Over a year ago I managed to procure a hyper-rare Jeep Grand Cherokee spare tire carrier, and then — through some divine miracle — I stumbled upon another one at a junkyard shortly thereafter. As I was unable to allow that hyper-rare piece to be junked, and because I knew someone who might want it, I spent an hour unbolting the second tire carrier from the Jeep. Now I’m finally getting around to shipping the heavy part, and it has been difficult. And weird.
I have to be completely honest with you: I’m not even entirely sure this is worthy of a blog, but like I mentioned earlier today in my piece about the non-sale of my 1954 Willys Jeep, we need blogs and we need them now! So allow me to tell you about my struggle shipping the hyper-rare Jeep Grand Cherokee ZJ spare tire carrier, and how it got seriously weird.
Before I moved away from Detroit, I sold my borderline mint-condition Jeep Grand Cherokee ZJ five-speed to a gentleman in Texas who then spent the following month making it literally the most perfect ZJ on earth. It’s got the rare center console-delete that was only available on base-model ZJs, it’s got the Euro-only amber turn signals, and I could go on and on. The thing looks amazing. For a ZJ enthusiast like him, the spare tire carrier is considered the Holy Grail of accessories, so naturally when I found the one in the junkyard I reached out to this guy, who told me he’d pay for shipping.
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I split the hitch-receiver part from the actual tire-carrying part to yield two, roughly 50-pound, reasonably (ish) sized pieces that I could pack into boxes. I started by wrapping the hitch receiver in a moving blanket:
Then I made possibly the worst box in human history out of a bunch of little boxes:
I then drove this C-shaped box to a UPS store, where it was immediately and firmly rejected:
I wasn’t out of luck, though, because the UPS clerk offered to “telescope” two large boxes to create an even larger box that could fit my hitch. “Great!” I replied before setting the hitch on the scale, which read 56 pounds. “Nice, that’s actually not so heavy,” I thought to myself. I figured it’d cost $100, maybe $200 to ship the hitch receiver.
I figured wrong.
The quote came out to $458 plus packaging, which would bring the total to over $500! And that’s only half of the spare tire carrier! I messaged the gentleman in Texas to tell him the bad news that it’d cost over $1000 to get him the rare Jeep part; he told me to try FedEx, though I don’t think that’s going to be much cheaper.
So I took to Twitter to see if anyone had any better ideas on how to mail this freight. Quite a few people suggested Greyhound, though that company’s freight shipping option is no longer available.
Someone named Tom S suggested Pigeon. I figured he was referring to some kind of freight company, so I googled it and — though I later realized he meant Pigeon Freight Services — what I initially found in my search is that link above: Pigeons.biz.
This took me to something I could not possibly have fathomed exists — a 56,000 member-strong pigeon message board/forum “dedicated to pigeon owners and enthusiasts”:
Right away, I want to make clear: Nobody in my position can make fun of anyone for being enthusiastic about anything. I do not shame hobbies; I mean, just look at me a few years ago:
But now that I’ve self-deprecated a bit, can we at least look at a few of the posts on this forum? I’m just curious.
The “Dark green sticky poop” post is about someone concerned about the color of a pigeon they just found. Actually giving a damn about the wellbeing of a pigeon is something I can get behind; respect! The “Pigeon bully” post you see above is about someone having trouble keeping one of their pigeons from pecking at the others. I also found a thread titled “Pigeon Bath” in which the poster asks for ways to remove mites with a fluid that is safe for the birds to drink should they decide to do so.
Honestly, a lot of this forum — which, again, I’m a little baffled even exists — is pretty wholesome. Pigeons are, in many folks’ eyes, at the very bottom of the foodchain. They are cigarette butt-eating, shoulder-pooping, french fry-stealing pests. But to these folks, they are worthy of love, as all living thing should be (aside from, perhaps, mosquitos). Here’s a reply talking about using tobacco to keep bugs away:
You can also buy some tobacco stems for their nest boxes and this helps to repel bugs and they carry the stem around the loft so proud looking for the females to add to the nest. Pigeon supply places usually have them and they can be shipped to you a nice size box…I use them from Foys Pigeon Supply out of PA..
What the hell, there’s a Pigeon Supply store? Here’s another reply in the “Pigeon Bath” thread:
I would use a good pigeon cleanser and one I suggest would be Racing Pigeon Cleanser. It gently removes all feather mites and lice.
What the heck? There’s a thing called a Pigeon Cleanser? And what’s this “racing” word here?
I looked at my Twitter again and saw Tom S’s reply:
I then followed the link to “Strombergschickens.com,” and what I found blew me away:
There’s an Amazon Marketplace equivalent for racing pigeons! You can buy these things just like you’d buy a pair of socks or reading glasses! If you’re curious about the “Product Details” of “Blue Bar Saddle Janssen Racing Homer Pigeons,” here it is:
Fast, quick maturing, & reliable racing homer of a light bluish gray color w/2 black bars across the back part of the top surface of the wing. (blue bar) Well conditioned birds. Can fly 400-500 miles. Jansen’s originated in Europe, Germany/Belgium.
- Availability: Pair, Male, or Female
400 to 500 miles of range! These things are the Lucid Airs of the bird world!
Unfortunately, though pigeons are technical vehicles often used to transport messages (which is how I can sorta justify writing about them on a car website), their payload capacity is simply too low to transport my Jeep Grand Cherokee spare tire carrier. It seems a carrier pigeon can cary 2.5 ounces, so I’d need roughly six to carry a single pound. With the hitch alone weighing 56 pounds, and the tire carrier side probably bringing the total weight to 100 pounds, I’d need at least 600 birds. And at $135 a pair (for the cheap pigeons), that’s over $40,000 in pigeons to transport a trailer hitch. That’s not even accounting for the fact that the 1,400 mile journey from LA to Austin would require multiple stops for rest/food/water.
Anyway, pigeons ain’t the answer. But neither is UPS. So if you have any other ideas, please do let me know. Maybe the business named Pigeon could work? Surely it’ll be cheaper and involve a lot less poop.
Fastenal blue lane shipping would be a good place to start, but they can’t cross from west sector to east so shipping from California to Texas is out
For shipping odd things like this check out Uship .com. You make a post and shippers bid on hauling it. A lot of times it will either be a hot shot company. These use a pickup and trailer juat under federal regulations to avoid a cdl and being heavily regulated. Also they will haul multiple things for different destinations simultaneously to save the cost of fuel and haul stuff cheaper.
Other times it will be a trailer truck that is not full, whats called, LTL less than load, and by picking up small items like this helps them with offsetting fuel costs if the pickup and delivery is along or near, a route they are already driving.
I can’t suggest a shipping alternative I’m afraid. I given eBay a serious try on and off over the years as a way to earn a bit of extra income and also scratch my reuse/repurpose/recycle itch and all I can tell you is that the cost to ship stuff has gone WAY WAY up over the past several years (like so many other things) and I don’t even contemplate trying to sell/ship anything heavy because the shipping will come out to be several times the value of the thing being shipped (as you found out).And that’s from a guy who still has a garage full of 1990s era Silicon Graphics workstation hardware, which are all heavy as fu¢k.
I’ve wanted to get a trailer hitch for my ’04 Volvo XC90: I don’t (yet) have any sort of trailer to tow, but I’ve got a hitch-mounted bike rack that I’d like to use, and I’d probably get one of those cargo carriers from Harbor Freight too. However, the hitch itself (new, as if I needed it to be new!) is about $200. and that never includes shipping of course. I KNOW it’s possible to find one used for like $40-50. within an hour of LA, but the effort required to search/locate someone selling it be it privately or at a junkyard, is just too much for me atm.
I gotta conserve what finite reserves of energy that I’ve got: I’d rather use it to grill several pounds of red jalapeno peppers that I then deskin and deseed, after which I quick pickle them with delightfully weird vinegars into jars and give them as little presents to friends and neighbors. They’re fantastic on almost everything! 🙂
Edit: I was too lazy to do the alt code for the cent symbol, so I just copy/pasted instead, and was then unable to easily remove the including style coding (the weird formatting above resulted from my attempts). Sorry.
@David you might want to try a major tool company or retail tool company like Harbor Freight that has a large distribution network.
I read about someone using Fastenal to inexpensive ship a vintage ride on yard/garden tractor cross country.
For a few extra bucks he was able to convince the seller to drop thr garden tractor off at a local Fastenal distribution center. They put it on a pallet secured with tie down straps and a lot of shrink wrap and shipped (trucked) it some 900 miles nearly half way across the country for a few hundred bucks.
This was a fun read. Glad you shared. Recently listening to The Smoking Tire podcast, Matt mentioned a company called Ship Sticks. I guess its mainly for shipping golf clubs, but they also ship luggage and skis too. Perhaps checking with them…you never know. Another option to try, a post on marketplace or something like that simply “in search of grassroots shipping assistance to Texas”; or something to that effect. Tho personally, I’m really hoping you do the smart thing and go for the 600 pigeons.
I once worked with a guy that had pigeons for either like shows or racing or probably both. I thought he and the entire hobby was super weird at first but if you think about it he was just being really sweet with them and I am sure they made his life better also,so I guess it’s all good. It no different than the weird shit we do with our spare time or money if you think about it.
Dude, weird details about car-related stuff are the reason we’re all here! Of course this is blog-worthy! 🙂
Check if Grainger still offers their shipping. Yes, the industrial supply place. For many years if it fit on a pallet, they would put it in trucks with open slots and slowly work your pallet to the Grainger store nearest your destination, where it could be picked up. Its slow, but was cheap. You may need to call someone, not just look online.
Check pirate ship. Last time I quoted out something with them it saved me 50%. Worth it.
Stay away from Old Dominion shipping. When I bought my old NSX, it came with the original wheels and exhaust which I had to ship from the dealership to Detroit. They got “lost” in a warehouse. Since they were technically used car parts I was only offered the scrap weight value in compensation, like $12 bucks for $2k worth of parts.
One word, OK 3 letters, LTL. Might take a week and you’ll spend more if you need a lift gate at either end, but I’m assuming there is a dock at one of the Galpin facilities and if the person picks it up at the local depot it will be cheaper.
MORE OF THIS!!
Every time I have shipped things, USPS has been less than half the price of UPS/FedEx. I hate USPS and they suck terribly at their jobs, but it’s the cheapest way to go by a huge margin.
I love the USPS. Well the Park Slope station I’m not crazy about, but over all USPS is great. Little known fact, but the design of the internet is based on the USPS.