Fantastic Experience with Specialty Mobile Systems

Mary Baysingar-Brown Submitted this review about Specialty Mobile Systems
Review made Live: 3/31/2006 6:37:00 PM
I recently had occasion to have my Mother's car transported from NJ to IL. The car had been driven here to NJ from the midwest five months prior; however, it was decided that on the return trip, the car would be transported and my Mother would fly. At any rate, I got on the internet to seek a transport company. Not only have I never utilized an auto transport, I don't know anyone who has and am otherwise totally unfamiliar with the business, its standards or practices. As I recall, I simply input "auto transport" as a search string and a site appeared where I could submit info relative to the transport; e.g., make of car, origin of pickup and destination, e-mail address. Once submitted, I received about ten quotes via e-mail in just a few minutes. I looked at each quote, selected three or four and went about checking out each transport company, both on this site and viewing each company's website. I was very pleased with Specialty's top rating on this site, along with the many favorable reviews. Additionally, I was very impressed with Specialty's website. Although I had never had a vehicle transported, I thought the price to do so was very reasonable. I had pretty much decided this was the company with whom I was going to do business, but the final deciding factor for me was when I called Specialty (with a couple of questions and to find out how the entire process worked), the voice on the other end of the phone sounded like somebody I might have grown up with in the Midwest. I wish I could recall the name of the person with whom I spoke, but I can't. I've been in NJ for 25 years and I still get harassed from time to time about where I was born and raised. It's never bothered me in the least; I'll put my morals and values, along with my good old Midwest gut instinct up against anyone's. Anyway, that's how I chose Specialty, and once again, my instincts didn't let me down! This was further confirmed when I received my initial phone call from Dee at Specialty. She explained how the entire process worked, that Specialty was both a broker and a transporter, and in my instance, Specialty would be acting as a broker. She explained that the next step involved posting my particular job and waiting for a transport company to contact Specialty with an interest in doing the job. Dee said she might be in touch with me as soon as the next day to advise that a transport company had contacted her, and that it could also take ten days or so. She went on to give me further information on the transport and then answered a few of my questions. I believe it was a couple of days later when Dee called with the name of a transport company and told me to expect a call from them to work out the details on the transport. I was contacted later that day by the transport company and was given a pickup date for the car. Two days before the car was to be picked up, I received a call from the transport company indicating that their carrier was stuck in Albany with a broken axle. They apologized and proposed picking the car up about ten days thereafter. We didn't have a tight time constraint, so the delay didn't cause us a problem. The transporter said she would contact me closer to the actual pickup date. I told her that would be fine, but I didn't really have a good feeling about utilizing this transporter. I thought about it and had decided to call Dee, but she called me first. Apparently, right after the transporter called me and said there would be a delay, she called Dee and just cancelled altogether. I'm glad she called Dee and cancelled, as I never heard from the transporter again after that. Although Specialty had done nothing wrong, Dee apologized profusely for the problem and for the behavior of this transporter. She immediately posted my transport and Cory called the next day with a new transport company. The difference between the first transport company and the new one was like night and day. I was given not only a pickup date, but a time. This guy just came across as so much more credible than the first transport company. The driver showed up at the exact time he said he would. He had a beautiful new truck and an equally beautiful enclosed transport trailer (I had paid for open transport, but lucked out and got enclosed for the same money). I felt better and so did my Mother knowing that her car was being transported in something that was probably not going to break down somewhere along the way. Not only were we impressed that the transport itself was in great shape, the driver could not have been more courteous and professional. (We were so impressed that I called Cory at Specialty right after the transport left my house, as I wanted to let him know how happy we were with this transport company and its driver). The driver told us when the car would reach Illinois, and that's exactly when it got there. My sister in Illinois was going to take delivery on my Mother's car in my Mother's absence, so I had provided the driver with my sister's name and phone number. He called my sister when he was a couple of hours out just to confirm that he would soon be at the destination. He arrived right on time and the car rolled out of the transport trailer just as it had rolled in, without a scratch. After reading this, I don't think I have to say it, but I will anyway - I would call Specialty again with my transport needs and would recommend them without hesitation to anyone needing vehicle transport anywhere.