Current Company Driver Looking to Lease

*Warning: Long post, I just want anyone willing to provide information to know my whole story behind the wheel and I don't want to leave anything out.

Current Situation
Currently I drive for Werner Enterprises, been driving for them for about 5 months, plus an extra month of when I was with a trainer. I started by attending professional driver's school in San Antonio, TX...funded by Werner...of course they'd convince me to drive for them. I graduated top of my class and passed the driving test with flying colors. I consider myself a good driver, I've had on incident my first week when I was alone where I was backing in a real tight spot, a 90 maneuver, and I wasn't paying attention to the passenger side of my trailer and I hit the truck directly across from the spot I was backing into with the front right of the trailer. I just nicked his nose a little, either way, still a stupid rookie mistake. I haven't had any other issues since then. Driving with Werner isn't bad for a starter it seems. I get paid extremely low from what I hear but I didn't expect to start out making a ton of money. Right now I get paid 30 cpm running a reefer unit in Werner's TCU division. I previously ran their 48 states dry van division and was making 35 cpm but not getting more than say 2000 miles a week average which I was starting to fall behind on bills with. I make about 3100 miles a week at 30 cpm which pays out on average more than dry. I do a ton of sitting around with this unit but still make more miles than I did with the dry account. A lot of waiting for export papers for loads going to Mexico. Since I'm based out of Laredo, that's more than 90% of the loads I haul. So I'll drive 1300 miles with a load to Laredo from somewhere in the central states, get to Laredo, take the trailer to the terminal to get it inspected, then drive to a forwarder. Then I end up sitting at the forwarder, any of the forwarders, for many hours almost any time. I hate sitting around but I'm not going crazy, I have a TV and a PS4 to run down the waiting time but as I sit there I can just feel my wallet getting thinner. I've been thinking about leasing to a company ever since a month in at Werner. I left college for this life because I wanted to do this, my grades and all were fine but I didn't like the idea of a repeat routine job...that's near what I expect hell would be like. So I'm trucking for life, it's what I want to do. I can't imagine doing what I do now with Werner for much longer...it's getting under my skin slowly but surely. My dispatch is fine, no problems there. My truck is decent but degrading rapidly. My sit around time is way too excessive. My pay is garbage. Home time is garbage. I drove for 5 weeks my last run without seeing any family, going home at all, doing nothing but driving and I got 4 days off. I requested the hometime about 6 weeks in advance so I could make Thanksgiving with my family up in North Carolina, I live in Texas. While I was in Laredo, TX waiting for another load, 1 day from my requested hometime start day, they sent me up to Indiana...come on...so I missed Thanksgiving with my family and got home about 3 days late. That's something I'm definitely annoyed at. Don't get me wrong, I love driving a lot but I have family and friends I want to see...life would be miserable just driving non-stop for 5 weeks at a time and only getting a few days home. I can't do that for very long. So I want to have my choice of when I want to grab a load or when I want to head home for a few days. As long as I make sure I can afford the home time of course.

Equipment History with Werner
I'm running in a decent KW T680 which I don't have any complaints about performance nor do I have to worry about fuel consumption but it has problems that are annoying. Only a few storage doors inside the cab actually close. The driver side emergency door in the sleeper sometimes comes open when I hit a bad patch of road. The front heater decided to not work as soon as these winter storms hit...and a few other things that don't necessarily effect performance, just a pain in the rear. I've been through 3 trucks with them. The first was a Freightliner Cascadia which I didn't like much, not to mention it was falling apart. It failed the 60-day inspection at Werner's terminal so they put me in another run down truck which was a KW T680 which had all the same problems, minus the heater, that I do now. About a week in with that truck the front driver side hub burned up in Louisiana. They had me take it to a KW dealer which I sat at a hotel for more than a week making a whopping $50 a day in downtime pay before my fleet manager finally decided to send me to my current truck which is another KW T680. I can't complain a lot though, the T680 is definitely a nice truck especially when you're with Werner and have to sit around a lot. I'm tired of being in a truck that isn't mine that I can't modify in any way at all. The good thing about being a company driver is I don't have to worry about paying for any damages or fuel or preventative maintenance that is required for this truck. Just the other day I was driving through the "mountains" on I-40E right outside of Nashville and a tree fell on the side of my truck taking out both my hood mirror, door mirror, and CB antenna. Werner had me take it to a dealer in Nashville and had it all fixed in a couple hours. That's something I'd definitely miss but something I'd be able to handle on my own if I had to. I drive a 1 Ton pickup at home that has it's problems all the time, especially with all the modifications I do to it. They only do servicing on these things every 30,000 miles...no oil change for 30,000 miles...unbelievable. I noticed the prices for a standard PM at the TA and realized why they wait so long...that's gonna be a nice chunk come time to drive my own truck but I'll deal with it. Everything is taken care of Werner at their monetary expense but at my time expense.

What I Want
I want to be in my own truck, making more money, not sitting around all the time, and have the ability to go home when I want. My long term goal was to use my 1-Ton pickup and haul hotshots with that but I'm slowly leaning away from that because I love being in a big rig...not to mention there probably isn't as much money circulating for 1 tons as there are for rigs. My pickup truck at home clearly shows what kind of person I am, I like to have a good looking truck that turns heads and sounds like a truck. It's quite an obnoxious vehicle but I love that. I see a lot of classic style trucks rolling down the highway sounding like...well...trucks. So I don't want to jump into a Freightliner Cascadia or something because let's be honest, that's probably the most boring dull looking truck out there especially with the black bumper and sides. I guess companies don't want to have painted panels because new drivers suck so bad that they have to get them repainted too, now they don't...maybe that's not why but that's what it looks like. I like the KW T660, it looks like a truck but it's not a fuel sucking monster like the square nose trucks. I like the KW T680 too because it's a good size on the inside and I could really live in here if I had too...oh wait...I do. So I want something that doesn't look like a turd rolling down the road but also doesn't suck up fuel like a 1970 big block...a lot to ask for I suppose. I have an eye for the International Lonestars but I don't see as many of them running around and I expect there is a reason for that. I love the classic style trucks, mainly KWs, with all the fancy chrome and big ### stacks but I realize that those are expensive to buy and run. But with a good financing plan I could probably afford to buy one as long as I know I'll be able to make money running leased. I know for sure I couldn't afford anything at the rate I'm running with Werner. I had planned to run as owner operator with Werner through their purchase program which looks real good on paper but is like a cell you're locked in apparently. I almost did it, they need 3 months as a company driver so I was going to call when I got there. I did and I called and they had changed it to 6 months experience and instead of a $0 down payment on one of their trucks, they bumped it up to a $1500 down payment which isn't bad but it eliminates their "great" purchase program that I liked. Not to mention it's like $600 a week to buy one of their trucks. So I want to rid of Werner completely as soon as possible. I want to have some security as far as loads go which in my inexperience know nothing about grabbing loads from load boards or whatever. I read a little on Landstar and leasing to them and it looks like they run you basically like you're under your own authority but have a collection of loads and discounts for certain things which sounds pretty good. So I want to run with them but they want me to be 23, and I'm only 22 until October. I can wait that long I guess, it'll help me build up some funds to buy a better truck and feel more comfortable about leaving Werner's "job security". I plan on selling my pickup at home which I can probably get somewhere around the $30,000-$36,000 range for it. That'll give me a good chunk but I don't know what it's going to take to buy a truck and do all the taxes and insurance and all that for this. I just want to run a truck I own, be able to go home when I want, and not sit around waiting for ###### export papers or some other nonsense. Leasing with Landstar seems to check off those desires.

What I Want to Know
I know that sitting behind the wheel and being able to drive an 80 foot, 80,000 pound truck is only a small part of being a truck driver. Right now with Werner it's the only thing I have to worry about...which I'm not worried about. So what is the process of purchasing a truck. It seems I can get almost any truck I want with Landstar unlike Werner which required it to be farely new as well as blue, white, or black. So knowing that I can look anywhere for a truck. Should I find a used truck? Should I stick with dealers to find one? I've talked to a few drivers who bought decent trucks like older model T660s for less than $5,000 that simply needed tires and they were out making money with it instantly. That's definitely a very money efficient way to go about it but this is a lifestyle, I'm don't want to cheap out on a truck. That's basically like buying a run down house...or maybe even worse than that because you're making a living with a truck while living in the truck. I had about a paragraph worth of questions so I'm just going to make it easy and put them in a list:

• What is the process of buying a truck?
• Even if I'm leasing with Landstar, I need to get insurance on it so what kind of insurance and who's best for providing it?
• If I'm leasing with Landstar what do I need to do with that truck to get it ready for to run with them?
• Can someone explain the process of picking loads?
• I have a Qualcomm with Werner and all I do is read the info and head to the origin/destination. What changes when if I lease to Landstar?
• SInce I'm leasing to a company, what kind of things do I need? I don't need my own authority or my own trailer right? But what else do I need?
• What happens with benefits like health insurance, dental, disability...all that? I don't really need life insurance...I'm a loner...
• What kind of taxes do I have to worry about?
• If I could keep my pickup I would like to, what kind of funds do I need to start with leasing? I know it's a must to have some kind of emergency fund sitting around for big repairs which can come up even with a brand new truck now doubt. Is it possible to start simply with a few thousand?
• Do dealers offer $0 down payment plans for big rigs?...that's probably dependent on the dealer I'm sure.

Basically, what do I need to do to start leasing with Landstar with the situation of not having a truck or my own authority? All I have is 6 months experience and the extreme will to drive trucks my whole life. I left a full academic ride with a 3.62 GPA in Information Technology to do this because it's what I want to do. It's always been a nag at the back of my head. I drove my pickup everywhere unnecessarily just because I loved to drive. I envied every truck driver I saw, besides the ones jacknifed or wrecked somewhere of course. I KNOW this is what I want to do...being a company driver is NOT what I want to do. That was clearly after only a month in. So help me out...where do I even start?

 

Hey I warned you! haha

 

I did some searching I just wanted some more personalized answers. I live in Abilene and I've looked at other companies that pay more like Crete which pays 45 cpm I think but like I said, I want to run my own truck.

 

I live in Abilene, they sent me to the Laredo account because they were desperate for drivers for that account. All the routes around my area are either taken or have a 2000 mile average at 30 cpm. That would put me home weekly which I'm probably going to do if I get convinced to hold off on the leasing idea.

 

Yeah but I want to run my own truck. I don't like running a company truck, it's not bad and it's definitely cost effective but I want to move into a more permanent driving position. Driving my own truck.