Most auction cars ship for somewhere between $300 and $1,800 on an open carrier — and the single number that decides where you land is not the distance you measured on a map. It's the real road distance a truck has to drive from the yard gate to your door.
Below are eight genuine routes out of real Copart and IAA yards, with the road mileage measured route by route rather than estimated, plus what each one typically costs in 2026. If you already know your lane, you can skip to the route table.
How is auction car shipping priced?
Almost every auction transport quote is built the same way: a per-mile rate applied to the driving distance, then adjusted for the vehicle's condition, the trailer type, and how easy the yard is to service. The per-mile rate is not fixed — it falls as the haul gets longer, because the carrier's fixed costs (fuel, hours of service, insurance, the driver's time at the gate) get spread over more miles.
Published 2026 open-transport rates cluster like this:
| Haul length | Typical open-carrier rate |
|---|---|
| Under 400 miles | $1.05–$1.85 per mile |
| 400–800 miles | $0.85–$1.45 per mile |
| 800–1,200 miles | $0.72–$1.15 per mile |
| 1,200–2,000 miles | $0.68–$0.98 per mile |
| Over 2,000 miles | $0.45–$0.65 per mile |
That is the whole reason a 2,800-mile coast-to-coast move does not cost ten times what a 280-mile move costs. It costs about four times as much.
What do real auction routes actually cost?
Every mileage figure below is a measured driving route from that yard's exact coordinates to the destination city — the same road-distance data we publish on all 544 of our auction location pages. The cost column applies the rate bands above and assumes an operable vehicle on an open carrier. It is an estimate, not a quote.
| Auction yard → destination | Road miles | Rate per mile | Estimated open transport |
|---|---|---|---|
| Copart Atlanta East (GA) → Nashville, TN | 274 mi (228 straight-line) | $1.15–$1.85 | $320–$510 |
| Copart Los Angeles (CA) → Phoenix, AZ | 378 mi (356 straight-line) | $1.05–$1.65 | $400–$620 |
| IAA Dallas/Ft Worth (TX) → New Orleans, LA | 515 mi (449 straight-line) | $0.95–$1.45 | $490–$750 |
| Copart Detroit (MI) → Atlanta, GA | 689 mi (582 straight-line) | $0.85–$1.25 | $590–$860 |
| Copart Phoenix (AZ) → Denver, CO | 822 mi (589 straight-line) | $0.80–$1.15 | $660–$950 |
| Copart Chicago North (IL) → Houston, TX | 1,077 mi (935 straight-line) | $0.72–$1.05 | $780–$1,130 |
| Copart Miami Central (FL) → Newark, NJ | 1,263 mi (1,084 straight-line) | $0.68–$0.98 | $860–$1,240 |
| IAA Los Angeles (CA) → New York, NY | 2,806 mi (2,453 straight-line) | $0.45–$0.65 | $1,260–$1,820 |
Look at the first and last rows together. The distance grows more than tenfold; the price roughly quadruples. That Los Angeles to New York run is about 50 hours of pure driving spread over several days, which is why long hauls are quoted in days of transit rather than hours.
Why is your quote higher than the mileage you looked up?
Because roads bend and mapping shortcuts don't. When we measured driving routes for every one of our auction yards, we compared them against the straight-line distance most cost calculators use, and the gap is consistent:
- Across 3,807 measured yard-to-city routes, the road distance was a median 20% longer than the straight line.
- One route in three was more than 25% longer.
- Roughly 4% ran more than 50% longer.
- The worst case we found: IAA Long Island (NY) to Bridgeport, Connecticut. Straight line, 28 miles. By road, 96 miles — because a truck has to drive all the way around Long Island Sound.
Water and mountains are the usual culprits. In the table above, Phoenix to Denver is only 589 miles straight but 822 by road, a 40% penalty for routing around the Rockies. If a calculator quotes you off straight-line miles, treat the number as a floor rather than an estimate.
What raises the price at an auction yard specifically?
Auction pickups carry cost factors that ordinary door-to-door moves don't. In rough order of impact:
- The car doesn't run. A non-runner needs a winch and a longer load, and it narrows the pool of trucks that can take the job. Expect $100–$300 on top of the base rate. If it won't roll, steer, or brake, say so when you book — an undisclosed non-runner is the most common reason a driver refuses the load and you pay for a wasted trip.
- Enclosed instead of open. Enclosed trailers carry two to six cars against eight to ten on an open deck, so the premium is real: 30–60% more, sometimes higher out of auction yards. Worth it for a rare or already-restored car; rarely worth it for a salvage-title daily driver.
- A remote yard. Yards an hour off the main freight lanes cost more to service, because the truck burns time it can't bill to anyone else. Our Copart and IAA location pages list the actual road distance from each yard to the nearest metros, which is a decent proxy for how well-served a lane is.
- Tight gate hours. A yard that only releases vehicles Monday to Friday, 8 to 5, forces drivers to plan around it. It rarely shows up as a line item, but it shows up in how quickly a carrier accepts the job.
- Oversized or modified vehicles. Lifted trucks, dually pickups and long-wheelbase vans take more deck space than the rate assumes.
Does shopping for a cheaper quote actually save money?
Often it costs more, because the storage clock at the yard doesn't pause while you shop. Copart's free storage window closes a few days after your payment clears, and after that the yard bills roughly $40–$85 per day depending on the location — we broke the full schedule down in Copart storage fees: how much they cost and how to avoid them.
Run the arithmetic before you spend three days hunting a bargain. Saving $75 on a quote while accruing three extra days of storage at $60 a day is a $105 loss, and that's before any late-payment or relist fee. The cheapest total cost is almost always the truck that shows up first, not the lowest posted rate.
There's a related trap on the carrier side. A quote low enough that no driver will accept it isn't really a quote — the car simply sits at the yard, unassigned, while storage accrues. A realistic rate that gets picked up in 24 hours beats an optimistic one that sits for a week.
When is the cheapest time of year to ship an auction car?
Mid-November through early January is the quietest window and usually the cheapest, because retail demand collapses over the holidays while trucks are still running. The expensive stretches are the snowbird migrations — October to December heading south and February to April heading north — which tighten capacity into and out of Florida, Arizona and Texas. Deep winter on northern lanes is its own exception: January and February bring weather surcharges on routes through the snow belt, where ice slows transit and raises risk.
None of this is worth delaying an auction pickup over. Storage fees move faster than seasonal rates.
How do you get an accurate quote?
Have five things ready and any broker can price your lane in minutes:
- The exact yard, not just the city — many metros have three or four yards, and they're not in the same place. Compare Copart Dallas and Copart Dallas South: same market, different gates, different lanes.
- Your lot number and buyer number, so the yard can confirm the vehicle and its release status.
- The delivery ZIP code — a rural delivery 90 minutes past the last interstate exit prices differently from a suburb.
- The vehicle's honest condition: does it start, steer, roll and brake? Answer each one separately.
- Whether payment has cleared. No yard releases a car before it has, so this sets the earliest possible pickup date. Our step-by-step guides cover the release process for Copart and IAA.
Frequently asked questions
How much does it cost to ship a car from Copart?
For an operable vehicle on an open carrier, most Copart moves land between $320 and $1,800 depending on distance — roughly $1.05–$1.85 per mile under 400 miles, falling to about $0.45–$0.65 per mile on a coast-to-coast run. A non-running car adds $100–$300, and enclosed transport adds 30–60%.
Why is shipping a short distance so expensive per mile?
Because the carrier's costs don't shrink with the trip. Loading at the yard, paperwork, the gate wait and the driver's time are nearly identical on a 200-mile move and a 2,000-mile one, so on a short haul those fixed costs are spread across far fewer miles. Short hauls also fill a slot on the trailer that a longer, more profitable load could have used.
Is the quoted price per car or per trailer?
Per car. An open carrier hauls eight to ten vehicles and each one is priced separately, which is exactly why the rate per mile drops as the haul lengthens — the truck is amortising the same trip across more paying vehicles.
Do I pay before or after the car is delivered?
Most auction transport is booked with a deposit up front and the balance due on delivery, often to the driver directly. Confirm the split and the accepted payment methods when you book, not when the truck arrives — a driver who expects cash on delivery and doesn't get it can hold the vehicle.
Does the yard charge anything on top of the transport price?
It can. Storage after the free window is the big one, and some branches add loading assistance or gate-related service charges. Those are billed by the auction, not by the transporter, so they won't appear on your shipping quote — check your invoice on the auction's own site before you assume the transport price is your total cost.
Know your yard and your delivery ZIP? Get a free AutoMove quote in about two minutes — we cover pickups at every Copart, IAA, Manheim and ADESA location in the country, and we'll price your exact lane rather than a straight line across the map.