Current Prime Lease-Operators: discuss your experiences here

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I'm a C seat heading out with my trainer hopefully tomorrow. I'm strongly leaning towards leasing.

 

Get some experience first, 2-3 years as a company driver, then look at a lease. I am speaking from experience here. When I first came to Prime, they did not have company drivers (yeah, it was a while ago!) and I had no choice but to go right to a lease. Despite the great training I had, I really was not prepared - and the family was not ready for the radical lifestyle change. We only lasted a few months that time. Now after several years of experience as a company driver and around the industry, I feel like I can handle a lease again and it is going well.

 

Thank you for the tip.

I have extremely low living expenses... so it may be different for you than it is for me.

 

Im also thinking of leasing and would love to hear more stories/info on this subject

 

#1 fuel mileage
#2 careful with advances
#3 learn freight lanes
#4 fuel mileage
#5 ezpass is billed monthly, if stuck on alot of toll roads all month be prepared to have your ### handed to ya when the bill comes in.
#6 fleet manager; getting in a pissing match with fm over a load or other superfluous crap gets you in the hole. Lease fm's get incintives for keeping their truck profitable therefore its in their intrest to keep you making money, if you are sitting its because hes looking for freight and if you start blowing up the qc of calling ######## he will give you just whatever just to shut you up.
#7 fuel mileage
#8 get your personal finances to where you can handle a wildly fluctuating income, it tends to happen time to time and you dont need to b behind on your personal bills cause you blew lastweeks $1800 check and only came out with 500 this week.
#9 stay out of the truckstops when waiting on a load, parking is fine but hanging out spends money, a walk into a truckstop can kill 20-50 bucks easy and you dont even really know how it happened. They are solely there to take your money.
#10 fuel mileage - this is your largest variable expense, buy only what you need in a high fuel price area ex. 50gal and keep your foot out of the radiator.

 

Dude, you forgot to tell them to get good fuel mileage.

 

its that important with 200 gallon tanks 1 mpg more gives you about 200 miles more per fill up...... thats a good bit with 3.75/gal fuel

 

Lol.

 

Get good fuel mileage, and buy your fuel at the lowest price possible. Some days, macro 27 doesn't always give you the lowest price. I use the "Fuel Price by State" page on the website to find cheap fuel.

Its much better to have some cash put away for hard times - and use some of that to tide you through - than to play the no fuel just before cutoff game. Passing up a tank-full of cheap fuel to pad the settlement check is not a way to win in this game.

Do opt for the accounting service they offer - it helps make sense out of the numbers on a basic settlement report. Check them out carefully, because sometimes you do find mistakes - in your favor. Do go to an ACE-II class - within the first few months you are leasing.

 

I know I haven't been around much for the last couple months... been REAL BUSY... but that's a story I'll catch everyone up on ASAP... but I thought I'd throw this up here as a little fuel for the discussion fire as I had a rather unique experience...

My trainer (a 14yr OTR vet) was absolutely aces... my training was a ton more than just how to drive a truck... it was even more how to RUN a truck... as a buisness... which many here like IronPony & Sazook stress so heavily.

We ran into a unique situation.... the last week of my training (had over 55K of my 60 in) my trainer was scheduled to take a week off with his wife for their anniversary... apparently if the trainer (lease op) gets together with his FM & then the FM in turn gets with safety about it the trainee can be upgraded from a B2 seat to a B1 seat... this allows the trainee to run the truck as a solo... now, while I could just as easily made roughly the same money in the poker room at the Greektown Casino (like I did last time my trainer took home time) I figured (as he did) that it would be a great "leaning experience".

Remember something here too... he's trusting me to run HIS business for a week... if I lose money it's costing HIM... not me... so how did my week as a solo lease op go...

(ES = Est Settlement Gross / TF = Tractor Fuel / RF = Reefer Fuel / DM = Dispatched Miles (inc deadhead) / AM = Actual Miles (inc deadhead) / DR = Dispatched Rate per Mile / AR = Actual Rate per Mile)

TRIP 1: DM-525 / AM-577 / DR-1.22 / AR-1.11
642.62 ES
-650.61 TF
-35.36 RF
---------
-43.35 Net

TRIP 2: DM-261 / AM-286 / DR-2.30 / AR-2.10
601.38 ES
-26.00 Toll
----------
575.38 Net

TRIP 3: DM-485 / AM-515 / DR-1.55 / AR-1.46
858.28 ES
-24.00 DEF & Toll
-----------
730.09 Net

TRIP 4: DM-379 / AM-427 / DR-1.55 / AR-1.38 (edited)
638.32 ES
-529.25 TF
-47.45 RF
-----------
10.78 Net

TRIP 5: DM-314 / AM-345 / DR-1.56 / AR-1.42
490.31 ES
-----------
490.31 Net

TRIP 6: DM-580 / DR-1.98 / (forgot to grab the last "actual" miles & rate)
1148.28 ES
-374.05 TF
-100.00 Toll
-----------
674.23 Net

So, before the truck's fixed costs I brought in 2437.44 to the truck in my week as a solo.... we could have avoided the 100 tolls of the PA turnpike but would have only saved about 50 bucks in the process of going around & we needed to get back to Pittston for my upgrade (I picked up my trainer enroute of last trip) so we decided to just eat the 50 bucks.

Also I was a bit handicapped in my routing for the week... I lost about a day & a half of the time I was empty & available due to the fact that our FM had to keep in mind that I needed to get back to the Detroit area by Monday to pick up my trainer.

Calling the fuel desk and asking about prices that you figure might be cheaper along the route works too... saved 6c/gal on my 1st fillup by calling & asking what the price was in Gary, IN vs the stop macro 27 was giving me.

& by the way... before anyone here accuses my trainer of being a cheap & selfish SOB.... yes, he took care of me money-wise for paying his bills for the week.