Door-to-door vehicle shipping from Lakewood and the rest of the Long Beach area and southeast LA County, priced all-in, matched to licensed carriers, and coordinated by the Lakewood office at 4010 Watson Plaza Dr.
Fast, secure pricing in 30 seconds.
Lakewood is surrounded by the 605, the 91 and the 405, a few minutes from the Port of Long Beach and the Cerritos Auto Square. That combination of port traffic and dealer volume means carriers are always in the area, which keeps pickup times short and prices competitive on nearly every lane.
Lakewood's wide, planned residential streets are about as carrier-friendly as it gets in Los Angeles County — true door-to-door pickup is the norm here. We handle a lot of military moves for families at Joint Forces Training Base Los Alamitos and the Seal Beach naval station, plus dealer transfers out of Cerritos and relocations to the Pacific Northwest and Texas.
Typical days on the road once loaded. Winter passes and summer heat can add a day; your coordinator will say so up front.
Lakewood was one of the first large planned suburbs in the country, laid out in the early 1950s on a grid of wide, straight residential streets with generous setbacks and no hills. Seventy years later, that design is still the single best thing about shipping a car from here. A full-size auto carrier — the 75-to-80-foot double-deck trailer that hauls up to ten vehicles — can pull up to almost any Lakewood driveway, load, and leave without a problem. True door-to-door pickup, which is a hope in much of Los Angeles County, is the default in Lakewood. Add the 605 on the east, the 91 across the north and the 405 just south, with the Port of Long Beach and the Cerritos Auto Square both minutes away, and you have a city where carriers are always nearby and pickups are easy.
Golden State Auto Transport's Lakewood office is on Watson Plaza Drive near the Lakewood Center, a short drive from the 605/91 interchange. When you request a quote on this page, you're matched with licensed, insured carriers already running these lanes, and a coordinator on the local (562) line manages the shipment from start to finish.
Lakewood is a few minutes from the Joint Forces Training Base at Los Alamitos and the Naval Weapons Station at Seal Beach, and a meaningful share of our work here is military. Service members receiving orders ship a car to the next duty station — Norfolk, Jacksonville, San Diego, Bremerton, Fort Hood, Fort Bragg — and families with two vehicles ship one and drive the other. We handle these moves with the attention they deserve: discounted rates for active-duty service members, flexible pickup windows that work around report dates, and coordinators who understand that orders change. Give us your report date and your flexibility, and we'll build a pickup window around it.
If you're a service member shipping a privately owned vehicle on your own rather than through a government program, the process on this page is the same as for any customer; tell your coordinator your situation and ask about the military rate.
The Cerritos Auto Square is one of the largest dealership clusters in the United States, and it sits a few minutes up the 605 from Lakewood. Carriers deliver new inventory there daily and leave with empty spots. The Port of Long Beach is ten minutes south, with its own stream of carriers moving imported vehicles inland. For a Lakewood resident, that means trucks heading out of the area in every direction almost every day — and carriers would rather fill an open spot in Lakewood than drive back to the harbor empty. Dealers, lease-return companies and auction buyers use the same quote tool as individual customers, and the Lakewood coordinator can set up multi-vehicle and recurring shipments on a single call.
In Lakewood proper, the answer is usually "at your house." The residential grid north and south of Del Amo Boulevard, the streets around Lakewood Center and Mayfair Park, and the neighborhoods along Carson Street, South Street and Woodruff Avenue all handle a hauler. Long Beach's Bixby Knolls and Lakewood Village are similar. The main exceptions are apartment complexes with gated or underground parking, the mobile home communities near the 91, and a few cul-de-sacs where a trailer can't turn.
Neighboring Long Beach is more varied: downtown, Belmont Shore and Naples have narrow streets, alleys and heavy parking, and drivers there typically meet customers at a larger lot near the Traffic Circle or along Lakewood Boulevard. Cerritos, Bellflower, Cypress and Los Alamitos are mostly planned grids and work well for door-to-door. Tell your coordinator your cross streets for a straight answer.
Drivers also like Lakewood because they can usually load in the street without blocking traffic; a quiet residential block mid-morning is the ideal setup, and your coordinator will ask for a window that makes that possible.
Most Lakewood vehicles — family sedans and SUVs, pickups, lease returns and dealer inventory — ride on open carriers, the standard double-deck trailers with the lowest price and the fastest availability. Enclosed transport is available for the classic cars that come out of Lakewood's and Long Beach's older garages, for exotics and luxury vehicles, and for anything with low ground clearance that needs a liftgate. Enclosed costs more and can take a few extra days to schedule. The quote tool on this page prices both so you can compare before you decide.
For service members shipping a vehicle to an overseas port of embarkation or to a coastal base, open transport is standard and accepted; enclosed is rarely needed unless the vehicle is a collectible.
Distance sets the baseline. Lakewood to San Diego is nearly a same-day run. Phoenix, Tucson and Las Vegas are short, high-frequency lanes. The Bay Area is well-served by the 5. Portland and Seattle cost more per mile because carriers want full loads before heading north. San Antonio, Houston and Dallas are common destinations and priced well. Norfolk, Jacksonville and the rest of the East Coast — frequent for military moves — have the highest total cost and the lowest per-mile rate.
Carriers then weigh vehicle size and weight, running condition, open versus enclosed, season and flexibility. Because Lakewood pickups are easy and carriers are plentiful, date flexibility is where the savings are: a three-to-five-day window lets a truck leaving the port or the Auto Square add your car on its way out. Quotes here are all-in, with nothing added at delivery.
Military PCS season — late spring through summer — overlaps with the civilian relocation peak from May through August, which makes those the busiest months. Late August brings student shipments to out-of-state colleges from families in Lakewood, Cerritos and Long Beach, and Cal State Long Beach adds its own cycle. The two weeks around the December holidays are quiet. January brings job relocations and some snowbird returns from Arizona. Book two to three weeks ahead in peak months if your report date or move date is fixed; if you have flexibility, say so.
Since the truck usually comes to your driveway in Lakewood, preparation is mostly about the car itself. Clean it so the inspection is accurate. Walk it with the driver and keep the signed condition report. Fuel to about a quarter tank. Take out personal items, toll transponders and any base access decals you'll need before the car arrives at the next duty station. Mirrors folded, antenna down, alarm explained. If the vehicle doesn't run, flag it at the quote stage so a winch-equipped carrier is sent. Have a spare key for the driver.
The carrier's cargo policy covers your vehicle from pickup to delivery, and we verify it's active before dispatch. The driveway inspection in Lakewood is the starting record; the delivery inspection is what it's compared against, and anything new in between is the carrier's responsibility. Photograph the car on all sides at both ends, and if you're shipping to a duty station where someone else will receive it, send them the pickup photos. Write any new damage on the delivery report before signing; your coordinator follows the claim through.
Inbound moves follow the same process: service members arriving at Los Alamitos or Seal Beach, families relocating to the area, students coming home from college, dealers receiving inventory, and buyers bringing a vehicle home from out of state. Your coordinator tracks the carrier from the origin, calls with a delivery window, and — because Lakewood's streets allow it — usually delivers right to your driveway.
Plenty of Lakewood and Long Beach families keep a place in Big Bear, Mammoth, Lake Havasu, Palm Desert or Scottsdale, and shipping a second vehicle there for the season is cheaper and easier than it sounds. Because Lakewood pickup is door-to-door, the hard part is just the timing: book for a pickup window a few days before you plan to drive or fly out, so the car is there when you arrive, and schedule the return for a few days after you leave. Mountain destinations can have road restrictions in winter that delay a carrier by a day or two; your coordinator will tell you what's realistic for Big Bear or Mammoth in January. Desert destinations are easy year-round. Keep the vehicle's details on file with the Lakewood office and the next booking is one call.
A coordinator who knows that Lakewood streets take a hauler, that military report dates need a real plan, and that port and Auto Square traffic creates cheap outbound capacity will serve you better than a national call center. Golden State Auto Transport matches you with licensed, insured carriers screened for operating authority, safety record and active cargo coverage, and stays on the line from quote to delivery. Start with the instant quote above or call the Lakewood office at the number at the top of the page.
New to shipping a car? Read how it works, what goes into the cost, and the pickup checklist.
Get a free, no-obligation quote in about 30 seconds — or call our Lakewood office and talk to a coordinator now.
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