The question we are often asked is “should you ship your car to France’ when you move there. That is a personal decision for everyone. Let me tell you about mine.

As some of you already know, our move from California to France took 2 years with a stop in Florida along the way, for tax purposes. It also gave us a chance to spend more time with family on the East Coast.

For me, it gave me a chance to live near one of my favorite people in the world. He is someone I played baseball against in high school and along with in college. We have been friends ever since then. Together we have made some astonishingly bad decisions that usually involved alcohol. But they were always funny, and no one ever got hurt.

Originally, when we were planning our move to France, we were going to sell our car that we brought from California. But in the summer of 2021, the height of insanely high used car prices, we were in a position where we needed to sell that car. The good news was that trading in our car at that time meant we were going to get a lot for it. The bad news was that we were going to pay a premium for our replacement vehicle.

Approximately 6 months before we moved to France, I was checking into the cost of cars in France. Every website I came across made it sound like buying a used car was like playing Russian roulette. It seems that the countries that speak the romantic languages have a different mindset when it comes to disclosing potential issues with things they are selling, especially real estate and cars. So, buying new seemed like a safe choice. The car issue might get expensive.  

The Europeans are obsessed with climate change. Consequently, in France, the cars are small with tiny little engines. Also, if you have ever driven through a French city, you will invariably find yourself on a street that isn’t big enough to change your mind on, let alone drive on it. We are still wasteful Americans. We have a big dog, with another one coming. D shops like it’s an Olympic sport. We were going to be traveling all over France. We needed something big. I had no idea what to do.

One Saturday afternoon sitting next to a beef brisket on the smoker, my buddy and I were enjoying a few beers. I was explaining my options about when it came to cars in France. He said to “why don’t you just ship your car over? You have a great car that has tons of room. Just have someone look over the car before you leave to see if there is absolutely anything that needs to be replaced. That way, you know what you are getting when you get there, and you probably won’t need to do anything to your car for the first two years over there”.

Seemed like a good argument to me.

I started researching the companies and the cost of shipping your car from Florida to France. It looked to me like it was going to be a lot cheaper to send my car than it would be to buy one over there.

Speaking with the salespeople for the largest international shipping companies, it sure feels like you are getting conned by a used car salesman. They all come across like the bottom feeders that they are. So slimy.

There is a company called Schumacher. They had some good reviews and seemed like a relatively well-known entity. My hope was that choosing a bigger player would result in a better experience. I had hoped that their volume of transactions would help with customs. In reality, they are not the actual shippers of the cargo, they are just brokers. They don’t control anything. The owner/operators of the vessels do. I didn’t find out until I signed my contract to ship the car.

We were due to arrive in France on April 28^th. The salesperson told me that I would get the car on the ship leaving on April 21^st. We would be renting cars until our car arrived. So the sooner it got there the better. Nothing in the process worked like I was told it would. The car actually shipped out on May 15^th.

I received an email from someone at a company called LeoVincent in France on May 31^st telling me that the car would arriving in France by the 6^th of June. They told me they would be accepting the car as it came into port, and they would arrange to have the car sent to us from there. By this time, we were in Charente Maritime and the car was due in Le Havre at the port. We had paid the shipping company to have the car delivered from the port to our location.

This is where the fun starts.

We leased a new car from Motovana through the 15^th of June . It is a pretty good deal to get a car this way if you are going to be here for a bit. You can learn more about it here. Hopefully 8 days would be enough time for them to get the car to us. We would need to return the leased vehicle down to the airport in Bordeaux.

On June 6^th I received an email from LeoVincent telling me the ship was delayed and was now scheduled to arrive on the 17^th of June.

This forced us to get with the leasing company to see if we could extend the lease. Fortunately, they said it would be ok to extend the lease from the 15^th to the 25^th, for €600 more. On top of the extra expense, pressure was starting to build because we had to leave our rental at the end of June to head to the next one in Burgundy for the month of July. The drive from where we were staying in Varaize down to the Bordeaux airport was about 1.5 hours. But the drive to the airport from Mersault to the airport is 6.5 hours.

The car arrived in port on June 17^th.  I asked the agent at LV when it would be delivered to us. She did not know, but it would probably be in about 10 days, but she could not give a specific date. I couldn’t take the chance that they were going to be late, plus, I would have to extend the lease again. We were already in Brittany that weekend. I asked if I could drive up to Le Havre to pick up the car myself. Maybe Schumacher would even refund the delivery charge to me.

Who am I kidding? They are a vermin shipping company. Even if they didn’t, I needed that car.

In speaking to LV, my picking up the car was going to be a nightmare. All I could do was beg and plead to get it down to us in time. I also got the lease extended again to the 29^th, for another €300.

On June 27^th, LV emailed to tell me the car would be delivered the next day. Maybe things were going to finally go my way.

On the 28^th, Sully started barking. I went outside, and there it was. Our car was finally here! The delivery person had me sign for its release. Before I knew it, he was gone. The guy had bolted.

The car probably hadn’t been driven in a bit. So I decided to go get some gas for our trip down to Bordeaux the next morning. Jumping in and starting it up, the power steering didn’t, work, at all. Crap.