Auto transport carriers do the heavy lifting of loading and transporting vehicles and delivering them to their final destination. Auto transport brokers don’t ship vehicles themselves. Instead, they charge a fee and find a carrier for you. Auto transport brokers: This is the most common way to ship a vehicle. The benefit of using a broker is selection: Brokers have access to a wide range of car transporters and can often get better rates than you could find on your own. Even with fees, using a broker saves most people money. Because of the flexibility in carrier options, going with an auto transport broker also tends to result in a quicker pickup than you’d get with an individual carrier. Auto transport carriers: When you work with an auto transporter, you have direct contact with the carrier. This means you have a more accurate idea of pickup and delivery times, overall costs and insurance information. The downside to going directly to the car transporting service instead of using a broker is that you need to do all the work of nailing down pricing information and availability. We don’t recommend this method for people shipping a car for the first time — the top companies listed on this guide are brokers. Whichever method you end up choosing, make sure the broker and the carrier are registered with the FMCSA, which is required by federal law. Registered brokers and carriers are given an MC docket number, which should be prominently displayed on their website. FMCSA recommends consumers actively avoid doing business with any auto broker or auto carrier company that doesn’t have its MC docket number displayed online.