Can I upgrade my leased truck when I team drive with newbiewife

Stay a company driver for at least a year.

 

Odds are if you lease purchase there will be no need to worry about next year. You will be broke by then. However, just because 12,527,149 lease purchase operators have failed before you does not mean you will.

 

Stay a company driver.

Lease is a big problem. You and your wife already has some conflict over money, and now both of you will be feeding, repairing, paying on the truck? So many lease fails in this industry for many reasons.

I don't know what you mean by all 4 seasons, you have winter storms in some of the mountain passes even in summer. Anything is possible in the USA at any time. If you are the senior by virtue of more driving than the Wife, then she has to learn what you can teach her. Ultimately she had to learn by doing.

I have done a husband wife team and when done right, it is a very valuable part of trucking. When you have enough time together in actual trucking in all weather and all areas of the USA, your value together is very great.

That is one possible future. But you two has to forge a team, the weak, bad and the good. Fixing the problems along the way. The Lease truck is the elephant in the room. It's not worth it at all.

What you two will do, with the right dispatch situation is pile on stacking thousands of dollars you cannot spend fast enough. Leave it in the bank, buy your own tractor in 5 years free and clear and have 6 months working capital to spend building your new Company.

 

read the tales off terror about "fleece" purchase on here.

from what I've read. who the company is makes a big difference. most megas are out to make money off you, not for you to make money.

 

I have never done chump change, per mile, dry van freight. So I am not qualified to talk about lease purchase, because I have seen many more succeed than fail.
So my opinion about lease purchase aside. The answer to your question about upgrading is.
It depends on two things.
1) the company you go with.
2) The contract you sign.
At some you will be stuck with your initial choice for x amount of time.
Others will happily let you break the lease purchase agreement, in order to change trucks.

 

The only thing you can get good out of a lease is; You learn how to run a business with a truck. You'll be forced to obsess over everything. You'll have to cut every little corner to make sure you're making money. Otherwise... leasing is a bad deal.
Take Prime for example. Company drivers doing team driving. They'll average $1400 per week, per driver. That's really not bad. ... Leasing with Prime.... $900 a week truck payments. When you can buy a 3 year old Prime truck. Payments about $1600 a month. Then lease with someone like Landstar. Then you'll make bucks. Lotsa bucks. You'll probably have that truck paid off in a year or two. Also..that truck. Used Freightliner. They're good and reliable. Won't kill you on repairs.
If I were you. I'd just work company through your wife getting one year experience. Take what you saved up. Buy one of those 3 year old Prime trucks off the used market. Go lease with Landstar. Landstar has references to places that are good to buy trucks from. Landstar is helpful to people like you.
Go look at Trucker Brown, and Selena on youtube.

 

Here we go again.
These mega's have got to be brainwashing
The rookies in the classroom.
There's no other excuse for the madness.

 

I don't understand it.

In my day, we had none of that. HOWEVER if we were so inclined then yes the company staffing will produce the boilerplate and contracts quietly in a side office. And invited you to take it to a lawyer locally to find out whats you can and can't do with that tractor.

FFE was our best work, but THEY leased the truck from Freightliner built in Portland. I cannot imagine how THEY have to comply with Freightliner in so many ways when we were there. I think back to this outfit and two other local Outfits that did very well on their own trucks, one with 50 ready to go when the drivers finished their time off HOS rest and the other with a empty yard and 200 trucks scattered around the USA most of the time. But FFE had about 1000. So... it's pretty big operation.

 

ODFL pays 80 cpm, top scale. Team drivers gross (6000 miles a week at 80 cpm )- $4800 before taxes and deductions, that is - $4800 gross to a husband and wife house hold.

That’s $240,000 gross/year, working 50 weeks.

(Forget that - we found most couldn’t handle the work, except older school folks with work ethic)

Why would you enslave yourself at Prime on 1099, when an employee team job pays so much more?

I’m an ex ODFL employee for clarity. And I live In Primes territory.