Leasing at Prime

This is my third "5-digit" truck number!

It'd be whatever high-time truck they have on the yard. It's not unusual for them to have something with 60 or 90-days left before it hits the 3-year or mileage limits.

 

Let your FM know about this. You may find a relatively new driver who wants to team as your employee.

 

OK! I'm done with a Prime 3-year lease!!

First, it can be done, and you can make money at. No, I didn't get Trump-rich at it, but it did pay the bills, and the situation met my needs.

1. NO BOSS!!! (That one is important to me.)
2. Something a bit more challenging than just mashing the pedal and heading down the road.
3. Previewing the operation and reliability of a diesel engine incorporating EGR technology.
4. Getting some serious experience operating a truck in a small business environment.

The lease ran 159 weeks for me, solo- no training or teaming, reefer division. In that time I ran 377,158 dispatched miles (loaded and empty) for an average of 2,372 miles per week. Since I don't get paid “per-mile” that's not a big deal for me. For others who are paid per-mile, that would be a complete disaster. Trust me, I can deal with not running over 3,000 miles per week. The truck had 419,000 miles (plus some change,) so that's roughly 11% put on the truck that wasn't dispatched. I didn't sit at a packing plant in the middle of BFE too often.

Gross Revenue from all sources: $640,933.68 $1.70/mile

Total Variable costs: $283,033.53 (-) $0.75/mile

Total Fixed costs: $160,352.50 (-) $0.43/mile

Unused Emergency Fund: $14,180.00 $0.04/mile

Net Profit Before Taxes: $211,727.65 $0.56/mile

Given the 159 weeks in operation, that's $1,331.62 per week net cash flow. This does not include my lease-completion bonus, which is the net amount returned from the mileage charge after repairs. In my case, the repairs only included the items that Prime noted in a second DOT inspection this year necessary to put my tractor back under lease to Prime. That left roughly $9,300.00 to me, of which I put $7,000.00 down to purchase my tractor.

The majority of the major repairs were completed by Freightliner and Detroit Diesel under warranty, without any fuss. There are a number of maintenance procedures that we receive a rather hefty discount through Springfield Freightliner and Central Detroit Diesel.

Overall, I'm quite satisfied with the experience, but I can understand why others might not be. I didn't find the additional responsibilities that I dealt with to be "headaches,” as many folks post about... I enjoy them as challenges.

In this thread, I've posted that from my talks with Success Leasing that there is about an 80% failure rate of leasees at Prime, most of them occurring in the first year. If you look at my financial numbers and say, “WOW!!!” please think this through. None of this is guaranteed, and I did many things that helped insure my success. If you are interested in leasing, please go to the first page, and look at the entire thread. Please get enough experience to know what you're doing, and have enough of a background in diesel mechanics that you aren't stumbling around blind when your machine is sick; to me, that means a minimum of 2 years on the company side. If you have experience and are coming to Prime, start out on the company-side and see if this place fits before you get financially stuck in something you don't want to be. All it takes is one QC message to your FM, and your next load will get you to lease orientation. Do have enough cash in the bank BEFORE you start, so that you can stay afloat when things aren't going so well. Failing to prepare, is preparing to fail!

To those who would label this as a “fleece,” how's that? I made money, and my goals were achieved. For me this is only a stepping-stone to better things. In a couple of years I will own my tractor, and the equipment costs outside of repairs will be gone.