Car shipping in Yonkers, NY

Thruway exits, Central Park Avenue and the parkway problem in Yonkers

Every parkway that touches Yonkers bans commercial trucks: the Saw Mill River, the Sprain Brook, the Bronx River and the Cross County. That leaves car haulers one real artery, the New York State Thruway (I-87), with exits 1 through 6A serving the city from the Bronx line up to Tuckahoe Road and Stew Leonard Drive. A driver coming off the Thruway will typically work Yonkers Avenue, Central Park Avenue (Route 100), Tuckahoe Road, Nepperhan Avenue or McLean Avenue, all of which are legal truck routes with the width to pull over and load.

What this means for you is simple. If your home is within a few blocks of one of those roads, a door-to-door pickup is realistic. If you live up on Nodine Hill, in the narrow blocks of Park Hill off Van Cortlandt Park Avenue, or on the steep streets of Ludlow near the river, the driver will usually ask to meet a short drive away rather than risk the grade with a full load. We tell you this at booking, not on pickup day.

Where haulers meet Yonkers customers: Cross County, Ridge Hill and Empire City

Yonkers has three meeting spots that drivers already know, and we use them constantly.

• Cross County Shopping Center at the Cross County Parkway and Central Park Avenue. The outer lots have room for a full rig, and the Thruway is two minutes away via Yonkers Avenue.
• Ridge Hill off Tuckahoe Road and the Sprain Brook, close to Thruway exit 6A. Good for Dunwoodie, Homefield, Crestwood and anyone coming down from Greenburgh.
• Empire City Casino at Yonkers Raceway, directly across Yonkers Avenue from our office. The large surface lots along Yonkers Avenue and Central Park Avenue are the easiest truck access in the city, and you can walk over to 570 Yonkers Ave #350 if you want to sign paperwork in person.

Meeting the truck at one of these spots usually costs you ten minutes and saves the driver an hour, which is why carriers accept Yonkers loads quickly when we note a flat, accessible handoff point on the order.

Downtown waterfront high-rises and other garage pickups

The buildings along the Hudson in downtown Yonkers, from the towers near the Yonkers Metro-North station to the newer developments along Alexander Street and Warburton Avenue, all keep their cars in structured garages with height limits and no street staging. A car hauler cannot wait on Buena Vista Avenue, and the loading areas are built for moving vans, not open-deck trailers.

For those pickups you drive the car out of the garage and meet the truck a few blocks east on Nepperhan Avenue, or we arrange the Empire City handoff. The same applies to the garage buildings around Mount Vernon West and Fleetwood on the Harlem Line, and to the apartment blocks along Bronx River Road in Bronxville and Tuckahoe. Tell us the building and we will suggest the closest spot where a 10-car carrier can sit legally for twenty minutes.

One low-level note for the river side of town: Warburton Avenue and Riverdale Avenue do see Hudson tidal flooding during strong nor'easters and spring high tides. If a storm is forecast for your pickup window and the car is parked low near the river, we will try to move the date forward rather than have a driver inspect a wet vehicle.

Metro-North, colleges and hospitals: who ships a car from Yonkers

Yonkers auto transport orders follow the train lines and the big local institutions. On the Hudson Line we see customers from Yonkers, Glenwood, Greystone and Ludlow stations; on the Harlem Line it is Mount Vernon West, Fleetwood, Bronxville, Tuckahoe and Crestwood. People move here for the commute and move away when the commute ends, and they usually fly rather than drive.

• College families. Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, Mercy University on the Dobbs Ferry campus and Manhattan College just over the line in Riverdale all generate August and May car moves, typically for students going to or from the South, Midwest and California.
• Hospital staff. St. John's Riverside on North Broadway and Montefiore New Rochelle rotate residents and traveling nurses who need a car shipped for a one-year placement and then shipped home again.
• Retirees leaving Westchester. The largest single group. Decades of property tax on a house in Colonial Heights or Bryn Mawr tend to end with a move to Florida, the Carolinas or Tennessee, and the car goes on a truck while the owners close the sale.
• Corporate relocations out of the White Plains and Greenburgh office parks, usually with the employer paying for enclosed transport.

Enclosed carriers for Scarsdale and Bronxville garages

Southern Westchester has an unusual concentration of cars worth protecting. Scarsdale, Bronxville, Lawrence Park and the estate streets off Pondfield Road hold Porsches, classic Mercedes, Range Rovers and the occasional Ferrari that spends winter in a heated garage and summer in Palm Beach or Naples. For those vehicles we book enclosed, usually a hard-sided trailer with a liftgate so a low front splitter never touches a ramp.

Enclosed runs about 40 to 60 percent above an open carrier on the same lane, and the trucks are smaller, which actually helps on Westchester streets. A 2- or 3-car enclosed rig can get down a Scarsdale cul-de-sac that a 9-car open hauler cannot. For an everyday Honda or Subaru headed to a daughter's apartment in Raleigh, open transport is the right call and what most Yonkers customers choose. Winter is the exception: from December to March, road salt from the Thruway and the Cross County coats everything on an open deck, and some owners of newer cars pay for enclosed just to skip the detailing bill at the other end.

Timing a Yonkers pickup around the Thruway, the casino and the weather

Carriers running the I-87 corridor usually reach Yonkers in the morning after loading in the Bronx or New Jersey, or late afternoon on the way back south. We try to avoid Yonkers Avenue on evening race nights and weekend afternoons when the Empire City lots fill, and we avoid Central Park Avenue near Cross County during the holiday shopping weeks for the same reason.

Weather is a smaller factor here than on Long Island, but hills plus ice is a bad combination. A January storm that leaves Nodine Hill or the Park Hill grades slick will push a pickup a day or two. Most of the year, a Yonkers order placed with a flexible two- or three-day window gets a truck within that window, and the car is in Florida three to four days later.

To get a firm number, use the instant quote form or call the Yonkers Avenue office at (914) 785-6974. Have the pickup address, the destination, the vehicle and whether it runs, and we will tell you which exit the driver will use and where you are likely to meet him.

Where we pick up around Yonkers

Door-to-door service covers these communities from the Yonkers office, along with the rest of Westchester County. If you do not see your town, the quote tool prices any ZIP code.

Popular routes from Yonkers

Typical prices for a running mid-size sedan on an open carrier, booked about a week ahead. Enclosed trailers, oversized vehicles and peak-season dates run higher; the quote tool gives you the exact number.

Questions from Yonkers customers