Prime lease = get out now?

I think it's interesting that the OP disappeared after the first comment or two 5 pages ago.

Then again, I can't say I blame her

 

You are correct, with the numbers she gave he would need to be blowing through $2,000 in fuel. Prime's fuel program is very good! The have a team that actually negotiates the rates with specific truck stops, not your typical fleet program where you get X discount at name your mega fuel place. There are many things wrong with the numbers, only good reason for the low check would be he was taking advances.

The truck paymenet for the first year is $945, year two it's $925 and the third year it's $905. There are many drivers who go through the straight lease program and purchse the truck at the end. Yes the balloon payment on the straight lease is $75,200. If a driver does the lease purchase program there is no balloon payment, just your final regular lease payment.

The lease payment includes the BT, Liability, and Physical damage Insurance, no extra charge for that. Your fixed costs with lease is between $1,200 - 1,300 a week. You are correct even with fixed costs at $1500 or less, you can still make a decent profit. The drivers pay 72% of all the tolls, but the rate for loads that will take you through a toll area have been adjusted to cover that cost most of the time.

Go back and read the numbers I posted just a couple posts ago. You are looking at a weekly fixed cost between $1200-1300 and that includes the lease payment and apu. Yes Prime charges you a rental fee for the APU but again that's included in the fixed number I just gave.

Prime doesn't have a trailer fee at all, not sure where you came up with that info. Yes we do have to pay for the reefer fuel but as someone mentioned earlier, that's less then $100 a week with these trailers and the first fill up on a load Prime pays for anyways.

The minimum guarantee of $1.02/mile is just that, the guaranteed minimum you'll make per mile. You should be doing way more then that unless you pizzed off your dispatcher.

The apu is $70/week, but the qc, insurance is all included in the truck lease payment. So between lease and apu the first year yo uare looking at $1015/week plus plates, owner occ insurance, fuel card, fhut, sanning/imaging of trip docs, that comes out to a fixed cost of $1136.48/week. If you set up payment arrangements for chains, load locks, detention stamp, abloy trailer locks and aircuff lock, that's another $25/week. So for a new driver starting out with a new truck he is looking at $1212.21/week for fixed costs at the high end.

Prime very much has a lease purchase program, it's $14,000 down payment and then the rest is financed over 4 years. Your final payment will be your regular lease payment and then the truck is yours. The lease payment will run you about $740/week plus the rest of the stuffed I mentioned above. For the drivers that do the straight lease, at the end of the 3 year lease the balloon is $72,500. Prime allows you to finance that amount through them at the end of the lease, you'll need the $14,000 or more down payment. Getting the $14,000 down payment at the end of the lease isn't that hard since your end of lease bonus is paid out at $0.045/mile for all dispatched miles or if you decided to just walk away from the truck your lease completion bonus is $0.035/mile for all dispatched miles.

As I mentioned before that $1.02/mile is a guaranteed minimum based off of 100,000 every 12 months of the lease. Drivers get paid better then that on average

 

That's what happens when the truth about Prime comes out, they can't spew there bs when to many others show contradicting info.

 

Glad you all can read and do math. No wonder you demand $2+/mile. With the inflated numbers you keep adding you'll end up with $5,000/week in fixed costs and needing $9,000/week just to break even in your world.

 

I guess my initial analysis was fairly accurate. Thought I might be getting a more accurate picture from other posters lol

Still would expect at least $1.60/mile unless it's mostly long haul, could probably tolerate $1.50 at the very least.

 

Some days I just get frustrated at all the stupidness that people spew on here about something they have no clue about. What's funny is it doesn't matter how many times you share the truth, most people have selective reading and block out the truth or anything that contridicts there story and sesne of reality, LOL. It's like my mother, she believes if she tells a story enough times it'll make it true.

 

I'm an O/O. I have a 2016 Volvo 670 and my operational costs, fixed & variable (before my wages) are right at .90 a mile. I make a decent living at $1.75 per mile average. If I wanted to run the 48 States again pulling refer, I could do even better. However, I've gotten spoiled running the western 3

Right now fuel is cheap, I'm paying right at $1.89 average and the folks I run with have a freight niche that keeps me working which is appreciated for sure.

Another reason I don't like running the 48 anymore is because of stuff just like this

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10152748667200872

 

It will not get better with leasing through Prime or any of the mega carriers as they also supply your freight. The fact is that Prime leasing is 1 of the worst companies to lease with and this is why. First of all Prime has a leasing division of there company in which they lease not only to new drivers but they also take smaller carriers such as Wil Trans Earl Henderson and OS and enter into an Advantage leasing where these companies lease all of there trucks through Prime. When you join a company like henderson you think you are staying away from the mega carriers like Prime but Prime pretty much owns them.. Now the problem is when your spouse went into leasing with Prime I am sure he was not made aware of the fact that the Owner of prime also owns the leasing company the insurance company as well as truck dealerships. So the point is that if your husband can make the payments on the truck for as long as he can stand then when he ha had enough and wants out they will take his truck and either release it to another new driver or to 1 of there partner companies ( as Will Trans owns Jim Palmer trucking and just replaced the entire fleet of trucks 150) so they will make money no matter what or they can put it at 1 of the dealerships and sell it out right.. Also your husband needs to follow all of the instructions in his lease if he decides he wants out of it. Prime is known to post information on drivers DAC when they leave the lease.. Like abandoning the truck etc etc..

Hope this helps and good luck. But bottom line is that with companies like Prime England and Trans Am leasing is a very profitable revenue division of the companies..

 

Is he fueling up completely every time he stops?


Over fueling can also but Ya in the tush as well

 

Reading these L/P things make my head spin. It won't be long before company recruiters say, "Hey, why not pay US a nominal fee so YOU can see the country???!!"

JUST SAY NO, PEOPLE.

Either that or do extensive research before making a decision.

SMH.