Advice - Is This Lease a Good Deal?

How much is your tractor payment going to be, and this should be including the interest charge.....how many miles on that Volvo, what does the service history look like, has it had any major problems, how many hours on the engine?

How do you get your loads, are you limited to obtaining loads through them only?

What's their reason for not allowing passengers?

 

What happens if you need a repair that you can't afford?

 

There's nothing wrong with financing a truck and leasing it onto a carrier, lot's of O/O's do this.... the problem becomes, 1. If I don't have any money of my own, how do I pay for repairs and unforeseen problems? 2. What if I have a falling out with the carrier, can I leave them and take the truck with me, or do I lose the truck if conflicts arise and I quit and move on? (if you're in the final year of your lease, and the truck is still worth 30k-40k, then this may be something a carrier who has complete control does, they can starve you out, you default on the lease, and they keep the truck, and instead of you getting a truck, they get a big bonus for causing you to fail. Don't think business people pull stunts like this? You have a lot to learn about business, my friend.)

These 2 things are what make lease purchase through a carrier so risky.

They can run a truck with you paying for it, you paying for all of the costs of operating it, and then reclaim it when something happens....

Leaving you with nothing in the way of ownership.

Leasing is a brilliant concept, from the carriers perspective.

 

Leasing typically will get you into trouble either financially or stress wise. The carrier holds all the cards at all times, depending on the wording of your contract you can be taken easily. Search thru here there must be 1,000 threads on lease purchase. Keep in mind the deal youre friend had may not be the deal you get, or the pay rate.

 

Additionally they can structure the deal so that you end up making the same as a company driver at the top of the experience scale. (maybe, depends on the costs of operation, get a lemon and lose your rear)

That's why knowing the numbers is so important.

And why most of the companies that offer this deal structure it like this, $1.00 a mile plus fuel surcharge.... you end up working for pretty much whatever the surcharge amount is, something like .46cpm or less

For them it accomplishes a lot. They get a driver in a truck, they get a driver who is conscious about the equipment and is working hard to maintain it, they get a driver who is covering the costs of operation before earning a dime, and they get a driver who probably won't be taking much home time, cause he's covering the costs, not them.

In short, they get a committed, highly motivated driver. (a solid win for them)

Used to be the carrier covered all of the costs, and had to compete with other carriers for drivers, so they had to pay the hired help competitively.

Drivers would beat on equipment, (after all it wasn't "their baby"), would sit around idling, wasting fuel, and would take forever to get to the delivery....

Then they wised up and got creative.

They're, the carriers, they're smart business people.

 

You do know you can edit your posts and add information to them, right?

 

Yeah, just being lazy

 

Just thinking as I go Oscar, just skim past the stuff you don't feel like reading.....

 

Hmm, contradiction in terms maybe?
How do you know what you don't want to read........ until you read it?

Martin

 

I skim stuff all the time, you know, just glance down through it quickly....

If it seems like something I want to read carefully, I go back to the top and read it completely.....