The Good, The Bad, The Honest Truth of a New Roehl Lease Operator

What do you mean "if we use the tch card" all the comdata cards are good for now is comchecks and scrapping ice off your mirrors !!!!!

 

I know I am, between low miles all of a sudden and this I can make more driving a company truck for the company I am leasing to next, I'm just waiting cause I'm close to having my Pete and would hate to mess up now.

 

I can't believe how fast this is sinking, 2 months ago I couldn't have said anything bad about it.

 

It will be interesting to see where we have all gone a year from now. It seems Roehl is dead-set on tearing down their owner/operator program. In my case I have to make a decision before I have to replace the tires. My first preference is to buyout the Blue Lemon, my next option would be a third party like Arrow. My last choice would be to get a truck through Schneider and drive for them as well. I am not a patient person so the patience I have to have to make this transition is killing me.

 

Kevin Rutherford points out that if you can still make it with companies like what Roehl has become you won't have to worry in the future surviving a recession, you're already experienced on living on nothing. This teaches how to run a very lean business, in the future when you make changes to raise income levels all that money goes into the bank.

 

That is a very good point. The problem that I see right now it that companies don't want to let you make anything, in good or bad times. I don't see how you can make even as much as a company driver does with the lease payments and low pay per mile. I have not owned my own truck since 2004, and even with the numbers that I ran with then, I would have had a hard time making much. It has to cost nearly .90cpm just to take the truck down the road with lease payments and fuel, so the only place you had to make any money was the fuel surcharge, and discounts. The last company I was leased with was Liquid Transport, my base rate was still 1.25 per mile, plus fuel and that was seven years ago. I just do not understand how these company lease purchase plans can work, how do they get people to sign on for this kind of money. Good luck to all of you in whatever decision you make. I think I am just about ready to hang up the "driving gloves" for ever and go back and flip burgers or something. Between constantly changing government regulations and company policy that seems to be geared at driving people away, I just don't have any fun at this any more. All I do is fear for my life more and more each day.

 

I have thought about the lease program...but can't justify the expenses...the margins would be too tight for my taste...and the fact in order for me to even get a truck with my crappy credit (past mistakes I still am paying for) I would have to buy one of Roehl's old fleet trucks...I just can't justify that kind of purchase...buy a used truck from a company and then pay for all the bills on it while the company just uses me to make money...yeah not a good deal for me in my book...

As far as driving goes...I love it...its the easiest thing I have ever done and made money...I don't believe there is a driver shortage...what I believe is that the "shortage" is drummed up by the industry to justify all the new guys like myself..and then pay low wages...cause its easier and cheaper to replace us than to pay us more money...but hey its still more than I made at my previous job...so I will live with it...

 

The only way it makes any sense to go the route of owning your own truck is to have a goal of paying off the truck and continue driving it. If all you're going to do is continually make truck payments it will never be worth it. You don't start a business with the idea of a short term endeavor, this is a long haul venture. My plan calls for being out of a truck payment completely within four years of my first lease payment. If I make a switch I'm still looking to stay on that same time table.