Stevens transport

That has to be some of the best advise I have ever read on here my friend.. Keep the rubber side down

 

Personally I would never lease a truck. When you lease, you never own the truck, it's a vehicle the leasing company lets you rent from them. Also, I don't feel that as a lease operator, your really in business for yourself. In order to really be able to say you own a trucking business, you need to be a owner operator not a lease operator.

Why would you lease a truck for $300 to $700 a week or $1200 to $2800 a month, pay all the expenses, not really have all the freedoms that go along with being a true O/O just to make the same or near same money a company driver makes?

I may be wrong in a few things I said, these are my opinions.

 

If you don't think it's a business it's a good thing you don't lease.

 

Being a lease operator is kind of the first little baby step up in responsibility you can take from being a company driver. No guarantees you'll make more money than you did as a company driver, but I imagine it would teach you a hell of a lot more about how the biz really works if your goal is to someday be a true independent owner operator. If you complete the lease and have an option to buy, you're now a "real" owner operator with the title (or financing) in your name and you can do whatever you want with it.

Look at it is this way...most of these leases are walk-away deals. Sure, you can get more favorable finance terms if you have a down payment and great credit, but you have to consider that that's jumping into the deep end of the pool without a life raft. The bank doesn't want the truck back if things go south...they want the balance their 3 or 4 year note back and will send it to collections or take you court to get it if need be. If the only experience you have is being a company driver and you go straight to financing a truck in your own name, that's a big experience gap to jump if you've never so much as paid for a tank of fuel with your own money.

 

3000-3500 miles a week is expecting way too much as a solo driver anyway regardless of the rate. If he needs to run that hard to pay his bills and make ends meet, he should probably take a hard look at cutting some expenses and downsizing his life.

 

Not to mention, but a fleace operator does not the luxury or going else were to pick up loads, if his/her company does not have any..