CR England -- BE CAREFUL!

Well put.

It's a pipe dream for them. Look at me, bouncing down the road in my big shiny truck, with my name on the side.

They listen to the other dreamers, telling them about the "big money" to be made.

It's like lambs to the slaughterhouse. The companies keep leasing the same trucks, over and over.

What a racket.

 

If you're gonna quote me and then shred it, you could put in the rest of what I said:

"Some of these are variable, and you better figure out what the worst case is, and what your exit strategy is if things aren't working."

Variations in miles due to contingencies can be modeled on a spreadsheet, as can repair costs. A decent business plan should factor these in over a period of time. If you're counting on a steady paycheck week to week, I expect you'll be in trouble in a hurry.

Of course, a lot of the business failures I read about here are folks who came in tapped out before they started, with over-optimistic assumptions and no cash reserves, so the first time they had a glitch, they were done.

 

Welcome to the lease arguement ... on one side you have our buddy arni who doesn't even understand how his pay is structered, espousing that a lease is a no brainer ... simply because he saw a statement or two.

On the other side you have frdr who doesn't grasp the concept that there are people who know what operating reserves are ... they just beat the drum of "things break", "THINGS BREAK" ... well duh.

Finally you have the real time stories of failure like ronin. My son and I ran at CRE from December to May ... including taking around 20 days off during that time we averaged 5900 miles a week, inlcuding our off weeks. ... 4200 miles week??? Even at a screwed up place like CRE, you have to work at it to achieve so little.

 

Think of it this way , IF there is SOOOOO MUCH $ to be made in this LEASE deal , why does C R ENGLAND not just have a driver in the truck and make the $ for themselves.

 

FLATBED, I don't think your comments are directed at me, but if so, here goes:

(1) I don't know how much money is in it myself. When I learn enough about the business to be confident that I understand the costs and revenues, I intend to look at that and see if I can figure it out. I'm not in any kind of hurry to jump into one of those deals. If I decide I want to own a truck, I expect I can get a better deal than a LTO - but I can't say that for sure, because I don't yet understand the whole business model.

I will say that from reading many of the stories here, the complainers would have gone just as broke trying to sell hot dogs to tourists as they would owning a truck, because they don't have a clue as to how to run a business. Many of them don't seem to able to deal with the most mundane issues in their lives, much less make money in a cutthroat competitive industry.

(2) Companies all over the USA are kicking employees off their payrolls, and in many cases, hiring them back as non-employee contractors, which is what these LTO and O/O deals get down to. Why - because all of the costs associated with carrying employees are way higher than they are for contractors. Like it or not, that's the reality of the deal.

I don't have a dog in this hunt, (yet), but I'm here to learn, and one thing I've learned is that many people who sign a lease have no business doing so. Some of them shouldn't be allowed to buy a flat screen TV on credit, much less a $100,000 truck.

A big part of the blame lies with the buyer, and not the seller, yet I see thread after thread where people come in whining about it, pointing the finger in every direction but their own. And in most of those threads, if you dig deep, and the details come out, there seems to be a pattern of claiming to be victimized.

Being a victim is a tough profession, always has been, always will be.

 

My post was GENERALIZED so some might give it a bit of thought before LEAPING into a LEASE. And yes you are correct , many could / would go broke selling COLD drinks in the DESERT and doing a lease would be no different.

 

Said better than I could!

 

That is the best arguement yet ! Common sense, pure and simple. There is only so much revenue from a truck, and these carriers have found they can achieve a higher profit by leasing a unit to a driver, than putting a warm body on their payroll to drive it. So the poor , struggling guy who signs the lease gets screwed.

 

How does CRE stay in business with such high turnover? Easy...all their loads are covered, their expenses are very low, and most of their freight is hauled by noobs that they pay pennies. The rest is hauled by experienced people that are paid pennies.