Own Authority VS lease...

If I were you, I would find myself a percentage lease and save the money to get my own trailer and then authority. What do you have to loose, you are only getting by with mileage leases. IMHO, that is all you will ever do with them.

Just realize the only way to make more money with a mileage lease is to chase miles. With a percentage lease you have many more ways to increase revenue. You can run more miles, change freight lines, vary length of haul and haul different freight to name a few.

Take a chance, with increased risk comes increased earning potential. It isn't as risky as running your own authority. You couldn't give me a mileage lease unless it guaranteed $1.70 per mile. Many have posted earnings in the 1.60 - 1.75 CPM on percentage leases. That JBH Power Only that some are talking about is a percentage lease that is averaging around 1.70 CPM.

 

Same, had my own authority. Now I'm leased and run as many as miles as I can. I havent sat for than few hours on a turn around thats including sat and sun. I have had breakdowns which the company covered for and took it out of the check one bit at a time. They are extremely good and never shorted me on miles/pay or charges stupid fees.

Im going to start my authority back up in december because produce is paying insane amounts right now. Hope the trend continues over into next summer and I will be back into hauling produce again.

 

CH is only as cheap as you're willing to haul. Most people don't seem to understand that.

If you're going to get your own authority to pull a van, don't waste your time unless you are gonna deal direct with a customer and only broker something back. All you have to do is look in any TS and see all the van companies and that right there should tell you why the rates are cheap. It's just to over-saturated.

 

Being leased on will not save you in a depression. There isn't a heck of a lot more to pay between being leased on and having your own authority. I'm also guessing that you are at the mercy of your companies load board? You can only take what they have listed? I just watched a Landstar driver sit for almost a week due to no good paying freight. When I checked the load boards there was over 2,500 loads within a 100 mile radius but only a handful were Landstar which he could pick from.

I pull a flatbed and pretty much get around $2.00 for all miles when all is said and done. I travel all the states and no particular lane in mind. I just sort of go from here to there for up to 5 weeks. I do anywhere from 2,500 to 3,500 miles per week. It's up to me how hard I want to work.

Getting your authority is easy. The insurance is the killer though. They may want you to pay the full amount up front or you may be lucky with just a down payment of around $1,500 and the rest monthly. You can do quick pay with lots of brokers and factor the rest until you have enough cash on hand to run.

 

Just to address this. Yes, you can get some good freight that comes out of Mexico. I got some decent paying loads out of Laredo. They were Can Am ATV's that were built in Mexico. I got a little over $2.00 per mile and they were all at least 3 and 4 drops.

The loads that were going to NY City paid a lot more. Still, multiple drops along the way and then that crap hole NYC. Traffic up the wazzoo, chance of theft and your stuck in a place with no freight at all.

The loads going back to San Antonio were also probably a night mare to pick up in NYC and San Antonio is a bad place for freight so they pay well to go there. I'm guessing they dead headed the 200 miles to Laredo after that.

I believe the story and the rates your friends were getting. This works if you can deal with NYC and also be assured you will get those high value loads like the Can AM ATV's. Not always the case.

That lane back and forth worked for them but I wouldn't count on it being there for you. Not sure what you pull but if it's a flatbed I would count on around $1.90 to $2.00 per mile for all miles without trying that hard.

 

One more note. If it was those Can AM ATV's with multiple drops I highly doubt that they could do the run and back in one week. I use to think that way before I started until I did it myself. Doesn't work.

Dropping off your last drop then making it to the next shipper to load can take a while. And, if it only loads till 2pm and you can't make it you just lost the rest of the day. And, if you can't make it by 2pm on Friday you may sit until 8am on Monday. Stuff like that.

 

You can broker loads through Landstar, but will need to run it through one of their agents. It is usually best to find agents who have their own freight, but it can get you out of a bad area to be able to broker a load.

 

I dont want to hijack this thread, but a funny thing about you mentioned eobr's. Im with the sni choice program and i have one on my truck. Those things makes me speed more. Im more tired using this thing. Its telling me when i need to stop. You have to stop hrs early to find a parking space. I dont know how people make a living using those things. Maybe im doing something wrong, I never ran out of hours running paper logs, now im sitting doing a 34 restart.