Anyone Thinking Of Signing A Lease Purchase Must Read This!

Sounds like some non-factual bs to me. Prove it. What company are you speaking about?

Now, you're not gonna get rich doing a l/p but many people make it work and end up with a paid off 3 - 5 year old truck with half a million miles.

Burden of proof is on you....otherwise you're just another numbskull that's regurgitating buffet counter chatter.

 

Haha. It's funny to me how much bs is thrown around at times.

But, I'm not an advocate of a lease purchase at all. For most it never works, and it does take the right person to make it work. If someone is business savvy and determined, is able to be on the road for long, extended periods of time (forever), can drive well enough to not break #### and get good mpgs, and doesn't have $$ for a down payment or a decent credit report card, then a lease purchase can be a decent option.

 

I did an L/P for 16 months with a company that reported to the credit agencies monthly. I didn't want their truck, I wanted the credit reporting. It wasn't that I had bad credit, I had zero credit and buying what I wanted for cash wasn't an option. 16 months into my L/P I bought my current truck for $6k down. When I left that company I had over $7k built up in my Maint account and that's after spending a bunch of what I had built up to put new tires all around this thing and do a full A/C replacement.. twice.

So technically I'm one of the failure statistics having not finished an L/P. I can deal with that.

 

The only one I know of that does that is CRST and it's affiliated companies. They take there team ran trucks that have 450k plus miles on them and lease them to drivers. For another 2-3 years. I've read there contract and it's bad. There is no out for the driver really without being charged a few thousand dollars.

Beyond CRST I think you have quality leasing, but they are just a leasing company, not a carrier.

Those are the ones I could think of. Most of the mega carries are leasing new equipment or you pick up were the other guy left off on his lease when he left and finish out the rest of the original lease term.

I wish people would stop and think for just 5 minutes before they go lease a truck. All they usually see is a bigger paycheck then they were making as a company driver and don't realize a lease is starting a small business and all businesses have risk, expenses, and hopefully rewards. If they don't know the first thing about running a business they need to pick up a book or two and read (or listen) so they have an understanding.

 

Well. I did an LP and got the title. I never felt forced to do anything. I'm doing fine in my used truck without a payment.

 

was gonna say the same thing. Here's the deal; I leased an '09 Cascadia with 340k on the clock 4 years ago on a 2 year lease. At the end of the lease was about $26k in buy out. I was given the option of leasing, buying on payments, or buying out. I had $13k in my maintenance account and had saved over $13k in my personal savings account, so I wrote a check for $13k and bought it out.
The thing is, with a truck with no payments, that you can keep everything in top notch condition because you're not making truck payments. I fell out of $40k in lease payments and spend less than $10k in repairs every year........easy peasy, no big deal.

My success is based on the following principals:
1. Get a good, steady truck; mine is a Freightliner with a Detroit motor. It's all white bread and it's all good. If you need a truck to define and/or support your self-image, you'll be screwed before you leave the lot. My truck is a revenue producer, not an extension of my personality, my worth, or my image. It's a truck.
2. Find a good company. I feel like I lucked up and found mine; Schneider. Say what you will about the Punkin', they've been honest with me, and in this industry, that means a lot.
3. Treat it like a job and a business. Get up, go to work, and do your best; you'll rarely fail.
4. Don't allow anyone to dispatch you on a truck you're paying for. If you can't pick your own loads, you're just a company driver making truck payments for the company.
5. If you're unhappy already with the trucking business, leasing a truck won't make you happier, it will make it worse.

I got lucky. One of the rare times in my life I jumped into something I knew nothing about, and came out a winner. At the end of the day, the #1 key to success, in my opinion, will be work hard, do your best, and be smart about what you're doing. Lease / purchasing can be a win, but it's up to you. Good luck.

 

Did you have any other cash saved up for maintenance (Not that specific account, just talking about for truck repairs) or did you take a leap of faith knowing that you felt good about your truck and could make a buffer in a month or two?

 

I'm calling partial BS on this. I too have read CRST's leasing contract. Several of them in fact, during my orientation for Malone. While the norm for leasing at CSRT is to get a used truck and have to pay for several years there's another side to the story.

1) CSRT L/P operators do NOT have a Maint account. They pay what amounts to Maint insurance. Tire blows, covered. Engine grenades, covered. Its effectively impossible to have a "bad" truck unless you're not getting things fixed as required. exception to the rule.. Prostar. the only Prostars I've seen at CSRT are all Maxxforce... new they were junk, only a flamethrower can improve them.

2) There were 6 L/P operators in my orientation class. We looked up each truck's market value based on mileage. CSRT's weekly payment and total projected payments were in line with market values and 10% financing. Only 1 of the 6 trucks had a higher weekly payment than what mine would be were I paying weekly. That truck was a Cascadia with under 300k miles. Other than the color and steel wheels it was a very nice truck. None were excessive mileage like a team truck would be. Weekly payments on all 6 trucks ranged from $325ish to $400ish.

3) I admit to having no idea what it takes to get out of a CSRT contract. I wasn't asked to look at that part and it doesn't effect me. What I do know is that a Malone L/P operator has access to exactly the same freight I do, at exactly the same rates, provided he/she hasn't pissed off the agents. I'm a Lazy skateboarder taking weeks off whenever I like and I would have zero problems paying off a CSRT truck without changing my habits.

 

Well said