Searail

[westcoastguy]

don't use searail. we use searail because they where cheaper, but our car came weeks later being really late and half the time they said their computer is broken down. also when we received our car, the front car had to be painted and badly chips and damaged spoiler. also someone went thru our car and mess everything up and stole many of our hidden stuffs including change in the ashtrays. Their customer service people on site were aweful and told us if we continued to be fustrated with our concern that we would be kick off their property, also if we submitt a claim to searail, we would have to pay a $500 deductable to Searail insurance for them to fix our car. Its much better to use someone else than searail. we are considering taking Searail to court. this incident happen this March 2004. why do you think you have to pay Searail first? because they have so many problems with peoples vehicles with misuse. Also, when you ship your car with Searail they leave your car unlock with the keys in the your car while its being transported. Trust me, your car isn't safe with unlock doors and keys inside your vehicle when your somewhere else.

you decide if you want to use Searail?? i know i 'll never use them

[spyguy]

I've used searail twice...and both times they didn't fail me... They were on time and there wasn't any damage to my vehicles...so I'm not sure....where were you shipping from and to?

[Redlyne_mr2]

Yah searail took extra care of my Porsche when I shipped it from TO to Calgary. Im surprised to hear this, sorry you had to be on the other end of the scale dude

[///M3]

hmm interesting, i think you just got unlucky

[91rss]

I just shipped a car from To to Calgary,using a company called Fleet Shuttle there.When the car arrived ,the gas was missing.The bill on my Visa was $300 more than we spoke of.
I asked why would I pay $300 more than searail.and he continued his denial of the quoted fee.I should have got it in writing other than my notebook,So don't use Fleet Shuttle in TO.

[P5Driver]

Other than Searail and Fleet Shuttle, who else ships cars within Canada? I'm about to ship my car from Toronto to Calgary and I want to make sure that I'm getting the best possible deal.

[Melinda]

I got my car shiped from TO to Calgary with Hansen's. Pretty cheap, on time and the car was in fine condition with everything in it that was supposed to be. Do a search on this topic though, there are LOTS of posts on this topic that can be more helpful to you :)

[jumaga]

Contrary to SeaRail's advertising claims, they are not "the careful car movers." I hired SeaRail to ship my car and after I received it, it had sustained approx $4000 in damage. Instead of owning up and repairing it (under insurance no less) SeaRail refused.
I have since taken them to small claims court, and WON.
I do not recommending using them as they are unscrupulous liars, you ship with them at your own peril.

[240droptop]

I'm moveing to Toronto next year for school and I wnated to bring my car readin thsi there seems to be pros and cons to searail what doy uo guys truly belvie is the best one to use maybe we should set up a poll also how much does it usaly cost to ship your car thanks

[Zero102]

Seems like the only 'safe' way to get it there is to drive it...
How hard can it be to operate a legitimate, honest car shipping company?...

[bol]

I just used a company called Car Couriers to get my M Coupe shipped. I am very happy with them. Their website sucks but that's it. http://www.carcouriers.com/

Stay away from Auto Rail. They were the most unprofessional people I've ever spoken to in my life.

[Foz]

I can agree that I had bad experience with Searail.

I shipped my car and had a dent / scratch on the rear quarter panel (looked like it came from one of their chains for holding down the car).

Upon receiving the vehicle, the car was half washed down, mud and dirt coated.

Wasn't too impressed at all.

IIRC there's a fine print saying that they are not liable for any damages whatsoever.

I went with Hansen before and not a single problem.

Searail :thumbsdow

[240droptop]

maybe they will let me ride in my car to insure it stays safe lol :)

[paulm]

Searail have just done $4000 worth of damage to my car .
I am putting the case through my lawyer .
NEVER NEVER USE SEARAIL .
I HAVE BEFORE AND AFTER PHOTOS FOr ANY ONE TO SEE.

[rc2002]

I used Searail and have no complaints. Seems like a lot of people have bad experiences with them, but I like them. Good price, good service.

[viffer]

I used Searail back in Janaury, no major problems, my beater arrived a bit late and was filthy but other than that it was in one piece so I was happy. :D

I wouldn't use them to ship a nice car though...

[Tik-Tok]

I would recommend to ANYONE shipping any vehicle, take photo's of the vehicle with a recent newspaper BEFORE it's shipped, and then AFTER it's shipped (preferably in the shipping yard where you pick it up, with a shipping employee in the photo.)

This will help you win any damages case against them, and with these kinds of photo's in hand they will probably pay up without even going to court.

[paulm]

I have just had a lancruiser delivered bt Searail It arrived with only three tyres on it one was on the rims .
I had to pay then $75 to put the tyre back on ( In cash with no receipt to the driver ) Surely they are not trying to cheat Revenue Canada out if tax ?? My other car arrived at the same tim with the front smashed in and the back damaged $4000 of damage .
These people are the worst !! Please believe me .Please pass this information all who you know who may use Searail ..NEVER USE SEARAIL .

[heavyD]

DO NOT USE SEARAIL IF YOU LIKE YOUR CAR! Those bastards broke the spoiler and scratched the whole passenger side of my Eclipse. They refused to pay saying that they don't cover 'minor' dents and scratches. Apparently $1600 damage to them is considered 'minor' damage. Check the BBB and you will see many files for these clowns as they are not recommended.

The owner is a cocky little fuck in Vancouver. He taunted me on the phone so I said I was going to pay him a little vist. Next thing I know Vancouver Police are calling me telling me not to step on his property. Probably a good thing as I was so infuriated I was actually going to go & I may have hurt him bad.

[paulm]

I Have just done a search on "Better Business BureauOf Mainland BC" See Following ...


The BBB reports on members and non-members. If a company is a member of the BBB, it is stated in this report .



Principal: Zoran Milacic, Fleet Manager
Customer Contact: Zoran Milacic, Fleet Manager
File Open Date: February 1997
TOB Classification: Freight Forwarding
BBB Membership: This company is not a member.


Customer Experience

Based on BBB files, this company has an unsatisfactory record with the Bureau due to one or more unresolved complaint(s).

When considering complaint information, please take into account the company's size and volume of transactions, and understand that the nature of complaints and a firm's responses to them are often more important than the number of complaints.

The Bureau processed a total of 9 complaints about this company in the last 36 months, our standard reporting period. Of the total of 9 complaints closed in 36 months, 2 were closed in the last year

AVOID USING THESE PEOPLE .THEY ARE THE MOST UNETHICAL COMPANY I HAVE EVER DONE BUSINESS WITH.USE THEM AT YOUR PERIL

[paulm]

Searail are a constant source of bad service and are most unhelpfull at all time .Their claims department seems to be managed by an obnoxiouse woman by the name of Patricia Renard .
I have just switched to Hansens and what a difference !!
Take my advice and and use Hansens and give Searail a miss
Use Searail and you will have a good chance of your car being damaged . THESE PEOPLE ARE THE WORLDS WORST .
I AM GOING TO MAKE AN EXAMPLE OF THESE OF THESE PEOPLE IN THE LAW COURTS .THE CANADIAN PUBLIC HAS TO BE PROTECTED FROM CLOWNS LIKE THESE PEOPLE ,

[Mitsu3000gt]

I had my 3000GT shipped to Calgary from Indiana by Auto Rail. I have never had such a bad experience with a company in my life, here is the story for those who care to read:

We picked them because they were the cheapest, fully insured company, saying that if they damaged our vehicle they pay for it. It was to be picked up by truck, put on a train to calgary, then trucked to a place where I could pick it up. We have a good friend in Indiana that happened to live a block away from the seller of the car, so we sent the money to him and he went and bought the car for me and kept it in his heated garage until I could have it shipped. When autorail showed up at his house, loading the car onto the flat bed they smoked the front bumper on the truck ramp and put a huge crease in it and covered it in blue paint (the color of their ramp). Our friend then asked the truck driver if that would of course be covered by Autorail and he insured it would be. He also took a picture of the damage for us before and after it was on the truck so you could see that in a matter of 10 minutes it was damaged. SEVEN weeks later (supposed to be 2) the car arrives, with the said damage AND a flat tire. Apparently they didn't send what they needed to the boarder and it got held up - you'd think they would know what to do at the boarder being a shipping company and all.

When I got the car, I wasn't so mad about the flat tire but reasonably pissed off about the bumper damage. We thought it was going to be covered so we didn't get too excited. We called auto rail and they said it wouldn't be covered because they didn't do it.....we had their driver even saying he did it, before and after pictures, and the friend who held the car for us as a second witness. After about 20 phone calls and e-mails, they agreed to accept all our evidence and such for review. We sent this all in and they called to say they are choosing not to do anything. With 2 witnesses to the damage, one being one of their drivers, AND pictures, I could not understand how this was possible. Their communication was atrocious so I'm surprised they talked to us at all. When they did, it was usually in 5 word reply e-mails sent from a black berry. Rarely did they talk to us on the phone for more than 1 minute or 2.

Unfortunately their head office is in nova scotia, and we were told by lawyers that we have to go there if we want to sue them, we can't make them come here. The new bumper is $1200, and legal fees + flight to nova scoita + time, combined with the possible chance we would lose in court (I don't know how we would) just was not worth it to prusue. These kinds of things make me absolutely furious, especially knowing that he "won", but I guess thats life.

Moral of the story: NEVER use auto rail under any circumstances.

Mark

[mx73someday]

I've shipped many cars with both Searail and Hansen's, they are both decent, but both have problems. I think you'll find with any of the larger services, there is risk of poor service, it's a fact of the business. I never had to make a Searail damage claim, but I have with Hansen's, and it took over 4 months to get $3000 out of their claims department.

Searail is less expensive on long Canadian trips and they seem faster.

LHF seems to get overwhelmed with moves and you can wait far too long for your car to ship. The LHF yard crew in Calgary were pretty horrible when we used them. They used to brag about which cars were faster than others. They didn't know how to start cars. Cars were handed over with so much dirt, you couldn't see out the windows. They couldn't keep track of where the cars were, some got shipped across the country when they weren't supposed to. We had a good contact with LHF in Vancouver, but everytime she would go on vacation, everything went to shit.

I find that I have to babysit Searail a lot less than I did with Hansen's, and I am pretty easy going and patient when it comes to shipping cars.

I hope lots of you use Hansen's so that Searail is less busy and ships my cars more quickly.

[paulm]

MX73someday

Interesting comments about Searail .Let me know your E mail and I will send you pictures of Jjust what these clowns can do to a vehicle .Again I say to everone DO NOT USE SEARAIL

[mlr454]

I will put in a second vote for never ever autorail...

After spending double the suggested time in transit, and only under threat of police involvement (we sincerly thought ehy just stole out car) did Autorail "take my car out of the enclosed railcar". Thing is that somehow it received 6k in hail damage while "being protected from the elements"... No response from them either except for their "full insurance" doesn't cover things like hail damage. You are only covered if the train tips over or something stupid..

never ever.

[heavyD]

Originally posted by mx73someday
I hope lots of you use Hansen's so that Searail is less busy and ships my cars more quickly.

You must have a good deal with a body shop to do steady business with Searail. Having your vehicles shipped to you by Searail is definately something you don't want to advertise to prospective customers as there is a good chance that the car on your lot isn't the same as before Searail shipped it.

[89coupe]

I plan on using Searail to ship my car up to Edmonton.

Were all these claims of damage done using their railcar system?

[slickk]

Originally posted by 89coupe
I plan on using Searail to ship my car up to Edmonton.

Were all these claims of damage done using their railcar system?

sounds like it to me.

[mx73someday]

Originally posted by heavyD


You must have a good deal with a body shop to do steady business with Searail. Having your vehicles shipped to you by Searail is definately something you don't want to advertise to prospective customers as there is a good chance that the car on your lot isn't the same as before Searail shipped it.

As I said earlier, both major services (Hansen's and Searail) are problematic. We used Hansens for around 150 cars and Searail for nearly 100 and I still prefer Searail. I don't think it's avoidable to have these kinds of problems with major forwarding companies. After having a falling out with Hansen's, I somewhat expect to have a falling out eventually with Searail.

If our customer requests another shipping company, then we have no problem making that arrangement.

Hansen's seems to have destroyed more aero parts and dented more mufflers than Searail has so far. But I would still recommend Hansen's if they work for you.

[paulm]

Searail have just had to pay me $6200 after threatening them with court action .
This company will more than likely damage your car if you ship with them .They are the worst

[Weapon_R]

Searail's new policies suck dick, and i wouldn't use them anymore for anything.

For example, they will only warranty an "unseen" car for up to 10k - doesn't matter if its worth 50k. In the event of a total loss, they'll only warranty $10,000 cdn. The waiver also states that any damages [no matter how substantial, unless it falls under total loss] are not their responsibility.

No company that doesn't stand behind its driver's is worth giving any money to. Unless your car isn't worth much, I would stay away from them.

They are also very unprofessional and do not have a tracking system. Their tracking simply consists of "It's in transit" but they can't tell you where or how long it'll take.

They cannot give you a date for pickup of the car either. When I imported my car, the seller was given about 2 hours notice that the driver was coming. It's ridiculous to expect someone to sit at home for 3 weeks and wait for a driver to arrive.

The wait times are also :bullshit:. It took them 3 weeks to pick up the car, and another 3 to deliver it. They send a driver to pick up several different cars, drive them back to Canada, and then put them on a train.

Hansen's would be my only choice. Not only are they professional, they stand behind their company and they treat customers with respect. The guy at searail thought he was doing me a favor by shipping my car, whereas Hansen's was extremely responsive even though I didn't use them. I used to be a big Searail supporter but since then they've gone downhill. Don't make a $20,000 mistake and use them on your car, it's not cheap to fix their screwups if something happens.

[D-Man]

I used Hansens to transport my wife's car from Sudbury, ON to Edmonton, AB. It was around $900 and they put it on a train. During the trip, the rail car that my car was in shifted and all the cars inside bumped into each other. They neglected to tell me this when they delivered my car, which was filthy by the way.

When I got home and washed it, I noticed all the damage to the front and rear bumpers. I immediately called Hansens and they confirmed what had happened and were surprised to hear that I wasn't informed. They told me to get the repairs done and send them the bill, which I did and even the cost of a rental car. I had no problems with getting my money.


I have recently used Thorsons Transport out of Toronto to ship my prelude from Calgary, AB to Saint John, NB. They are very professional and the price was pretty good, about $2000 door to door.

My complaints were the interior was very dirty, not sure if that was them or because my car sat at Speedtech for 5 months. They didn't even use seat covers, which I made sure of mentioning.

The biggest thing that pissed me off was that they were suppose to use a liftgate truck and didn't. When they delivered my car, they had to drive it off the truck using a ramp and because my car is so low, they had to use 2X4's so it wouldn't scrape the bottom. I received some scrapes to my mugen exhaust.

I never complained to Thorson's but in retrospect, I should have.

[boostless]

used them twice for US to Canada car moves, Darryl Schroeder did all my brokerage and was AWESOME, id recommend them to anyone

[TimG]

I've had my car shipped via searail from ottawa to vancouver and vancouver to calgary.

The Ottawa-Vancouver trip took about 2-3 weeks (it was over the xmas/new year break, too) and when it arrived in vancouver it was filthy. probably about 3/4" of sand and dirt on the hood and roof.

When i shipped it from vancouver to calgary, i think it took about a week. The weird thing was that searail said that the car would have to be shipped to edmonton and then i could either pick it up or pay an extra 50-100$ to have it trucked to calgary because they didn't have a depot here. wtf is up with that?

Either way, there was no damage to the car.

[hjr]

a lot of complaints about dirty cars, thats how train transport works unfortunately. cars get dirty. damaged on the other hand is not to acceptable. Within the rally scene, Hansens was a sponsor and would ship cars east and west for events. There was a problem where a car was lost for 2-3 weeks and a competitor subsequently missed and event, but in general their service was recommended by all those who used it. Due to their support for the sport and the many satisfied competitors who used them --- Hansens FTW

[davewood5555]

Searail is a ripoff. First they lied to me about the date they would ship my car. Then they told me that my car would be shipped inside a rail car. When the car arrived in Vancouver from Toronto it was, according to the receiving dealership, filthy and grimy. There were paint chips on the hood, the front bumper had a hole in it, there were scratch and dent marks on the doors and back wheel well. When I talked to the adjuster he said "I thibk I know what happened," as if he knew the company was responsible for the damage. They denied the $5000+ damage estimate (only after I made/sent several phone calls and emails to the guy Alan. They think I'm done with them, but I'm just getting started. AVOID THESE SCAM ARTISTS AT ALL COSTS...

[SRT10Killer]

rofl my friend used searail to transport his rx7 from vancouver to calgary and on the day that it was suppose to arrive in calgary, he called and he was told that his car is in montreal, they shipped with no extra cost obviously, but funny

I've used precision couriers from BC they are awesome, pick up the car wherere it is in and ship it to calgary for a good price

[ottamania]

i ve shipped cars from vancouver to calgary with searail be4. I had my fukin strut tower bars or speaker stolen out of the cars and damages etc... Pics shows that it was in place when it was getting on the ship from japan.

So yeah FUK SEARAIL. Even if they were the last company in business, i wud still not use them.

[SRT10Killer]

Originally posted by ottamania
i ve shipped cars from vancouver to calgary with searail be4. I had my fukin strut tower bars or speaker stolen out of the cars and damages etc... Pics shows that it was in place when it was getting on the ship from japan.

So yeah FUK SEARAIL. Even if they were the last company in business, i wud still not use them.
I'm 100% sure that was done on the boat, when you use RORO stuff gets stolen all the time, I had my F1 mirrors ripped of and had to drive from Vancouver to Calgary without mirrors lol

[911fever]

Yeah Searail screwed up on my Dad's G35X and he had $1000 damage to his bumper. After a huge hassle of fighting with them over a course of several months, they paid up. We used Hansens after, and they were awesome.