Vehicle transfer, Frankfurt.
Your car, driven on its own wheels.
We put a vetted, named driver behind the wheel and the vehicle arrives under its own power. Routing, handover and insurance cover are agreed before collection.
Not a freight movement, so not treated like one.
A vehicle transfer is a person driving your car from where it is to where it needs to be. That is a different kind of job from moving pallets, and it deserves a different set of controls: the driver is named to you before collection, the vehicle is photographed at both ends, and cover is agreed in writing before anyone turns a key.
For a single vehicle this can be faster and cheaper than a car transporter. A transporter consolidates several vehicles, while a driver takes a route dedicated to your car. The trade-off is clear: the kilometres go on the odometer, and the car has to be road-legal and insured for the trip.
Stock moved between branches, cars delivered to buyers at home, trade-ins collected from the seller's driveway.
Rebalancing vehicles between depots, end-of-contract returns, and repositioning after one-way rentals.
Collection from the auction site or the seller's yard, delivered to your forecourt with a documented condition record.
Cars to a specialist and back, courtesy vehicles swapped over — or you bought a car 500 km away and would rather not spend a Saturday on a train.
What the car needs before we can drive it.
Five conditions. If one of them fails, tell us early — it is a different price and a different lead time, not a dead end.
Road-legal and registered
Valid plates and a current HU. Short-term plates (Kurzzeitkennzeichen) or trade plates (rote Kennzeichen) work if you provide them, and we can arrange them with a working day's notice.
Insured for the journey
Your policy, the dealer's trade policy, or cover arranged with the plates. Whose insurance responds is settled in writing before collection — never afterwards.
Drivable
It starts, drives and brakes, and the lights and tyres are legal. If it does not, we move it as freight on a transporter instead.
Fuel or charge
At least a quarter tank, or 80 % state of charge, at handover. Fuel and charging en route are billed at cost against receipts.
Keys and papers
One key and the Zulassungsbescheinigung Teil I. We do not carry Teil II — the registration certificate part II stays with you.
How the car is documented.
The protocol is the whole product. It is what makes handing a stranger the keys to a €60,000 car a reasonable thing to do.
01 — At collection
Driver and vehicle identified to you in advance. Exterior photographed on all sides, plus interior, wheels and every existing mark. Odometer and fuel level recorded. You countersign, on paper or on the driver's phone.
02 — On the road
Direct routing, breaks taken according to driving-time rules. The driver calls you if anything changes the picture — weather, a warning light, or traffic that moves the arrival by more than an hour.
03 — At delivery
The same photo set repeated, odometer and fuel recorded again, and the receiving party countersigns. Any discrepancy is documented at the moment it is found, with both parties present.
04 — Afterwards
Both protocols and the complete photo set sent to you the same day. Keys are handed to a named person only, never left with a receptionist or in a lockbox unless you have asked for that in writing.
Who is actually behind the wheel.
A haulier's operating licence tells you nothing about the person driving your car, so we check something else.
Named before collection
You get the driver's name before they arrive, not a notification that somebody is on their way.
Licence verified
Validity and categories checked, and identity documents held on file. Re-checked rather than checked once at sign-up.
Known, not pooled
We use drivers we have worked with repeatedly. This is deliberately not a gig-app pool where whoever accepts first gets your car.
Vetted separately from carriers
Freight carriers and transfer drivers are two different checks, because they are two different risks.
How it is priced
A transfer is priced on the route distance plus the driver's return journey — by train where there is a station, or by a second transfer where we can pair your job with one running the other way. Pairing is where the real saving sits, so if your date has a day of play in it, say so: it often takes a meaningful chunk off the price.
Fuel, charging, tolls and ferries are billed at cost against receipts. Multi-vehicle moves for dealers and fleets are quoted per vehicle and get cheaper by the vehicle — from about four cars we usually run drivers as a group with a minibus following.
What we need to quote it
Some of these details establish whether the vehicle can legally and safely be moved on its own wheels.
- Collection and delivery addresses, with the contact who hands over and who receives at each
- Make, model, year and fuel type — and whether it is manual or automatic
- Is it registered and insured for the drive, and are the plates on it
- Any warning lights, damage or drivability issues we should know about
- The date, and whether it is fixed or has a day of play
- Whether a second vehicle needs to come back the other way
What people actually ask.
Yes — the route distance, and nothing beyond it. Both odometer readings are recorded and countersigned, so you can see exactly what was added and where. If the mileage genuinely cannot move, that is a job for a car transporter and we will arrange one instead.
The two photo protocols exist precisely for this. Damage that is absent from the collection set and present in the delivery set happened while the vehicle was with us, and it is handled on that basis without an argument about who saw what. Cover is agreed in writing before collection, so whose policy responds is already settled.
Yes, with short-term plates or trade plates. You can provide them, or we can arrange them — arranging takes a working day and needs the vehicle documents and a valid HU, so factor that into the date.
Not on its own wheels. If it does not start, or it is not legal to drive, we move it on a transporter as freight instead. Tell us early: it is a different price and a longer lead time, and finding out at the kerbside helps nobody.
Vans and trucks yes, on the same basis, provided the driver holds the right licence class. Motorcycles go on a transporter — nobody should be riding your bike 500 km in the rain, and no protocol makes that a good idea.
That depends on the route, traffic, vehicle and statutory breaks. If the route does not fit within the permitted driving time, we plan an overnight stop or a driver change and show that in the quote.
Yes, and it is cheaper per vehicle. For dealer and fleet moves of four or more we normally run a group of drivers with a minibus behind them, which removes the return-journey cost from every car in the batch.
Usually yes. Transfers are not bound by truck driving bans, so Sundays and public holidays are available. The constraint is a person at the other end who can receive the keys and countersign.
When to buy something else
Driving is the right answer most of the time. These are the cases where it is not, and we will say so before you book.
Transport as freight
Non-runners, unregistered vehicles without plates, classics and anything where the odometer must not move. It goes on a transporter.
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If what actually needs to travel is a part or a document rather than the vehicle itself, a van is faster and far cheaper.
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