Moving away with an old car: ship it, drive it or sell it before you go?

Moving lists fill up with leases, utilities and boxes, and the car that hasn’t started since last winter tends to sit at the bottom. It shouldn’t, because it’s the one item that can cost you money in two ways: paying to haul it somewhere new, or leaving it behind. If you’re weighing selling it, our guide to the ways to get rid of a junk car compares the routes; this page is about the moving decision itself.

Three ways to get an old car out of here

	Drive it	Ship it	Sell it before you go
The car has to	Run, be safe for the whole trip, and be registered and insured	Roll, brake and steer for a standard winch load, or go on special equipment	Nothing; it can be dead
You pay for	Fuel, lodging, any repairs on the way	The carrier’s quote, plus extra if it doesn’t run	Nothing; the tow is free and you’re paid at pickup
The risk	A breakdown in another state	A deposit paid to a company you never checked	A lower number than a running car would bring
Fits when	It runs well and the move is a drive you’d make anyway	It’s worth more than the shipping and repairs together	It doesn’t run, or shipping and repairs eat its value

Do the math with your own numbers

We won’t quote shipping prices here. They vary by company and by trip, and anything we printed would soon be out of date. Gather the real figures instead:

1. Get written shipping quotes, and tell each company plainly whether the car runs. Montway, a national car-shipping company, says on its inoperable vehicle page that a non-running car typically costs extra, and puts the extra at $300 to over $500 when it can’t roll, brake or steer (checked October 2026).
2. Price the repairs the car would need before you could register it and drive it in your new state. Your new state’s motor vehicle office sets that list, not Illinois.
3. Learn what it would fetch in its current state. For a car that doesn’t run, that’s an offer from a buyer who takes cars in any condition. Ask us for one; it doesn’t expire, so you can hold it while the quotes come in.
4. Compare. If the shipping and repairs together come close to what the car is worth, you’d be paying to move a problem.

If you do ship it, check who you’re paying

Federal law only lets a motor carrier or a broker work across state lines if it’s registered (49 U.S.C. 13901). Some companies that quote you are brokers who hand the job to a carrier, so ask which kind you’re dealing with, then ask for its USDOT or MC number and look it up on the FMCSA website before you pay a deposit.

Empty the car before it goes, too. Montway tells owners of non-running cars to take everything loose out of the cabin and trunk, because winching puts the car at an angle and items shift. And clear your phone pairings, saved addresses and garage codes, whether the car is shipped, sold or scrapped; our guide to wiping your data from a car lists the steps.

Selling the house with a dead car in the garage

A car left behind after closing doesn’t stop being a problem. It becomes a car on someone else’s property, which is the situation our guide on a car left on your property in Illinois is written for. Book the pickup before the movers and the walk-through, while you still have the keys to the garage. Same-day pickup is often possible.

Two loose ends to sort before the truck comes. The plates stay with you in Illinois, so take them off first. And find the title before it disappears into a moving box; if it’s already lost, our guide to buyers who take cars without a title explains what Illinois looks at. The rest of the sale is the same as any other, and our five-step selling guide covers it.