Lease Purchase

There have been some cases I have heard of where guys actually did make it all the way through the Lease and then purchased the truck at the end. They walked away with a truck that had a ton of miles, BUT they could actually say it was their truck. SO if you can stand the $700 payment per week and all the BS you gotta go through then I say it can be done!

 

If you have a good driving record and are not a job hopper ATS has a good lease deal.

1 year lease/rental program or a lease purchase that builds usable equity. The l/p requires money down.

 

Well..lp from a company who has a dispatcher in control when you get loads isn't no different than company driver with dispatcher..

 

I’m going to state the obvious, that the most intelligent among us seem to have overlooked.

Slow down! Drive for said company you are looking at for a year as a company driver first. There are too many willing to step into a LP simply because they can.

Look at the BAD reports from company drivers. Do you really expect to be treated better because you owe them money?

Doing a LP without knowing the internals of a company, is setting yourself up for failure.

You won’t see me on here dissing LP drivers. Simply because I know too many that have succeeded. I also know a lot that have failed. Failure is generally a 50/50 mix. Poor management skills, and/or poor choice of companies.

You can’t make good choices if you lack a complete picture.

Good luck.

 

I’ve been successful with lease purchase at Coastal Carriers out of Missouri, and so far here at RE Garrison. I’ve also been burned at Roadrunner and a couple other companies. As long as you don’t mind running and get with a good company, you can be successful as a lease driver.

 

Here is some more positives to offset the overwhelming negatives. I am a lease driver going on for now 10 months. I am basically renting the truck and will get a new truck every few years if I don't buy my own at some point. I will give you a summary of what I did to get here and what my situation is.

I waited four years to go over to the darkside and kept track of the cost to run my company truck for about two years of that. Once I had a good idea of what it cost to run my company truck it gave me a good idea of what I needed to make to be able to stay in business. After that I spent a few months deciding what company I thought would be a good fit for me. Once I found the company I wanted to work for I hired on as a company driver for one of their O/O's for a year. I learned where their main running areas were and how they liked to do things.

While I was working as a company driver I took every opportunity to talk to the L/P's and O/O and get advice about their side of things. Out of the 30 or so drivers I talked to only one said run away. That driver was also not willing to elaborate on why nor tell me what his numbers were. Everyone else spoke highly of the program and the company. They were also forthcoming with their numbers. Once I felt the time was right I made it known to my boss and the company I was interested in moving over to their leasing program. I had to wait for a truck to come available via a driver giving it back or them getting more trucks. It just so happened that a driver wanted to go back to working for the person I worked for so we basically switched.

So here is the brake down if this lease program.

I am not buying the truck it is just a lease from the dealer and gets swapped out every 450K for a new one.

I am payed 79% of the line haul and 100% of fuel surcharge

I am displaced and run the I-5 corridor.

I am through home several times a week and home on weekends for a 34.

I pay for everything for the truck and the company pays for the maintance and repairs of the trailer as long as I didn't cause the problem.

Here is a brake down of my truck expenses

Payment $ 2318 a month
Insurance $ .14 per mile usually around $1100 per month
Fuel $ 4 - 5k per month on average
Ifta is around $800 per quarter
Oregon road tax around $600 a month on average
Tags and registration $2600 a year
Heavy haul tax $550 per year
Occupational Insurance $180 a month
Escrow $200 per month
Other misc expenses around $500 a month but this number is a majorly flexible amount.

Honestly I average 8500 miles a month make 17K to the truck a month on average and about 40% of that is my net on the average before taxes. You can make money doing this but you will spend a lot of money doing it.

Here are my numbers as of Nov. 30. This is for the months of March - November

Gross revenue = $153,236
Expenses = $95,107
Net revenue = $ 58,129

Based on my averages I think it will be reasonable to assume I will make just over 200K to the truck and net around 80K with a full year in since I started in March.

I took me about 5 months to really settle in and start seeing good numbers so it takes time to fine tune things. So with all this said yes you can do these types of programs if you take your time, do the research, learn all you can, and be patient. I am planning on buying my own trailer next year once I see how my taxes goes and that will give me an extra 10% of income minus the trailer payment due to the company paying more percentage if you have your own trailer. Don't let the negative people get you down and realize if you can find a situation that you have little to no risk to try it like I did (0 down and walk away) then why not try it. I would rather try and fail then not try and always wonder what if.

 

I have to admit that I am very happy where I am. Been here a year. My payments, everything accept fuel, $702/wk. I am on the load board here and mostly run about 1900 miles per week, but I am hauling dedicated FedEx now and they pay darn well. I gross around $3700/wk. You can do the math as far as my net take home. Now here it also depends on where you live. I do not run west of I-35 and the only time I head to the NE, FedEx run to Rochester and then back to Indy. Since they started this new Load Board, I have not run into one L/P that is grumbling. As far as the company, there are 1400 drivers, but only about 125 l/o. As far as planning and dispatch, we have nothing to do with the company side. We have our own. If on the load board, you plan your self and your DM just sends the info after you have seen it all. Plan myself 1 week at a time. So I guess that answer to your question, you can make it if you find the right company

 

It is good to see a fellow L/O that is doing just fine. Question, is there freight in the west on your load board? I live in Oregon and am doing research on companies that have self dispatch in case I decide to move over to that option.

 

Sorry to say that is the only downfall of our company. The west load mostly go to the teams. As far as I know, only hire solo east of I-35

 

I'll start off by telling you that lease purchase is not a good option like everybody else says. But if you don't have the money or the credit I did it for a while.
Darts from Minnesota has good mileage and I worked there for a few years I bought off and paid off the truck . But yes you will have to work like a slave for 4 years to pay off the truck. Try to get into a newer used truck to avoid a balloon payment those leases are not set up to benefit the driver.
you have to have the money to independently buy your truck (5k)or work like a slave and pay off the lease truck. Good luck