CR England..Don't Go With Them

I still say that 50% of the POSTERS have never worked for the company ( let alone even drive a truck ) they are complaing about.

It is always a story with the same complaints but in a slightly different format , they sign up here post a few posts of the AFTER AFFECT of working for XYZ or whoever and then GONE..

 

I still have friends at CRE ... one completed his second lease and purchased the truck ... poof! Away went the varible milage that is supposedly paying for office staff. You're right, the fact is you're paying it. Like I've said before, as long as you are happy with where you are at, that's all that matters. If it makes you feel better to believe it pays for the office staff, by all means do so.

Agian, my friend that purchased, the truck was offered at price slightly less than a comparable truck when he priced them on the market. Interest rate was little steep, but he's making it work, especially since the varible milage is gone. CRE also bumped the governer up to 75.

Don't even ding your credit, if you turn in your truck the right way. I was running with my son on his lease. No dings on his credit or his DAC and he still gets letters from CRE offering bonuses of up $2000 to come back and lease again.

 

Well, maybe that's one of the benefits to being an owner operator, I don't know. Either way, it doesn't matter. Maybe it had to do with the fact that your friend completed the lease on two trucks. Again, I'm not concerned about it. If I was, I wouldn't have signed the lease.

Well, they have done a fine job so far of keeping us busy, taking care of our load issues and all the other stuff so we don't have to so whether or not the variable mileage is specifically for that, its fine. We only have about nine months left on the lease so after that, we're done.

I spose that was just a rumor then but as I mentioned before, we'll never know because we're not purchasing this truck. We've paid enough on it already. Besides, if I ever do buy a truck, it'll be something I want and that has been speced out for an owner operator.

Another benefit. If there was any gripe I had about leasing, this is it. That, and the fact you can't idle when you want, had to wait till they changed their minds to allow 13 speeds and a sliding fifth wheel.

If what you say is true, then there really isn't a reason to go as long as some of these people do without making money when they sign a lease. But where would the excitement be in that? It just amazes me to no end the number of people that make bad decisions and then blame the company and to top it all off, actually get support from people on here for it.

 

I was an O/O at CRE and never paid a variable. I did when I leased, though. And was around when they bumped the rate to 14cpm. We were told specifically it was to make the lease price cheaper in case you went home or were broken down or didn't get a lot of miles that week. But, if you got a lot of miles, your 'lease' payment was astronomical. It was around 2008-09 when they started telling people it was for 'office staff'. By this time, I was already O/O and not paying it. So, either my DM was pro bono, or it was, still, just a ruse.

I never had many problems getting loads (other than certain areas where the load planners were incompetent or worse). But, you get to know them. good thing to learn their names and call them directly when you can. Some freight areas are just bad to begin with, the load planner doesn't help much in those situations. Again, you learn to not take loads there. And don't be afraid to turn things down. Loads, swaps, etc. It's your money you're giving up by taking crap.

My truck was a little overpriced, and the interest was high. But, no down payment. I paid it off early, though. And again, no variable. So, it became a lot cheaper than leasing.

I'm glad I got into CRE before they started the 'babying' stuff. My truck was governed at 70 and when I paid off my truck I took the governor off. Had the sliding fifth wheel and 13 speed. Also, I could idle whenever I wanted because my truck was old enough to not have their monitoring stuff. The problem with the idling is the newest trucks CRE has complied with the CARB rules about idling.

CRE turned down all 'new lease' trucks and company trucks to 62 back when diesel spiked over $5/gallon. They told us specifically it was to save money on fuel. When fuel prices dropped, drivers wanted their 65 (company) / 70 (lease) governors back. But, by then CRE decided to start telling drivers they've turned down the speeds for our 'safety'. Which is funny, because I ran ungoverned for two years. I guess they felt I was really unsafe then but let me still drive for them.

All in all, take every "GREAT NEWS!" qualcomm with a grain of salt. Anytime they announce some great new thing for the driver, it's probably only benefiting them. Just like the 'simplified detention policy' that took probably $100/wk out of my pocket. Now, detention only on >3 hours and only after the end of the 'window appointments'. Before, you could get an 8am-10pm appt time and show up at 8am, sit until 8pm and collect 10 hours detention. Now, you're sitting for free. Again, this was done to make it 'easier for drivers to understand whether they are or are not eligible for detention'.

 

I don't care how much research you do. OK! Your not going to get the 411 until your a.. is in one of their trucks. Everyone's situation is different what another Guy eats don't make you sh.t and vice versa so lets leave that research crap outside. Everyone posting about companies on this website got their information first hand OK! FIRST HAND EXPERIENCE. Thats the only reason this website exists in the first place. The notion that doing research will in some form or fashion be a preemptive measure to avoiding a fatal mistake in this industry has got to be the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. And any fool who subscribes to that nonsense needs his head examined.

 

If this is true, I would've been satisfied if they came right out and told is that.

Yeah, that's true. Needless to say, that's another reason why we don't run typical CRE miles for teams.

Swaps are really the only loads I turn down from time to time. Don't get me wrong, I like to help out once in a while, mainly to have a "1-up" on them so that I can assure I get home on time but as far as refusing loads from my DM, I don't do that because of supposedly losing our deadhead miles on our next trip. So far, we haven't had the need to refuse a load.

Oh, I'm sure it was. You can make some serious money with England if you had no truck payment or variable mileage to pay. For us, that would be an extra grand every week.

Sometimes I wish we woulda too, but oh well. It's not that bad, though. I can make my truck go faster when I need it too. We've got the air cylinder back on the fifth-wheel and had the 13-speed upgrade.

See, that doesn't make sense. According to the owners manual, the only thing required to be compliant with California's goofy emissions law is you just have to have the idle timer that shuts the engine down that one time. This nonsense with the above 75 degrees, below 20 degrees is purely England's crap. Besides, all of the new trucks have that sticker on the side that says they are clean idle certified and to top it off, it has a picture of the state of California on it so we ought to be exempt from Commiefornia's anti-idle crap.

Which is crap because your really not burnin' that much more fuel. Plus, they can do what they want with company trucks but us lease operators are paying for our own fuel. Another thing, we only have one truck to pay for, not 300.

What's funny is that they let the leasers who signed their lease before they slowed lease trucks down and they let owner operators run that fast so apparently they don't care about their so-called fuel savings.

Yep, again, they must not care about the safety of all the folks that were grandfathered in or the guys that have bought theirs.

 

I agree completely. I love how so many people who post their bad experiences acts like everyone else will fail as well.

I found out about this site long after I went to England. Didn't hurt me none. Of course, I have to admit, I have a pretty good knack of separating bull manure from reality.

Makes me wonder how many people gave up their dreams of joining the industry because of all the negative threads for any given company.

 

Oh, and another thing.

For all of those that stayed away from CRE because of what you've read here, if you found success at another company, that's awesome.

Whether or not you would've had the same success at CRE is irrelevant. Long as you are making things work out for yourself with whatever company you chose, that's what's really important.

 

Option 1: Pay a company rent in the form of a lease to drive something that is leased from a leasing company to a Common Carrier, and then leased to a Driver with about 100% loss on investment. A driver will buy the truck two times before they hand over the Title. Compare a good used Cascadia sells for 50K at Freightliner 350 a week for 3 yrs, A 3 year lease at CRE equals approx 700 bucks a week for three years, $109,000 and when you buy out the lease its only worth 50K on the open market. so you would show an operating depreciation of 59,000 (loss) over three years. That's if you are still in business and have a good CPA handling your federal returns...

Option 2: Buy a used truck and haul freight the old fashioned way. As an Independent Owner (note must be credit worthy and have strong financial business relations)

Option 3: Drive a company truck

 

PT Barnum said " there's a sucker born every minute" Mega companies saw there wasn't any laws on the books making it illegal to exploit gullible drivers, so they're making a killing off of it. Its all perfectly legal. The contracts are vague or what's hurting you wont be in the contract. No miles wont ever be in the contract. Heavy freight wont be in there either. Its a cold hard world out there. So it's eat or be eaten. This is the basic fundamental rule in life. And its alive and well in the trucking industry.