Starting in El Paso, need advice

Messila Valley has a terminal in Nashville,TN & a friend likes driving for them. Seems like they haul a lot of auto parts from Mexico to the auto plants all over plus Canada. He recommends the company. Their website m-v-t has some info about the school.

I will add; if you choose the other school, before signing, ask which companies recruit from the school, to ensure the graduates are being placed.

 

Not familiar with schools in El Paso, but i just wanted to wish you and your wife lots of good luck and many safe miles.

 

You probably have to talk to them about the pay, but considering what they haul, my guess is the miles are real good. They will hire you from their own school as long as your scores are at least 80%, which wouldn't be difficult if you study at night after class.

 

Count on being home a 3 to 4 days after being out 3 to 4 weeks. Most say 1 day for ever 7 worked. The company you choose will have their own home time policy. Also most places you get the load they send you. Some companies will try to get you to do lease purchase and will tell you. That you can pick your loads, but when you refuse a load they might put you on the crap list and you may sit an extra day waiting for another and lose money. You also want to choose a company who has freight going through where you live. Some of those companies out of El Paso has out and back freight and you will be back weekly but not to spend a lot of time at home.

Not sure what type of company you will go to after school but some of the training companies only pay 300 dollars a week while training wit a trainer and that's 300 dollars b4 tax and its pretty expensive to live on the road so you will need 75 to 100 dollars a week to eat off of. Some keep you in training for up to 6 weeks and I have seen some only 3 weeks depending on how fast you catch on.

I would budget about 600 dollars a week after training, and most loads are given based on what's available when you are empty and the Hours that you have available to complete it. So you will have up and down mileage weeks. You should try to budget at an avg about 2500 miles. You may get more miles when your company see you can handle things. Like I said I gave you those numbers because that is usually basic and you don't want to get out here thinking you are going to make a lot of money and spend all that time away from family for chump change. You might get a company who pays more then 300 a week while training and you might avg 800 or more after training, but I would budget low so you don't get too many surprises. I have noticed more of those border companies pay lower then the average company so again when you find out who you want to go with. Take the cpm and multiply it by 2500 to see what your check might look like.

 

I attended International Schools when I got my CDL and my refresher in 2011. I would recommend them as they really took the time to teach, they weren't just churning out steering wheel holders. Riley is an instructor there and while he comes off as a hard ###, he's an ok guy. I actually attended the school with him back in '98. He's tough but fair.

FWIW, I drive for Munoz Trucking. If we took trainees I'd tell you to come on over here but you need at least 3 years experience.