Prime lease = get out now?

not all leases are bad... BUT when paid by the mile and/or having a carrier dispatch you then it is bad.
I've been leasing for a year picking my own loads and % and I'm doing fine.

 

sucker

 

Alright drama queen, calm down! First off, his first week number doesn't add up since prime doesn't charge you for the first 7 days of the lease, so if he got out there and made a couple loads, he should have seen a bigger paycheck. Seeing as how you started at the worst time of year to get into trucking, right at the end of the holiday rush and going into the slowest time of the freight season, I should assume you really didn't do your homework. On top of that you started a business and then promptly took time off within the first couple of months without building up a reserve of any kind. You claim you've run businesses before, any business owner would tell you the first few months or years in some industries you don't take time off, you work your ### off and build up a reserve fund to cover the slow times.

With prime, when you set a hometime counter with your dispatcher, the computer system just looks at how to get you there by that time, not how to get you home the most profitable way. That usually means your last couple loads are going to pay you nothing. That's why you want to plan on staying out 5-6 weeks or more at a time to help counteract the combined week worth of bad loads/revenue you'll have getting home and getting back out into the good paying freight lanes.

You keep saying they deduct money from his revenue and garuantee. You and he didn't pay attention to how the garuantee works. They cover it quite well in the cbt's and in lease orientation. You are garuanteed over the course of 100,000 miles that'll you'll make $1.02/mile gross. That garuantee is not free money, they'll loan you that money and you'll have to pay it back. So the way it works is let's say week 1's gross was $1,673.01 and you ran 1,923 miles. That would give you a gross per mile was $0.87. Prime will pay you the extra $0.15/mile or $288.45 to bring you up to $1.02/mile. In week 2 your gross revenue is $3,855.74 and you ran 2,500 miles. That'll bring your gross per mile to $1.54. On his settlement statement for week 2 you'll see them take the miles from both weeks, 4,423, and then take your actual gross you made so far, $5,528.75, which is minus the loan they gave you for week 1 of $288.45 and then divide that by the total miles you have done so far, 4,423. If that number is greater then $1.02/mile, which in this example it is $1.25/mile, prime will then deduct the loan of $288.45 from that weeks settlement statement. That is how that garuantee per mile works at prime.

So in your first 3 weeks, you and your husband have stacked the deck against you for starting off profitable. The freight usually picks back up in late February or early March. If the both of you run this like a business and boot strap it the next couple of months you should still be able to bring home a $900-1,000 a week until the freight picks back up again.

You can be successful at prime as a lease op, you will have to work at it and talk to your dispatcher, explain what your expectations are and ask what he can do to help you achieve them.

I can't tell, but what part if the country do you live in?

 

Prime is a % pay, not a pay per mile like you keep assuming.

 

How much stuff do you have being deducted from your settlement statement each week? If he leased within the last 5 weeks he would have gotten a freightliner so that's $945/week plus an apu at $70. That's $1015 a week just in lease payments, plus you have owner occ insurance $52.15, plates and permits $37.50, operating statement $15, scanning/imaging $5, fuel card $1, federal highway tax $10.58, performance bond $30 (that goes away one you reach $1,800 or $1500), and ezpass $0.25. That's a total fixed each week of $1166.48. Then you have the differed payment for the first week lease, that's $20.73 and if he purchased chains and load locks that'll be $25. So you're looking at $1212.21. If you're running the truck fuel efficient and keeping around 8mpg, you're looking at another $1,000 in fuel, tires and milage charges and that's a high end estimate for those. If he's putting his foot into it or still learning how to drive his cost could be higher.

You need to look at the numbers and see what it's costing you to operate that truck. You should clear an average of $1500-1800/week for the year as a solo driver.

 

Did I say "Prime" anywhere in that quote? no.
I was talking about leases in general.
OP said:

I was implying not all leasing is negative.
This forum is hugely anti-lease and lease bashing. It's not bad everywhere.

 

I back redoctober on those figure's everything is laid out in front of you in the cbts and ace orientation. Prime doesn't hide anything. Course just like in my last orientation this soon to be lease op didn't pay attention to the cbts. Gotta take all the info in. Also if you look up Mark Staite on YouTube he gives you plenty of fuel tips.

 

Give Prime accounting and go over it with them to see whats going on. They will be more than happy to explain it all to you.

 

I posted a thread called
"Lease - What's your average Miles & Rate per Mile for 2015"

it currently has over 250 views and not one driver from Prime is willing to show what their - Average Rate Per Mile was for 2015. That's not a good sign.

I saw a video from Mark Staite showing his average was $1.77 for the first years average rate per mile. Which is pretty good.

I just wanted to compare if this was a figure that others saw on their average rate.

 

Chasing miles are for company drivers not paid on percentage. I'm not surprised you didn't hear from Prime L/O.