The Good, The Bad, The Honest Truth of a New Roehl Lease Operator

Why all the hate and discontent?? Try running your business under these conditions and make a living at it. If you owned your own truck or about to pay off a lease the rules concerning miles seemed to "change". Those who were still in the depth of a lease from the company had good miles. Those of us that were not leasing from them were struggling with our FM to get 2000 miles a week. Seemed like they want to get rid of us since they were not making any money off of a lease. I call it as I experienced it. Spent 3.5 years with them all owning my own truck. First 2 years were not too bad. The last 1.5 years was a constant struggle to get miles. Didn't matter what you did, agreed to or time spent out on road your time was wasted with short mile runs. Glad it is working for you presently. Me, I glad I moved on to a better situation being more my own boss and making money.

 

Appreciate your insight. Glad things are working better for you now.

 

I have also wondered why there is such a wide gap in miles among drivers. Many of these drivers have the same fleet managers, stay out the same length of time etc... yet have over 1000 miles per week difference in their weekly average. I do firmly believe that if you are getting miles that puts you in the top 10% of miles, then you are doing something right, and if you are in the bottom 10% in average miles, then you are doing something wrong. But that still leaves the middle 80% of drivers that have a wide gap in miles.
Maybe I am just blinded since I have not had what I would call a "BAD" year since driving for ROEHL.
Plenty of bad weeks, and even bad months, but at the end of the year I have been very satisfied with my total miles and pay.

 

Congratulations to you Preacherman, I know it was an uphill battle to complete a lease there. Kuddos to you for sticking it out. I knew once I decided to do a L/P that I had to leave Roehl to make it work for me. The whole mileage thing was a huge problem, did everything right and still got lousy miles unless I pestered my travel agent constantly. Happy as a clam where I am, good luck where ever you head to.

 

Congrats preacher I know that is a big load off your shoulders, glad to see you got it paid for.

 

I don't know if this was covered earlier in this thread, but is there a class or something that someone interested in becoming an O/O can take? Something that covers all the expenses and other considerations that a company driver might not be aware of. I'd like to become an O/O in the next year or two, but I don't want to be blindsided by something.

 

OOIDA has several courses available. You should also get familiar with Kevin Rutherford at "Let's Truck." You should also read everything you can on starting and operating a small business. You might also check out SCORE and any information available at the SBA. If you can separate out the opinion from actual facts the owner operator area on this forum will also help.

Insurance will run around $85 a week, then you will have prepass, quallcom and your 2290 to add in as well. This will all add up to about $100 a week. Your truck payment will be up to you, the more truck you buy the more your payments will be and the harder it will be to reach your break even. Figure about $150.00 a month for plates and up to $100 a month for fuel taxes. You need to allow for a minimum of $.06 a mile for maintenance and $.10 wouldn't be a bad idea. You could easily end up with 10 grand in maintenance and repairs over the course of a year even in newer trucks. This should give you some idea of where to start.

 

For about a month now I have been at Landstar. Marj has been out of control and John followed suit. When John told me that as my customer they hold all the cards and could treat me anyway they choose that was the straw that broke the camel's back. He went on to say that if I didn't like it too bad because Roehl was under no obligation to offer me any loads ever. The fact that this is a clear breach of contract didn't seem to matter. I applied to Landstar within 24 hours, but kept everything close to the vest. It turned out that was a smart move since when it came time to pull the trigger and give notice they cancelled the lease immediately. Even the worst companies I have been with in the past didn't act as unprofessional and petty as Roehl. Frankly, Eric Wilson has a temperament better suited to running a fast food restaurant than his current position. Even though we were going in different directions it could have been handled professionally. I gave them twice the notice required in the lease, they chose to act unprofessionally.

Landstar was the right decision for me, but there is quite a learning curve. There is also a large mental adjustment. An example of what I'm talking about is when they located my trailer. I had to go to Colorado Springs, yet I had planned on spending a day with my wife. Their reply was no problem, it was up to me when I wanted to go get the trailer, it would be there waiting. During orientation we were told several times that 1400 people get to go to work everyday because of us, the truck owners. I have one dispatcher-he stars at me every time I look in a mirror

One thing I have already learned- I will never, ever haul produce ever again.

 

This thread started in 2010 here it is 2014 do they still pay the same

 

They did raise the rate, in fact when empty miles and fuel surcharge are figured in, they pay better than Schneider's mileage pay board.