Going to train # c r england....advice??

I absolutely read the posts and understand what you are saying. My point is, if you already paid 73,000 and have nothing to show for it, it's a bad deal. My business grosses $20,000 every month and I'm home weekends and have only put 40,000 mi on my truck, running solo, this year. I got absolutely screwed in my truck deal because I had a hard time finding someone to finance a big truck this winter. By screwed big time I mean I got a probably $30,000 04 Volvo for $48,000. And it's mine at the end of the lease. Zero balloon payment. When lease is up, I own it. So whether you chose to keep it or not, for $73,000 to make $140,000 gross as a TEAM, a year, is not very good math in my book. Hence, the reason everyone is telling you you got screwed.
But youre right, we shouldn't be coming down on you. Tell everyone how sweet CRE is. But just give those numbers when you do, they speak volumes.

 

Making payments on a truck that you will never own, plus your not getting all the revenue that a real 0/0 would make. You can not just up a leave anytime you want with that truck, and lease on to another carrier.. When your done, they will lease it out again to another fool, or sell it, and keep the profit off of it.. You have to pay for all the plates, insurance, cost to maintain that truck, and yet you will never own it.

It is the same as leasing a car compared to financing it for say 5yrs. At the end when all payments are made the car is yours.. Plus when you lease a car, you can only drive it for so many miles within lease period, or you have to pay at the end for the extra miles. Plus any damage you have to repair before the vehicle can be resold or you will get charged that as well. And finally you pay for all cost to keep it up and running except for warranty work.

At least with a financed car note, hell I can beat it with a hammer, and cause all the damage I want, and not have to worry about paying the bank anything extra for the damage in the end..

I'm not trying to bash you, but I just would hate to see anyone get burned by either CR England or any other carrier for that matter when it comes to leasing one of their trucks..

 

Well, again, say what you want, look at it how you want. Ive done what I could to elplain my views on it numerous times.

You, among others keep centering on the fact that the truck costs us 70 grand for the entire lease and that we have nothing to show for it. They are infact putting aside money for us if we wish to buy the truck at the end of the lease. Even if we intended on staying in the business for the next 10 years, we would still sign a new lease on each truck IF we intended on staying with England. But, like other big companies, they dont pay as much. Never have to my knowledge and they never will because I think they are centered more on beginners. Thats why its pretty easy for newcomers to land a job with them when no one else is hiring.

Its no different than renting a house.....well, except for the fact that this truck makes us money and 99% of the time, you dont make money on something such as a house when you rent it.

So with that being said, you guys are FOS when you say we are getting screwed because that truck is earning us a substantial income. Without it, no job. We are infact making more money than when we were company drivers. Also like Ive said plenty of times, if someone knew of a company that would pay us better and not have to buy or lease a truck, we would go there in a heartbeat but no one has told us.

For the record, incase you missed it, that 70 grand is stretched out over a period of 3 years. The gross income of 140 grand is each year we have the truck. What did you expect, make all that money free of charge??

Even when you finance, depending on how much you put down or how quick you get it paid off, you're still gonna pay a bunch in interest charges. May not be as much as us "renting" this truck, but it aint that much less.

Lastly, I dont tell people that England is the greatest company in the word or paint this "rosey" picture as Ive been accused of recently. When someone asks me about England's lease program, I tell them like it is. I tell them what our experiences are. I dont make up a fairytale story.

 

Of course we are not because we are not O/O's......

We can leave anytime we want just not with the truck. And as Ive said before, why would we even want to think about taking the truck to some other company when they are keeping us plenty busy. If Englands frieght got slow, or if they started dickin us around in any way, we turn the truck back in and we go elsewhere; Plain and simple.

Define "done".

My interpretation of what you said is as follows....

If we keep it for the full, 3 year lease, it goes back to where England got it from. Which in that case, no one gets it.

Yep, to an extent. The plates, insurance, and maintenence are written in the contract that we signed.

If we planned on keeping it when the lease is up, then we will DEFINATELY be own it for how ever long we wanted it.

Although Ive never lease a car before, I highly doubt that the money you spent in lease payments will knock off part of the price of the car if you intended to keep it when the lease was through. As a matter of fact, I came close to leasing a car once and if my memory serves me correctly, that was one of the prime reasons why I decided not to. I think they even told me that if you plan on keeping the car, you're better off to finance it because again......... Leasing is the same thing as renting. Whether it be a big'ole shiny truck or goin down to your local car dealership.

Not exactly. Some dealerships are doing away with the mileage limit to keep people brand loyal. All that other stuff you said is true. There may be some dealers that still have the mileage cap, but not all of them.

Exactly. Why would you think I thought otherwise??

Again, with the burning. We're not getting burnt. Seems like the people who are getting burnt are the ones not living up to the agreements they signed their name to when the signed the contract or not reading fully through the ###### thing.

 

To answer the earlier question that came up concerning John Christner Trucking...At the completion of the lease, You pay $1.00 and they hand you the title to the truck!
At that point you can either stay with JCT or you can take YOUR truck and do whatever you want to with it.

Your balloon payment at JCT is $1.00.

A friend of mine did the lease at JCT and is now a "real" O/O with his own authority and is doing quite well for himself.

THAT...Is a much better deal than the forty thieves at CR England are offering.

 

I didn't miss it. We may both pay 73000 total for our trucks. difference is, mines still gonna make me money after the payments are done cuz its in my companys name.
You are correct i your comparison of renting vs. owning. I also own my house. I guess its just a different way of thinking in general. If we both pay the same amount for our house, and Im buying and your renting, I think I got the better deal by having a house to show for it.
Your math of 140,000 a year gross split by you and your wife equals 70,000 a year job. Since your are paying for everything on the truck, that number gets cut DRASTICALLY. You are not making anywhere near what a company driver makes. I'll bet if you knew how to properly crunch the numbers, you aren't making 30,000 a year a piece.
We could argue this till we're blue in the face, you are obviously fooled into thinking you have something good going. CRE is a very large company so obviously you aren't alone in your thinking.

A few years ago, CRE had company drivers as well, if im not mistaken. When the economy got bad, they went to teams and l/p drivers. Just like every other company got a little worse to work for as companys had to work a little harder to turn a profit. Why would CRE give all this crazy money to people to lease the trucks, even as freight fell through the floor? Maybe cuz you can hold the bag while they make the profit? Just a thought....

I will agree that the guys who said you aren't running a business are wrong. It's not a profitable one and it will come to an end before your lease is up, but none-the-less you are running a business.
As good a deal as you have stumbled on, why aren't more people driving old CRE trucks leased to other companies? Same with Schneider and everyone else wo oes lease purchase.... All the lease trucks are still leased to the same company. You would think that if there were all these successful l/p drivers out there, some of them would have leased them onto other companies by now. And yet you almost never see that.

 

Well, its no surprise that companies differ from one another.

So uh, did your friend put any other money towards his truck before he bought it? The reason for asking is because for one, Horizon, the company that leased our truck to us is putting 1 cent for every loaded mile we run into a fund that can be used towards buyng the truck. Also, we have the option to put how ever much of our own money into that same fund to increase the amount. But as I stated, since we dont intend to keep the truck, we didnt opt for that.

 

No, He went to orientation, Picked out his truck, Went to work and at the end paid a buck and got the title...He still paid more for the truck than on normal purchase but...He does now own the truck...And that is the difference.

England has the whole scam figured out so that you do all the work and they reap all the benefits and they dress it up to make you think that you're getting a good deal...But it's really a pretty bad deal when you look at it in more detail.

 

to all you old timers out there I just want to say thanks, I only have about 5 years but thanks for all the info I learned from you guys over the years you were all so helpful and strait up with me. I was lucky to drive for a old timer who taught me owe so well. I did screw my license up which I am paying for today. But when I get back out there its you guys who I will listen to I have seen allot of people loose there shirts over the years and you all are still making it.

THANKS!!

 

Well, of course it is, because you chose to keep it.

Of course you did. But it takes more money to buy that house then it does to rent one. Besides, you have to have next to perfect credit and a fairly healthy down payment to buy that house. If you dont, then you end up financing it for the rest of your life and end up paying wayyyy to much in interest. Its all about what you can afford and what kind of commitment you're willing to make.

Exactly, thats why it is called gross income. But even whats left over, is still pretty good. The other thing, you act like we have to pay for all the fuel, maintenence and repairs out of our pocket. We dont. That all gets deducted before hand. We have a maintenence account that comes out of our check at a rate of 7 cents a mile that pays for all repairs and PM's. plus, if we take good care of the truck, the unused money in the maint. fund comes back to us at the end of the lease.

The combined 50 to 60 grand that we take home is after all that has been taken out.

Oh, yes we are. As company drivers, on almost a 5grand mile week, our take home paychecks were 800 bucks for the both of us, not split. As leasers, that same amount of miles yields about 1300 for one week take home pay. Looks like we make more as leasers than company drivers to me.

Sorry, but I dont feel the same as you do.

They still have company drivers and to my knowledge, they've always had the lease program. Back then, you could drive company solo but not now.

They make their profit just as we make ours.

We may not be rolling in it like most O/O's are, but we are making a descent profit. If we wernt, we wouldnt be doing it.

Why do you say it will come to an end before the lease is up? That makes no sence. Not only us, but England loses money when that truck doesnt run, either. The more miles we run, the more they make as well.

Because that's what's written in the contract. If you lease with England, you can only pull Englands trailers. If you buy it, you can drive for whoever you want.

I havent talked to every driver that works for England so I have no idea whats going on out there. Supposedly, the unit number is what states which truck is owned or leased. I just know that I see alot more non-company trucks out there than company ones.