Landstar Questions

Call LS and ask them. Everyone's insurance is different based on the value of the truck.
You got a new truck from Prime, that means you owe like $200K?
Your insurance is gonna be A LOT.

Call them. You can do the entire application process, while you're still at Prime, and you want to cause it take a good 30 days.

I got hired by LS and quit my job the same day.

My insurance for everything is like $300 or so a month.

I leased mine through Freightliner. I don't see what difference the name of the leasing company would make.

Now something that may matter is the balloon at the end.
I have no balloon.
A lot of people use Lone Mountain and they have no balloon.

 

I wanted to go through lone Mountain, but I don't have enough experience, and no cash and no credit. Hence the mega carrier lease. This truck already has almost 300,000 miles on it, and if I complete this lease and do the buyout at the end, I will have paid $211,000 for this truck. Not going to happen. I'm looking to get into a lone Mountain style lease or to purchase a truck so I can keep my payment around $1500 per month. Still… If I were able to make a significantly higher gross if I can't get my hands on a cheaper truck, that would make the situation more livable until I can qualify to buy a truck.

Honestly, I would rather stay at Prime because they treat me with respect, there is a family feeling here, and I can have my kids with me, all under the age of 10.

But if there is more money to be made elsewhere, I have to pursue that option. I have stayed poor up to this point in my life because I have allowed emotion to rule over reason. And math. Math can make me rich. Emotion keeps me poor.

 

LOL at that last paragraph. If that is trully how you feel, you're a Landstar man.
I think you will find you'd make more at Landstar with a van, than as a team at Prime, and not even drive as much.

 

There is no family feeling at LS , LS is a cold calculating corp , all they care about is their money and making rules .
They have no special freight to speak of anymore , and you as a new recruit will not see it .
You'll have to start a crash course in how to work a load board , find loads and lanes , it's not easy it takes time and effort , that time and effort is free .
There is no one to push you , if your not a complete self starter , don't go to landstar you will fail , no one will call you except if you owe them money or they want to take your trailer .
Now with all that said you can make money here , I think a properly motivated driver , with some load hunting skills can make 5k a week after his fuel , that's can make , things aren't always going to fall together and crap happens .
Not trying to bust anyone's bubble but if your happy where you are stay there, most guys at landstar learn to dislike them , and that's being nice , one thing is certain a LS check won't bounce , but you have to watch your pay , they never make mistakes in your favor

 

Landstars best loads never make the board.

 

All companies are in business to make money. The fact LS is netting almost 200 mil a quarter means you will never have to worry about pay or access to good loads. The rates at LS right now are the best they've been in my 11 years. I own my own reefer trailer but lately i have been running as many dry loads as wet ones. This morning there were 41,125 available loads. I've never seen that many. I've been turning down $4 per mile loads. A bad week now is 5k in my pocket after everything is paid. Unreal. Knock on wood. Happy times for me. The only crappy thing is the ELD mandate kicks in Monday. I've been on them for years but the sucky thing is the 2 mile buffer before the clock starts is gone. Move at all above 5mph and you immediately are driving. Lets say you have a 7am delivery appointment. You arrive at the consignee at 10pm. You cant find parking anywhere within 1 mile. So in the morning you either start your clock while moving to the consignee or you are late for your delivery. There are lots of other scenarios that will suck too but that is a bad one. We will really have to plan ahead. And hope to not get caught in accident or construction traffic

 

Yeah, but think about how safe it'll be. I get a warm feeling just thinking about how much safer the world will be with these elogs...

Said no experienced owner op, ever.

 

i was gonna ask about the range before it kicks u on the drive line, so its anything over 5mph? how far can you go 5mph? i heard all this recently. if you see trucks rolling around at 5mph i guess we will kno why lol its getting dumber every day out here.

 

Every truck stop in America will be zombie like with every truck moving at 3 mph after fillup as guys move from the fuel lane to park. Stupid. And not safe. The old timers with pre 2000 trucks are gonna lose it. Unintended consequences.

 

One thing i'm grateful for, having been a company driver at Swift, is that they can't force you to drive on not enough sleep-- for days on end. Let's not forget that's probably one of the biggest reasons DOT rules and elogs are set up the way they are.