How to prepare your car before shipping a simple 7-step checklist

To prepare your car for shipping, remove every personal and valuable item, photograph the vehicle from all angles, and note the odometer reading. Leave roughly a quarter tank of fuel, take out the SmartTAG or Touch ’n Go, check the battery is healthy, and deactivate the alarm before handover.

Preparing your car before shipping isn't complicated — but it matters. The right prep protects your vehicle, makes any claim straightforward, and ensures smooth handling. Here's our quick checklist.

✅Quick Checklist

🔧Each Step Explained

1. 01

   Remove personal & valuable items

   Marine insurance covers the vehicle, not the items inside it. Take everything out — documents, cash, electronics, personal belongings.

2. 02

   Take photos from all angles

   Record the car's condition before shipping — front, back, sides, roof, and any existing scratches/dents. Key evidence if you ever need to make a claim.

3. 03

   Note the odometer reading

   Write down the mileage before shipping (and check again on delivery). A simple record for peace of mind.

4. 04

   Leave a quarter tank of fuel

   The car needs to be driven on/off the vessel, so about ¼ tank is enough. No need to fill up — a low level is safer for the sailing.

5. 05

   Remove the toll tag

   Take out the SmartTAG or Touch ’n Go from the windscreen so it isn't lost or charged during handling.

6. 06

   Check the battery

   The battery must work for loading/unloading. We inspect before loading, but make sure it's in good shape.

7. 07

   Deactivate the car alarm

   Turn off or deactivate the alarm system so it doesn't go off during handling and transit.

🎒Items in the Car — What Can Stay

This is the number one question we get before pickup, and the answer isn't only about insurance. On a RoRo shipment, the vessel strictly prohibits personal belongings being left inside the vehicle. That isn't a Rentaka house rule — it's the carrier's condition, and it applies even if the item is cheap or you're confident it won't move.

• ✅ Allowed to stay: the spare tyre, the jack, and the OEM toolkit — the original equipment that came with the car.
• ❌ Must come out: everything else. Documents, cash, electronics, child seats, sports gear, boot organisers, anything in the compartments — take it out before handover.
• 📦 If you're shipping by container: container shipping does allow personal belongings, but they must be declared to customs and listed on the packing list. Declared is fine; quietly tucked away is not.

If you genuinely need to send belongings along with the car, tell us at quotation stage rather than on pickup day. The method and the documentation both change once declared goods are involved, and that is far easier to arrange in advance than at the port.

🎯What "Done Properly" Looks Like

The seven steps above are quick to read and easy to half-do. Here is what each one looks like when it is done properly — and what tends to go wrong when it isn't.

Fuel: a quarter tank, not a full one and not fumes

A quarter tank or less is a safety requirement, not a preference — so don't turn up with a full one. But don't overshoot in the other direction either. Between your driveway and your destination the car is driven under its own power several times: onto the flatbed at pickup, around our Klang yard, up the vessel's ramp at Port Klang, back down the ramp at the destination port, and onto the delivery truck. Running the tank down to the warning light doesn't make the shipment cheaper; it just means someone has to think about fuel at the worst possible moment. Leave a genuine quarter.

The battery, the alarm, and the one key

At Port Klang a stevedore who has never seen your car before drives it up the ramp, and at the destination a different one drives it back down. They do that using the single key you hand over on pickup day. So there's a simple test for this step: could a stranger start and drive your car with only that key — no second fob, no hidden switch, no sequence that only you know? If the answer is no, deactivate whatever stands in the way before handover, and tell us about it at booking rather than at the port.

The alarm follows the same logic. An alarm that arms itself on a sealed car deck helps nobody and can't be silenced mid-voyage. And a battery that is already marginal will not improve while the car waits its turn for a sailing — if you would rather it were disconnected while the vehicle is with us, just ask; we can do that on request.

Wash it — a clean car is a better-documented car

This is the step most people skip, and it's the one that quietly costs them. Every mark on your car is recorded before it sails: our yard inspector notes each existing scratch, dent and paint chip with its location and size. Road dirt hides exactly the kind of light surface marks that matter most — and a mark that wasn't visible at inspection is a mark that looks brand new on delivery day. Wash the car the day before handover and the record starts out accurate.

Photos: yours, dated, every angle

We photograph the vehicle thoroughly ourselves — roughly a dozen images at pickup, then sixteen to twenty at the yard covering the four corners, every panel, the undercarriage, engine bay, interior, dashboard, odometer reading, VIN plate and engine number. Take your own set anyway. Yours are dated, they're on your phone, and they're in your hands on delivery day, when you walk around the car comparing it against the inspection report.

The windscreen, and anything else loose

Take the SmartTAG or Touch ’n Go off the glass and keep it with you — it is small, it is easy to knock off during handling, and it has your money on it. The same reasoning covers everything else loose in the cabin: the car gets driven, braked, and then lashed down to the deck with straps and wheel chocks. The only things that should still be inside are the spare tyre, the jack, and the OEM toolkit.

📸The Joint Inspection at Handover

Your preparation ends the moment the car changes hands — and that moment is a documented one, not a wave goodbye. Our driver calls around thirty minutes before arriving. At your address there is a walk-around with you present, about a dozen photos, and a condition form that both parties sign. You hand over one key. The car is loaded onto the flatbed and taken to our yard near Westport, where it's photographed again on arrival and given the full inspection within twenty-four hours. The complete report — photos and form together — comes back to you.

Two things make that inspection worth your attention. First, be there if you can, and actually read the form before signing it: if an existing scratch is missing from the record, say so at that moment, because adding it afterwards is harder for everyone. Second, keep the report. The same walk-around happens in reverse at delivery, with those photos as the reference point — and anything you spot must be raised within twenty-four hours of collection or delivery, after which a claim becomes very difficult to make.

Five minutes at the start, five minutes at the end. If you want to see exactly where those two inspections sit in the wider journey, our 13-step shipping process walks through every checkpoint from quote to door.

🛡️Why This Prep Matters

Every Rentaka shipment is covered by Marine Insurance, with cover that follows your vehicle's Insured Value. But that protection is for the vehicle, not the personal items inside — which is why step one (remove your belongings) matters. Photos and an odometer record smooth any claim, while a low fuel level, a healthy battery, and a deactivated alarm keep handling safe at the port and on the vessel.

❓FAQ