[northcar]

Looking for updated information and website links for tracking a car manufactured in Sweden once one has the VIN number but does not know on which ship it is being transported. Assume the responses would apply equally to Overseas Delivery Vehicles and those coming directly to a dealer on order, but am primarily interested in how to track a vehicle that was picked up on European Delivery and left at the Factory Delivery Center for its shipment to the U.S.

user.name posted the following on the old tracking your car thread. There have been no responses.

(Hopefully by starting a new thread on the topic updated information can be provided. Anyone tracked their vehicle in 2022? If so what tips can be shared. Thanks.)

"An old thread, but since the topic is still the same I'll use this anyway.

Not so surprisingly, none of the tracking links in this thread work anymore and I'm not a professional in finding stuff from the net. But I did find a notice on Wallenius Wilhelmsen web pages that "Due to security concerns we have decided to remove the cargo id search functionality from our Track & Trace web page."

Is there a way to find out on which ship my car is on or do I just have to guess? I do know the VIN and the date the car was built."

 

[hugies]

I don't think you can look up by VIN anymore. We looked at the expected departure date on our OSD paperwork, then looked at the Departures listed on the Port of Gothenburg website, for car carriers leaving the car terminal around our date to identify likely candidates. Then look at the Wallenius Willhelmsen website ( RoRo vessel schedules and routes - Wallenius Wilhelmsen ) to see which ships are traveling from Gothenburg to your expected port of importation. Once you're relatively confident you have identified the right ship, you can track it realtime on myshiptracking.com using the unique vessel number. It's still only a guess, but a relatively educated one. Mind you, it assumes that the car doesn't get offloaded and onloaded at different ports to different ships along the way. IF they do, my guess is worthless. I'm not sure if dealers have ship info, ours hasn't responded to questions about that. We asked the home shipment people at Volvo they said they are not able to tell us what ship we are on.

 

[Island_V70]

If the car is on a ship, marinetraffic.com will show you the location of the ship.

 

[skibum50]

It should also be helpful to look at multiple ports, since the logistics are not necessarily straightforward. When mine was shipped a few years ago, the ship left Gothenburg, then stopped at Zeebrugge, then went to Southampton where it was transferred to another ship on which it went to Baltimore for offloading and customs.

 

[Svenvs]

Start by contacting Volvo's third party home shipping/logistics co. Their contact info can be found here:
Volvo Home Shipment (this URL should also be on your home shipment voucher in the black folder you received when you picked up your vehicle).
With your OSD order number, they should be able to tell you the voyage/vessel or vessels. And as stated above, it may be more than one ship.
Then watch ships on marinetraffic, vesselfinder or myshiptracking. Note: port delays happen so if your routing includes a switch in ships in a certain port and the 2nd ship departs bf the 1st arrives, it will get rebooked on another.

 

[aduvall]

If the car is on a ship, marinetraffic.com will show you the location of the ship.

This one has been working really well!

 

[aduvall]

My paperwork did not indicate a ship simply said TBD, but hugies was kind enough to share this website, RoRo vessel schedules and routes - Wallenius Wilhelmsen. In that website if you do a search for the whole month it will show all the ships going out. Just choose what port your arriving into. You can estimate what ship it is by your estimated delivery date from the paperwork given in the factory. If you can pinpoint what ship then marinetraffic.com can give you the location. I’ll tell you we also did an apple air tag. It’s been working this far. I know the marrinetraffic.com is accurate as it said the ship was in Belgium this morning and that’s where my most recent ping has been.

 

[CDubbsDT]

If it helps at all, mine was estimated to be dealer-delivered between 24 April and 30 April in Chicagoland. Tracking back, there was a ship due into port on the 14th.

Leaving Goth on 31 March and arrived on time 14 April according to the Wallenius website. Marinetraffic.com also confirmed, showing it was north on the east coast on the 13th (went to New York before Brunswick GA).

Unfortunately, my estimate just got pushed back to next Friday +/- one day. Took a while to clear customs and no car hauler was available to grab it this week.

Edit: Car is coming a bit early.
Original estimate: 24 to 30 April in Chicago area.
Revised estimate: 5 to 7 May
New confirmation: 4 May.

 

[northcar]

Thanks all for the helpful updated hints. If one has a vehicle headed to the West Coast it is always fun to check the Panama Canal webcams. On a past European Delivery I was able to watch the ship in which my vehicle was being transported as it went through a portion of the Panama Canal.

I still have the screenshot:

 

[hugies]

We've now been told what ship our OSD car will be on and let me just say the "Expected Departure Date" on the Volvo paperwork means nothing. If the current schedule holds, our car will have sat at the factory for a full month (and a full 25 days AFTER the "expected departure date") before it ends up leaving Gothenburg. The home shipment website says shipping frequency is "once per week" on OSD cars returned to the FDC, so we assumed (silly us) that the longest a car would sit there would be a week, until the next shipment. Never assume the "best case" scenario I guess.

 

[aduvall]

Ours too. Dropped off 4/6 shipped out 4/27. I guess going in we knew we were at the mercy of the shopping company and have just been trying to be as patient as possible. OSD is a great program but there is nothing quick about it and that’s okay.

 

[northcar]

Ours too. Dropped off 4/6 shipped out 4/27. I guess going in we knew we were at the mercy of the shopping company and have just been trying to be as patient as possible. OSD is a great program but there is nothing quick about it and that’s okay.

OK, I have been able to confirm my vehicle is on a ship. It left the port in Gothenburg on the 29th, approximately a week after I had dropped it off at the Factory Delivery Center and will arrive at Bremerhaven, its first subsequent Port of Call on May 4th with a scheduled departure from there on Sunday May 8th.

Unable to see from any of the tracking websites the projected ports of call from there until it gets to the West Coast presumably through the Panama Canal. (I have a suspicion that it may circle back to Gothenburg before crossing the Atlantic given the voyage projection time line departures from Gothenburg and projected arrival time lines on the RoRo Vessel schedule and routes website.)

It should make it to the California coast during the first week of June and then continue on to Tacoma early the next week where the off loaded vehicle could be stuck in customs another week or two.

In any event well within the time projection for ultimate arrival to my dealer provided at the Factory Delivery Center. It is even possible that with no delay in customs I could see the vehicle several weeks earlier than projected.

Now for some real trivia. I was able to learn that the ship will have made a round the world voyage once it arrives in Tacoma as it departed from Tacoma on February 22nd!

In that less than three month period it has visited the following ports prior to Gothenburg: Tacoma to Yokohama. Yokohama to Higashiharima. Higashiharima to Singapore. Singapore to Suez. Suez to Portsbury. Portsbury to Le Havre. LeHavre to Zeebrugge. Zeebrugge to Gothenburg. It is now enroute from Gothenburg to Bremerhaven.

 

[CDubbsDT]

Looks like it's potentially ED208-TUL as well or you got the ship confirmed? For reference, mine made an east-coast port on the 14th of April and is arriving in Chicago on 4 May, after a 1 week delay in customs and waiting for a car carrier.

 

[hugies]

(deleted)

 

[northcar]

I'm pretty sure we're on ED208 (Tulane) with northcar, then we will transfer to the Thalatta (ED211) for onward travel to Baltimore (with several interim port calls).

Curious where the transfer port is for you and when the ETA for arrival at the transfer port will be. Do you know the projected ports between Bremerhaven and where you transfer?

Yes the Tulane is the current ship. It was built in 2012 so is a fairly new RoRo. Painted red with a white trim top and the words WALLENIUS WILHELMEN plastered in large letters across its width.

 

[northcar]

OK, I had vaguely recalled from a previous European Delivery that the Bremerhaven Port has a webcam. So if hugies, or anyone else with a vehicle aboard the Tulane, wants to check on the ship when it arrives there on the 4th or 5th of May here is a prior posting that includes a link to the webcam. (Look for the big red ship as described in my above post.)

Ouch, I just tried to use the link located in the second post of the below linked thread. It is not working but I am sure with a little Googling one could find an updated link for the Bremerhaven Port webcam(s).

Bremerhaven Port Webcam

 

[hugies]

We will transfer in Zeebrugge. If we're on Titus, it will stop at Bremerhaven fist. I deleted my post because it's also possible we will be on a ship leaving on May 9 for Zeebrugge direct from Gothenburg. If that's the case, our car will have been in Gothenburg for a full month (dropoff April 8, leaves Gothenburg May 9). I want to be sure people understand that the home delivery website saying that ships leave every week from Gothenburg does not mean you will be on the next ship, or the next, or the next, or the next.....We were also told that the expected departure and arrival dates listed on our OSD paperwork were not set in stone, but deemed reliable. Our car is leaving Gothenburg 25 days AFTER the expected departure date. Just so people have realistic (very low) expectations...I know these are strange times for cargo timetables.

 

[northcar]

OK, I had vaguely recalled from a previous European Delivery that the Bremerhaven Port has a webcam. So if hugies, or anyone else with a vehicle aboard the Tulane, wants to check on the ship when it arrives there on the 4th or 5th of May here is a prior posting that includes a link to the webcam. (Look for the big red ship as described in my above post.)

Ouch, I just tried to use the link located in the second post of the below linked thread. It is not working but I am sure with a little Googling one could find an updated link for the Bremerhaven Port webcam(s).

Bremerhaven Port Webcam

Anyone have luck locating a working link to the Bremerhaven Port webcam(s)?

 

[northcar]

For anyone else who has a vehicle on the Tulane here is the latest reporting. ED208 Tulane is presently moored in the harbor at Bremerhaven. As noted in a post above its scheduled departure is Sunday May 8th so presume that will be sometime Saturday U.S. time.

Its next port of call will be Zeebrugge where its ETA is 06:00 on Tuesday May 10th and its ETD is May 11 at 23:00.

Apparently this is a link to a webcam at Bremerhaven. Anyone able to discern whether the image is from the active webcam or is it just showing a static screenshot? In any event the pictured view does not show a ship that looks like the red Tulane with its white capped top and the huge words "WALLENIUS WILHELMEN" across its side.

Bremerhaven Port Webcam

 

[northcar]

On further reflection, if this is a live webcam view there is a large car carrier ship pictured with a white capped top but it is difficult to see whether the below portion is red and whether there is any visible lettering.

This was the view as of this posting:

AUTOTERMINAL IN BREMERHAVEN