JCT

Seems like the basic difference on this lease is that they don't require you to run legal like the other big guys. You can make a profit at 65 cents a mile if you run 5000 of them and have the freight to do it. Those are pretty large truck payments from an O/O standpoint. I pay that much for truck, trailer, AND insurance.

 

I dont know, I think you could theoretically do it legal. If you have a lot of open road, no drops, pickups, etc.... When I was flatbedding, there were days that I did 700+ miles LEGALLY. Kept the left door closed and drove. Now, that is very rare for flatbed, and was only done during runs that took me 2+ days to deliver. Figure pickup, secure, and fueling first day took me about 3 hours, maybe four if there was a lot of traffic or wait time to get loaded. Then two days of nothing but driving, stop for fuel (thats when I checked my securement) and bathroom break/coffee. I ate while driving (yeah, I know, dangerous), so I didnt stop a lot for food. Sometimes, like in the bowels of TX, I would just pull over to the side of the back road and water the weeds if I needed to, rather than finding a truck stop.

Here is what I figured in my mind:

In a 14 hour day, you have 11 hours to drive,
11hrs x avg 64mph (I ran 70 most of the time, but it was a co truck) = 704 miles. I could easily get 11 hours of driving into a 14 hour day, no problem at all if I was driving, not loading, chaining, etc...

704mi x avg 6 days = 4224 miles. Not too bad, but if your getting more miles than that, you'd pretty much have two choices: Run faster, killing your mpg, or run illegal and milk the books. I cant say I havent cheated the books, but 96% of the time, I was legal (I've been shut down a couple times by dispatch because I either didnt get a full 10 hours off or ran over 11 hours - #### Qualcomm).

Now, these days I'd rather be safe than sorry. One fine will eat up that extra money you could make playing with your books. Plus, crossing into new time zones in addition to fatigue will screw up any logbook, if you dont know exactly what you are doing. Hell, 4200+ miles would be just fine with me. Not sure I'd want to attempt 5k though.

 

I agree on the log book answers. Everyone who drives does things their own way. As far as trading in trucks, after your first 90days you can and any time a truck reaches 500,000 miles you can. I should reach both at the same time or close enough. I payment will be higher approx. 175 per week and that is with an apu installed on a new pro star. I don't have any figures on any other truck. Also one thing to remember with each mpg you say about $100 at $2.00per gallon. The plan is to move into the 7 and better mpg and that will offset the cost of a new truck. I was also told by leasing that you can trade in a new truck after 2yrs.

 

LMB,

I agree with you keeping the classic. I've heard nothing but many electrical problems with those cascadias. I heard from a JB Hunt driver that his truck goes into shop each month in the last year hes had it. I've heard a lot of compliments for the International prostar and no problems.

KH

 

LMB
I am trying to get on with JCT I love all the post you have put up they have answered most of my question i had, soundslike a great place to lease a truck from,do you get the red light with the prepass alot,and do they pay for the room while in class or did you

 

Can 4200 miles be run LEGALLY? Yes, it can. If you do it smart. If you log 65 MPH (this is not hard to do at all....) 65 MPH at 65 hours (figure five hours for unloading, vehicle inspections, fuel, etc....) that comes to 4225 miles. That is provided the freight works so you CAN do that. Before coming to JCT, I had a truck that was ungoverned. I had more than once where I PHYSICALLY drove over 800 miles in 11 hours. I have had to cheat my logbook before to cut down what I actually did. If I logged what I did, I would show that I was speeding WAY too much.

BTW, in that particular truck (in my much dumber days....) I got pulled over at 104 MPH. Why the cop let me off the hook on that one is beyond me. I have covered over 9000 miles in 7 days in the past. Slowing down to JCT standards has been a very nice change of pace. I have only gotten caught with my logbook once in my driving career. Somehow, during one of those extreme weeks, I screwed up and handed the officer all of my spare logs (which I kept in a separate logbook to help keep myself straight) Needless to say, that didn't go over well. He couldn't figure out which violation to nail me on. I had that truck for a little over four years, during which I put over 800,000 miles on it. So, can it be done? Without a doubt. I'm not nearly as young and dumb as I was earlier in my career. I still consider myself a rookie, but I've come to realize that just because I CAN run insane miles doesn't mean I SHOULD.

 

I have a question for some of you guys that were running with JCT back when fuel prices went through the roof. Where you still making money? Common sense says yes, or you wouldn't still be there, but I'd like to know how it works.

I've looked at the contractor pro forma and the thing that can really dig into the profit is higher fuel prices; even when I adjust the fuel surcharge. The problem is, I'm not exactly sure how they adjust the fuel surcharge. It looked to me like they pay a certain amount per mile based on fuel prices. The problem is, $.17 a mile when gas is $2 a gallon is not bad, but $.34 a mile when gas is $4 a gallon will kill you.

Please tell me I don't know what I'm doing and they calculate it differently.