Rohan Nath

I'm relocating to San Francisco from Salt Lake City in the next 10 days and need advice on moving my pride and joy.

Here are the options I am considering (no particular order):

1. Drive using I-80 West. Does anyone have experience driving I-80 from SLC to SF in the winter? The highway goes up to altitudes of almost 10,000 ft. so I'm somewhat concerned...

2. Drive using I-15 South and I-5 North. This adds considerable miles but lets me avoid high altitudes and the associated winter conditions.

3. Garage the car in SLC until the spring and drive it then using I-80 West. Would suck to be without it in SF for 3 months...

4. Ship the car in a truck. I think I read some threads about how its easy to damage the car doing this so I'm somewhat concerned...

Appreciate any advise.

Rohan

Jeff 993TT

I drove my car out from Denver to SF last year. I had a blast. Make sure that you get a radar detector though.

Drove 80 the entire way. Had zero problems with the car. I checked the oil pretty religiously also. It sure was nice to have that much power in the hills.

Jeff

bet

Rohan,

I can’t comment on the routes you’ve mentioned, because unfortunately I don’t live in the neighborhood But I can comment on shipping your car via enclosed trailer. I would not be concerned one bit about shipping the car in an enclosed trailer. I recently purchased my car from an individual in SF and had it shipped to Indiana in an enclosed semi-trailer, with no problems what so ever. You just want to make sure you get a reputable shipper that has shipped Porsches and knows how to secure them properly. An enclosed trailer is very safe for your vehicle if done properly. I contacted Brian Buxton at Buxton Motorsports (specializes in selling Porsche and other high end vehicles and has extensive experience with shipping his cars all over) and he arranged the shipping for me. No affiliation, blah, blah, just satisfied customer.

SundayDriver

I-80 can get VERY nasty during the winter. If you are flexible and can watch the weather, you could manage it to miss bad weather.

I have shipped my P-car twice. Used Intercity both times and they took great care of the car.

scorpio

Rohan, if you can get two days with a high pressure system over the western U.S., go for it. Otherwise you may be getting yourself into a very stressful situation. I have driven from Colorado to Northern CA using I-80 and to Southern CA using I-15. I have gotten into very heavy snow with white out conditions on both routes. The Reno/Lake Tahoe area during a storm can be horrendous. I also can remember a very nasty time where I-70 turns into I-15. The visibility was so bad I felt lucky to avoid a massive pileup or have a tractor trailer run into the back of me. You couldn't even find a place to get off the road.

Tom W

I've done the drive at this time of year before too. Luckily it was between storms and was a great drive. I discovered my 325is could go 135 (on a slight downhill) when BMW said it could only go 129. Even at more moderate speeds it could be done as one long drive.

So, if you can wait for good weather, you'll love it. If you get a storm when you hit the Nevada/CA border, you'll hate it.

911-TOUR

I've done this drive several times, in the winter. Call the Utah, Nevada, and esspecially the California Highway patrol the morning you plan to leave to check on road conditions, they will tell you if and where you would need chains, and could not pass (unless your baby is a C4 It's about 12 hours door-to-door at 75 mph and moderate traffic through Tahoe.

Look for 2 days of High pressure. Grin

Wash the car thoroughly when you get to SF, the salt through Tahoe is murder. But you probably know this drill if you're from SLC.

Hope that helps!

cheers,

sean

Temple

If you do decide to ship the car, just watch how they tie-down the car. My shipper (I forget who I used) threw a strap around my right rear a-arm and winched it down tight enough to bend it. My mechanic discovered this during my 30K service.

From asking around, this does not seem to be an infrequent occurence.