My Truck, My Choice, Out of Denver, Colorado

You could have done it too if you wanted.

I've done the math in many ways already.
Even if I took cheap freight and ran $1.50 all miles I'd still make more money than a company driver at Shaffer at .48 and yes that's with a huge new Kenworth lease payment.
You can do $1.70+ plus all miles if you study and plan correctly.. as many others have in this forum.

However comfort and freedom is worth oh soo much which you don't have as a company driver.
This is a lifestyle and the ability to drive a brand new awesome truck, point and click my loads off a load board.. drop and hooks.. no dispatcher.. FREEDOM oh man it's awesome.
Money isn't everything.

 

Patent pending.

 

I'm scheduled for Jan 5th also

 

And that exactly what's he getting with Lone Mountain truck leasing, more than $1400 a month payments and no warranty, you got 10k in the bank? Go to a real dealership, buy used with warranty !

 

You should try some math, although I don't like lone mt used trucks but, $787 is about $3150 a month on average, after 3 years that's $122,772, and you still owe 59,000 which equals to more than $200,000 after financing the 59k, with lone mt, your total cost is $156,500, and you have more freedom, truck governed speed, additions to truck, with lease you are stuck with what company tells you, lone mt new trucks are not out of warranty, they have full warranties, you would save more than $40k

 

Well sure I know the new lone mountain trucks have a full warranty.
Remember the lonemountain truck quote is a standard freightliner, my quote was for a loaded Kenworth.
Thing is I'm still pretty much a noob and don't want to commit myself to buying a truck yet and putting $12k down right away lol.
This is simply giving me an easy way in, see how I feel and it's a learning experience. Yes there's a price to pay for that I know.
I'm not "stuck with what company tells me" this isn't one of those flat rate mileage L/P deals where you have a dispatcher. This is % and you operator off a company load board.
Oh and yeah I only have one year experience trucking experience and my credit while over 720 only has two year history.. so I doubt I could get approved for much anyway.

 

Nothing wrong with going with the used truck route. Lone Mountain offers a decent way to get into a truck without much of any credit history. The payments are a little high but it's not terrible, I'm guessing the OP's fixed costs for truck payment + insurance, plates, etc., will be in the $500/week range, vs roughly $1100/week fixed costs for a new truck through SFI.

Of course, the older truck will cost a little more in maintenance, but that shouldn't be hard to cover the costs for. Plus, the OP can take the truck to any carrier, run their own authority, etc., vs. being restricted to pulling for SNI for at least a year. At the end of my lease I was just talking about some options with my SFI rep, generally they want to see a year of experience before they'll let you take the truck to another carrier.

Now if you have the credit history, I think going to the bank and getting a loan and purchasing a new or used truck, doesn't matter which really, is gonna be the route that gets you the best interest rate and the lowest payments, but that isn't true in all situations. Dealership financing can be iffy, especially for new buyers, the interest rates are really high and many times you'd be better off going through Lone Mountain or leasing a truck through someone like SFI.

Here, the OP has 10k in funds set aside for repairs, and will have a basic warranty for the first 6 months to cover any bigger issues that might show up. While it may not be the way that everyone would choose to go about it, I think it's a solid plan that doesn't give a leasing company like SFI control over the tractor. Plus, there is a lot more freedom when it comes to modifications to the tractor.

I'm guessing since that truck is a 2011 it has a CM871 Cummins ISX in it. When I leased from SFI I had a Freightliner with the same engine in it. It was pretty reliable but was not trouble free. It was finicky, that's for sure. I believe it had some deep underlying issues, probably related to the timing on the injector cam having slipped, that never let it achieve the fuel mileage that it should have. I would have looked further into that had I decided to keep the truck, but instead I went the old school pre-EGR route and bought a 2003 truck. I would be looking that truck over carefully to see what the level of restriction is on the DPF, checking to see if the EGR cooler has been replaced (original coolers like to crack, and if it hasn't yet, at that mileage, be prepared!), and if the EGR system has ever been cleaned out and the sensors replaced. If you search "rawze isx" on Google, you can find a small website by a guy that knows a LOT about these specific Cummins engines and has a lot of great information that will help you learn about your engine and what to expect. I highly recommend purchasing the Insite software and the adapter to hook the trucks' ECM up to the software on your laptop, it will help you diagnose problems. If you rely on repair shops every time you see a check engine light or have an issue with this engine it will kill you financially. Labor rates from Cummins are around $120/hour and the first words out of their mouth when discussing problems are "TURBO" or "DPF". People like to throw parts at these engines and parts are NOT cheap. Look at the price of a new turbo/actuator for one of these and you'll see what I mean, lol.

 

Looking forward to this journey

 

DFO, why no pic in the signature yet? You got any pics of your truck yet?