was easy to work with after the car was picked up but it was SGT as the middle man where the breakdown occurred.

IF you do not mind tons of follow-up on your part for simple answers and you have a very flexible time frame and flexible wallet then SGT could be a good fit. But given our time constraints and student budget this was a very stressful transaction and we will not be...

Excellent vehicle transport experience – Recently shipped my Volvo V90 from Strongsville, OH to Charlotte, NC. I live in Oregon and purchased a used vehicle near the area I'll be moving to in a few weeks. Coordinating events out of state can often be time consuming, worrisome and a headache. SGT was friendly, reliable and made the entire process a breeze.

This is second time I've used an auto transport, the first was arranged through the dealership with no problems. For this one I started by signing up with Shiply, which dumps a long list of auto quotes to your email. Not a terrible service, but requires weeding through a lot of reviews and prices and eventually some negotiating if you choose a company to work with, biggest draw back with Shiply is the fee and no guarantee of a locked a price, make sure you get that in your negotiations. It should be known that majority of auto transport companies are brokers, much like regular moving companies. That's not always a bad thing, it just means you're often dealing with a middle-man so pricing can vary, and the eventual final choice of transport company may not be yours, but pricing is almost always negotiable and details of the actual shipper or transporter can be obtained or switched.

The Process – Typically a broker or website like Shiply will send out the request which goes into a database site called 'Super Dispatch', and available transporters respond. This is where it's a little hit or miss, because the best price isn't always the best transporter nor is the most expensive. A little due diligence can help ease your woes by researching the broker and the transport companies directly. Many brokers have preferred transporters they work with versus just being random, of course with luxury cars and big budgets your options are certainly more refined to top tiers. Shipping on a thin budget you're at the whims of the broker's picks and expertise a bit more. This is where SGT did a great job with my Volvo. Transporting only 500-ish miles inner-states also made the request a bit easier.

SGT Auto Transport was actually not listed in my initial quotes from Shiply, I found them through a Forbes article listing them in their Top Ten of auto transporters. Called them directly, negotiated down a reasonable price comparable to Shiply, not the lowest, not the highest but comfortable and with next day pickup and delivery on the 4th of July holiday, much quicker than anticipated. I told them I didn't care if it was put onto an open air transport trailer. SGT didn't give me much detail of the actual carrier other then their name of VIKSTATUS LLC and the drivers contact info – who did an amazing job, and I highly recommend. The transport driver arranges the time windows for pickup and drop off with the appropriate parties, and then SGT updates me with that info or any changes. You hold the reservation with a credit card no charge, then a partial charge is processed after acceptance from the carrier, which goes toward the negotiated price. The remaining balance is usually paid cash on delivery or digital like Venmo or PayPal depending on the carrier, always check first. VIKSTATUS uploaded about 60 photos to Super Dispatch before picking up the Volvo and again after delivery ... which is great, because it shows a lot of detail and notes about the vehicles condition or other elements like 2 key FOBs or operating problems. Thankfully I was able to have a family member do the walk around inspection on delivery and compare photos from pickup for any damages. I was also pleasantly surprised to see my car was actually transported in a closed trailer versus open air. Made sure the driver received a tip for their time and accuracy, easy. All in all it was a very pleasant auto transporting experience. Would definitely use SGT Auto Transport again or VIKSTATUS LLC...