C.R. England and Sons, Inc. - West Valley, Ut.

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BBT. Called England a couple years ago, and they told me the only way to get a truck on with them was to lease one of theirs. FORGET THAT! $2400 a month to rent their truck when I could go to Arrow and get a V630 for $700 with warrenty. If there wasn't an age limit for trucks where I am now, I would using my dads 96' FLD120.

 

Wow. So much to read here about CRE. I finally gave up as I need to go to sleep, so I'll just put my dollar in. And no, I'm not getting up on a CRE is great soap box. Just telling you our experience with them.


Just skimming through some more recent posts about company and lease, I'm seeing that they have supposedly quit hiring company and are only doing lease. I don't know if this is true. I have heard it from some of our other new drivers, saying they had to go lease as CRE had anywhere from a four week to a four month wait on company. Depends on who you talk to. I've also heard that they are currently only putting on solo company for a new dedicated auto fleet. If they do let you go company OTR, you either have to team or run the new auto fleet as solo. Haven't really bothered to verify.

Hubby and I hired on with them back in Sept '09 as no other company thought that I was capable of driving a truck. I can actually. Drove for a while a long time ago, quit, then went back to driving local in a major poo poo truck till work dried up and we lost our home. Hubby has been driving since '98.

Anyway, so CRE didn't require us to go through school, or on a trainer truck. We went to a four day orientation, then straight out in a truck. A new 2010 lease truck. I will say that you can NOT make it solo on the lease program, at least in a newer truck because of the payments, ins, plates, etc. Don't know really about an older truck with cheaper payments, but one driver we saw at BH was only paying $275 a week on his truck and still couldn't make it. Said he was running 2000 to 3000 miles a week, and never had a positive paycheck. Kinda wondered what he was doing with his money, but oh well.

So we started out general freight, and we were doing alright. Some bad weeks, like around Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year, but otherwise fairly well. We had an awesome DM who really did his best for us. We very very very rarely had a late P/U or Del, and when we were going to be early to a del, he would find a solo truck with a moving load and pull their load off them and give them ours to keep us running. He did his bend over backwards best to keep us from sitting still.

Now nights and weekends on the other hand. Well, how many times did they screw us out of miles, loads home, etc? Wow. We finally got into a pissing contest with nights because our DM had a load out of Yakima, Wa for us to take to Burns Harbor terminal and drop so we could go home (a week late thanks to nights the week before) for our requested home time. We were eight hours from BH when they tried to pull us off that load to take one to Phillie. And then they might be able to get a load back home that day or the next they hope. Told em no way. We are taking this load to BH, dropping it, and going home. Period. Sent a message back to us saying Well thanks alot. So, obviously they do have their issues.

Back in Jan, we were contacted by dedicated. They had just got a new automotive contract, first one ever, and would we be interested in being on it. We talked it over and decided to go try it. We are now home just about every weekend, yes we do have to run some Saturdays, so we just stay down here rather than burn the fuel to go home for a few hours. We actually took a 5 cpm pay cut (yes we did) and are making more money that we did OTR.

So, we've had a decent go of it so far with them. On the other hand, we've talked to other lease drivers who are failing fast. No miles, can't make truck payments, no paycheck, broke broke broke. Some I attribute to bad DM's. Meaning the DM either doesn't know how to run that person effectively, or just doesn't give a rat's fat hinney. Some are just not good drivers, wanting to stop at every truck stop, and generally goof around. Driving a truck is not a holiday. You have to get in and drive. Some it's poor money management. They blow everything as soon as they get it on junk and toys, pull advance after advance, and don't bother about food till they don't have money. Just foolish spending, to be exact.

Then there are those, that for whatever reason, are well and truly being screwed unfairly. They are good, intelligent, money savvy, hard working drivers, and the company just says piss on them. Let's break em down till they quit.

Every company has it's good and bad points, drivers, DM's, mechanics, and other employees. And every company has drivers and employees who have good to say or bad to say about them. One has to take it all with a grain of salt. Sure, we've had complaints, but we've made phone calls to people, and the problems have been resolved. To everyone's satisfaction.

For those of you who have had bad luck with CRE, I am truly sorry. For those who've had good luck, congrats. I will say to students, go to an independent school so you're not beholden to any company for your schooling costs. Then they can't hold you over a barrel because you owe them for your training costs. And if you do consider CRE, remember, every company has it's good and bad points. Even the best of companies. You can't please everybody all the time.

 

Thanks for sharing an different view point than most have. It is true that different people have different experiences with the same company.

 

The lease program for a six month term:

Lease payment PER WEEK is = $487.00
Insurance PER WEEK is = $216.17
Lic./Permits PER WEEK is = $46.19
TOTAL WEEKLY PAYMENT is = $$ 749.36 $$ x 4wks=($2,998.12 a MONTH!)

As a solo driver you'd have to run A Lot of miles but your only allowed so many hrs a day to do so. God forbid you waste some hours stuck on a closed freeway/Highway.

You have to still make your lease payment even if your home not running for a week, or your drive manager gives you little work or your truck is down for repairs. It's these case's that really puts you in the hole.

 

And this is why if you go into an L/P program and you have NO OPERATING CAPITAL you've screwed yourself!

Operating Capital you ask?...google it! You're a big time think you're an O/O on a L/P fleece program and you thought living pay check to pay check was how to become a trucker! You signed a fleece without looking into being a business owner! You thought trucking was big money. Well it is if you're not getting screwed big time by a BFI company that pays you that embarrassing $.90 at best CPM plus that stupid FSC!

Sorry, but I can only laugh at L/P drivers any more. They jumped without checking to see how deep the water was and now they're in over their heads! I don't hear the song of woe is me any more.

I look at those pitifully sorry numbers above and just by hearing and reading other leases and just shake my head!

 

I did the lease deal with england in 2006. Right out of school i got lucky and was able to get on the walmart account in reno. I made some good money on that account. Got to go home every other day, and take home was about $ 1000.00 a week with a restart. $1400 without a restart. Of course i had to pay quarterly taxes on that. Things may be diffrent now. But i would not recommend leasing and going otr with any company, its just to hard to make any money.

 

yall hurry up and lease on to CRE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

This company sounds like a ###### nightmare. Good grief! All these posts from all these different drivers. They can't all be wrong. Much of what I have read sounds so heartfelt and real. And apparently, according to you guys, there are several other motor carriers just as bad.

 

SEVERAL? ROFLMAO! Theres just a tad bit more than several out there! LOL

 

I was a company team driver with my boyfriend. They were barely givin us enough miles to eat off of. They told us if we leased it is a guaranteed 25% more miles. We were in our truck for 4 months getting less miles then we were as company drivers. His father got sick so we went on hometime to go see him in the hospital. 3 days later we got a call from our dm tellin us that we needed to turn the truck in. That we no longer had jobs. I filed for unemployment and got it. My name wasn't on the lease. It was under my ex's name. Cr england told unemployment that I was fired because I owed 2 weeks truck payment. Now unemployment wants me to pay back all the money I collected. Cr england lies to get their way, and they almost always get their way. Do not work for them.