An in depth look at the various lease programs

Jake, where did you go get your truck from? Did you shop online or did Schneider fly you to there yards? Also, are you running 48 states or did you get the Western Regional you wanted? I see alot of Schneider O/O up and down the 5... Drive Safe and keep us posted.

 

like this post... started out kinda rough.. but it seems to have smoothed out a great deal. good job KH.. keep it up and dont let hard hitters get ya down.. i dont really post but i've read enough to know it's a tug of war.. you could come out and say a penny is brown and someone would argue that it's copper, and if ya dont work at the US mint they may try to pull your credibility.. but jus dust your shoulders off and keep on with the keeping on..

 

Not sure if it was covered in here or not, but anyone going through may trucking?

 

I am doing the lease/operator through Roehl. This is a trac lease program where you rent the truck for a specified number of months. At the end you can turn the truck in on another, leave, or buy the truck for fair market value or $12000 whichever is less. You are taking the truck "as is" including any warranty left on the engine and any other componets. I am leasing a 2009 Cascadia with 240,000 miles at lease inception and it has an apu. The weekly payment is $480.

The lease is a partial walkaway. Basically you will owe an additional month. There are three escrow accounts. There is a $2000 security deposit on the truck and $1000 deposit to cover the $1000 trailer and cargo deductible. Each of these is deducted from your weekly settlement until fully funded. Maintenance escrow is $.06 a mile and only requires purchases over $25.00 to use. You can have the truck worked on when and where you choose. Using the amount in your maint. account is a matter of calling Roehl's maint. department to get a po and money on your comdata card.

They pay for plates only after 9500 miles a month so plan on paying for plates.

Mileage pay is a sliding scale. On the van side it goes from $.91 a mile on the high end to as low as $.85 on longer runs. Deadhead is paid at $.82 a mile. Fuel surcharge is comparable to others on loaded miles and 20% less on loaded miles.

Like most companies I have heard about, legally they don't have forced dispatch, but they will threaten and coerce you too take whatever loads they give you. I have been on this program since the first of September. My biggest concern is that Roehl doesn't seem to have the freight to allow you to get much over a $2000 a week average. If you have to go the lease/purchase to get a truck, look at Roehl. Just remember on any of these deals you are dancing with the Devil and at some point you will get burned. How bad depends on how well you have protected yourself.

 

Thanks for the info Preacher, I too would be concerned about the low miles per month with this lease. Other than that is sounds OK. I would want to be in the 11-12K mile range each month. It's a shame because those extra 2+K miles are all profit.

 

What made it possible for me to make the change was that our monthly household expenses total just a little over $2000. What irritates me is that I average less than four hundred miles per day out and they act like that is normal. I talk to drivers who are either completely on their own or leased to other companies and they shake their heads at the low miles. Any driver who is out twenty days a month should get a minimum of 9000 miles. That is only 450 a day.

I'm not looking for sympathy, or any "I told you so." I knew what I was getting into and my overall plan is still intact. The plan is to complete the lease, pay off the truck and go somewhere else to make some real money. Shoot, I could get my own trailer and authority, work strictly off load boards and make more per mile than I do now.

 

Amgen Distribution....

A small office above a self storage facility, forced dispatch, one dispatcher booking loads paying an average of $1.20 per mi....

Average weight per load 40,000 lbs....

78% of $1.20=.93cpm

Hmmm....

You can't run a trucking business on .93 cpm.....

Not when you're paying for your plate, your cargo and liability ins., your trailer lease, your fuel taxes, etc... etc...

Your fuel alone will cost you .51 cpm...

Meanwhile Amgen is booking loads paying what?

$1.20 per mi....

At 22% of gross=
.26 cpm.....

Yes, they'll make money, but you however will be "in the hole"....

If you sign on with Amgen get used to hearing this.....

They will book loads paying as little as $1.09 and will sometimes get you loads paying $1.90, but the average is going to put you at $1.19 to $1.21 or so....

Murray will tell you that, " you're doing great, stay with us and we'll trust you with our better customers soon"...

Time will pass by and still, the same old CH Robinson loads that anyone can get...

"I have you posted", you'll hear this a lot, it means they're waiting for freight to find them.....

And Amgen will accept low rates to get this freight....

"To keep you moving"

Your bank account will verify all of this...

They claim their trucks averaged $1.63 per mi....

This is supposedly the average....

Aspiring owner op's the question of the day is....

If your low paying rate is just over a dollar per mile, what do you have to charge to bring the "average" up to $1.63 ???

An owner op needs to get 87% of the gross, and the rate needs to be around $2.00 per mi, otherwise you're just wasting your time.....

And going broke in the process...

If you're going to go owner op you need to find a "niche"....

You need to be able to do what the "big" companies can't or won't do....

You'll need to avoid the "predators" who will dupe you into making them money at your expense...

You can succeed, but you'll have to work very hard to do so....

Having your own authority is an excellent idea, but at this point things will get ever more complicated....

Negotiating and setting rates is tricky stuff, not impossible but not something you'll want to try if you're new to running o/o....

Negotiating is best done from a position of strength, and in this business "strength" equals money.....

Desperate folks needing money don't negotiate well....

Think hard about where you go and what you do...

And "good luck"