Anderson Trucking Service. My true experince.

I'm loving it! I'm picking up a mt 765 tractor, tomorrow in Sioux Falls,Sd going to Jacksonville,Fl. Going to the house with it for a couple of days. I need a little break from the truck. Need some family time. Stay safe everyone!!

 

One more day of orientation and I am going to hit the road and start pulling some loads. So far my experience has been pretty good here at Saint Cloud.

 

Good to hear!! I still love it here, nothing bad to say. Making good money, hauling loads I really like to haul. Good luck, stay safe.

 

I opted for a 2014 Coronado. Big change from what I'm used to. I'm giving FL a chance.

 

How is the Coronado? Any updates I just get bored and read a lot of threads on here seems like they supply you all with good equipment, be safe.

 

So far I like the Coronado. It's got plenty of storage space and is fairly comfortable to drive. I'm not used to having minimal gauges and a 9 speed but it gets the job done. The payment isn't too ungodly. I've paid more for older used trucks and this one is new. Fuel mileage sucks at the moment, but she's not broken in yet. I don't have any complaints right now about the company. The mattress in the sleeper on the other hand isn't suitable for even my dogs to sleep on. I will be switching it out for something that doesn't have springs poking you.

 

If you are having a positive experience at ATS, then they must have let you get in on the percentage program. It may be going away very soon if not already. Virtually all the lease operators on the B.S. mileage program are starving to death under all the payments and have many weeks with now check. Talk to them. They are walking away from their leases before they go in debt.

The freight we have at ATS is great, but it is just another company for drivers to get experience and then leave for a better job.

 

I would have to see the exact lease paperwork, but the way it use to be when you added up all the numbers the mileage program and the percentage program equaled out to the same pay. The mileage contract was on a sliding scale so you got paid more for shorter loads. Long loads meant you were taking a beating. The computer system ATS used would offer you whatever load they wanted you to take. You supposedly got to pick, but the choices were always limited. There were some very old fellows that may or may not still be around that had contracts where they actually got retirement money. This was the only deal where someone was doing just a little bit better. I bet they are all dead now. I worked for ATS from 1999-2004.

 

It's like any lease. You get what you put in to it. If you get a new(er) truck you won't get beat up as bad as if you take an '09 with half a million on it. You can make money, but you have to be smart about what you are doing with your fueling and everything else you do. I've done a lease and ultimately purchased the truck from Centrals program. Trust me if you can make money at $0.85/mile and bring home $1,500 after withholding for taxes you'll make money here.

 

I don't know the scheme nowadays, but ATS use to pay around .86cpm when you figured out all the numbers. There are a lot of things people don't take into account. For example: on their mileage contract they paid Rand Mcnally mileage which is actually 10% less. So you really aren't getting $1.00mi when it says you are. If I did have a percentage contract I would decline anything that had excessive deadhead miles or the routing was not in a straight line. It would also have to average greater than the mileage contract or you were just wasting your time. The mileage they would give you for reference was the same Rand Mcnally miles which could be off by up to 12%. I honestly think they had a mileage contract just to appease the ones that thought they could beat the system. ATS has their crap figured out. They don't lose a dime anywhere.

The main reason I never went Owner OP was because they had special deals where they didn't charge the customer a tarp fee, but yet you still had to tarp the load. Tarping paid a lot of money at ATS and not getting paid to tarp a load that destroyed tarps made no sense to me. They had a lot of tarp destroying loads. It was very difficult sometimes to keep your tarps from tearing or being pin holed.