Going owner op with Werner

TLDR: is Werner Fleet Sales owner op program a decent way to transition from company driver to full independent owner op?

The long version...

First a little background. I've been a company driver with Werner for about two and a half years, it's the only company I've driven for. My plan from the beginning was to become an owner-operator eventually, and I was planning to save up money and buy my own truck and go independent or maybe with Landstar. I know a lot of people hate on Werner but I have not had a bad time, other than the fact that their night and weekend dispatch are completely useless and the shops/terminals are a hassle. I might be just a number to them, but they leave me alone to do my job without putting weird cameras on the truck or telling me which route to take at cetera. I get plenty of miles, usually about 3,500 a week, and at $0.40 a mile I usually clear a thousand a week after taxes. I am happily homeless with no family or expenses such as rent, so money has been easy to save.

So now I've got about 30 grand saved up and I started planning to make a move this spring. But as I started doing research, quitting Werner and buying a truck is seeming increasingly intimidating. Getting financing with my bad credit, figuring out where to get freight, all the permits, insurance, personal health insurance, not to mention the transition period between quitting Werner and starting to make money again... it's a steep learning curve to the point of almost being an impenetrable wall.

Then I talked to a Werner owner op the other day. I used to scoff at Werner owner operator program because I didn't know how can they make money for only about a dollar per mile I thought they get paid. The owner op told me about the fuel surcharge which I didn't know about, and also about the sliding scale where the short trips are actually more like $2 a mile. He says he averages about $1.40 a mile. (No, he wasn't trying to BS-recruit me for a referral bonus like those Crete drivers keep trying to for some reason. He didn't even ask for my name or nothing like that). So I looked into it, got some documents emailed to me from Warner that explain how it works ,and it's starting to seem pretty tempting:

The transition period is literally two days from turning in your company truck to heading out in my own truck, and they do all that intimidating bureaucracy for you

Paid deadhead miles

They pay tolls, cargo insurance at cetera

Surprisingly affordable health insurance, only about 230 a month for a good plan, only a hundred bucks more than what I pay as a company driver. Landstar on the other hand has no health insurance at all.

They will approve me even with my ####ty credit, based on my good employee history.

Of course there are some drawbacks, namely none of that sweet ### hundred dollars an hour detention pay when at a customer that takes a long time to load, and also semi-forced dispatch with only an option to refuse trips rather than being able to pick and choose juicy ones online like with Landstar or Shender owner op. And some dumb little things like having to pay 35 bucks a month for the dubious privilege of having the stupid Qualcomm in the truck. But I can live with all that for another year.

So I thought, maybe I should just do that - buy a $60,000 truck with still a bit of factory warranty left , use $20,000 savings as a fat down payment, put the other $10, 000 away as an emergency repairs fund, and use all my income to bomb that loan hard and pay it off in less than a year. Then once the truck is fully paid off, start the process of going fully independent and starting to make the real bucks. The transition has got to be easier to do with a fully paid off truck to your name.

What do guys think? Am I being too naive about something or being misinformed somehow? The fleet sales guy at Werner said there is no contract or early payoff fees, if the truck is paid off I'm free to leave with it whenever. Are there any hidden things they're not telling me about? Any input helps. Thanks.

 

Yeah, apparently, but I would need to refinance it with a different lender.

 

Yeah, the no tolls thing was very intriguing. Those things are expensive. The old rusty bridge on 90 coming into Chicago from Indiana is like $75 for trucks or something rudiculous like that. Always made me glad I'm not paying for it.

 

Yeah, it's not a lease purchase, whatever that crap is. It's a straight up purchase through what seems like maybe their own financing subsidiary. I don't know what hidden loopholes they might have, I will definitely have to read the fine print carefully.