Western Star or Freightliner

Might keep looking both seem on the high side IMO

 

So basically you are going to do a lease purchase from a company. I say stay away from both. It is plenty good company jobs to choose from. Work for one save your money & buy your own. I'm not going to get into lease purchase it is well spoken for. That is basically what you are getting into.
No need to rush it set yourself up for success and control your own direction.
All the best to you on your journey

 

Could be I have not seen them or had a mechanic check them out. Have you had them checked out?

 

As someone who quite literally just bought a truck and went O/O (still getting the wetkit installed as of this post) ill say this. Dont walk, run from BOTH of those. While they may well be well maintained its likely they will have a lot of problems with how old they are and how many miles they have.

For example that 99 "may have a lot of work done to it" but anyone can use a can of spray paint and throw on some hoses. Plus the whole "cant get repair papers because of medical issues. is a HUGE neon flashing with fireworks red flag in my eyes and makes the whole deal suspect. Plus 770k miles is STUPIDLY low for that year. The 2016 i drive at my current job has 751k on it with 110k on the rebuild. So either thats a rebuilt engine or that truck has had a TON of problems and has sat a lot is what that low a milage count indicates to me.

The 2012 with over 1.2 million and being sold by the guy who maintains them? There is as good a chance as not he is going to try and foist a lemon off on you with his "lease purchase" knowing it will break down a lot and either you will go broke trying to fix it, or when it breaks and goes down and you CANT fix it, he will just repo it, slap you with a huge collection and foist it off to the next mark.

While these are granted worst case situations you are talking about going O/O in a business that can and WILL eat you alive if you let it. There is a reason the VAST majority of new O/Os dont make it. If you really want to go O/O save up and either do what i did and throw a massive ($19,000 in my case) down payment at a newer lower mile truck with a warranty on it. Or save up and buy an older truck with cash.

Those two trucks are ticking wallet bombs and are as likely to blow a cheek off and leave you on the hook for more then you can pay as not. Too risky imo. Plus you NEED to have a huge savings. Keep in mind i paid almost $25K up front for my equipment on truck and trailer and have almost 20k more as an oh #### fund and even that is only JUST enough to get started and argueably still too low.

Only reason i even pulled the trigger that low is i leased my own equipment to my employer (yes this is diffrent then a lease purchase) and he will cover a huge swath of my start up costs by doing so. But if he screws me i can still take my ball (truck and trailer) and go home to find new friends (new carrier)

My advice is to sit down do a ton of research, maybe buy an OOIDA membership and take advantagr of their library of resources to help you not get screwed and save up to either buy a truck outright and have the money for major repairs. Or get a huge down payment and loan on a newer truck and also have the money for repairs and then either lease onto a company or get your own authority. While you CAN make it doing a lease purchase. the odds are against you and you are FAR more likely to make it buying your own rig. Especially by avoiding junk like those two rigs.

 

Well, what did you end up doing? Inquiring minds want to know lol. Kinda in the same boat looking for a truck that is.