Landstar Questions

While some might take a chance on this, I am not sure you would get the whole Landstar experience as the truck owner would want to be booking your loads for you to make sure they make money. There really aren't any short cuts here. You have to experience for yourself the agent/driver relationships that get created by finding your own loads and building a reputation for yourself.

Landstar is the closest thing out there to having your own authority and yet having the backing of a big company. You must be business man and salesman as well as truck owner and driver to survive here. There are over 8000 owner operators here at Landstar who are competing for the same freight you want and you have to sell yourself to these agents and convince them that their best interest lays with loading your truck before they do your competition. I really don't think you could properly experience this as a driver of someone elses truck.

 

I have heard bad about those guys also. I bought my truck from Lone Mountain truck leasing and had a great experience there, they are reasonable people who will work with you as long as you are up front with them.

 

I don't really see an upside for an owner in this situation, if you are talking about the owner holding the note. If you want to get a feel for Landstar, there are fleet owners that lease their trucks to Landstar who are always looking for drivers. You can get a feel for their program by going to work for one of those fleet owners. If you really want to become an owner operator, the only way to really experience what it is like is to just buy a truck and jump into the business. Sometimes, you just need to dive in and take your chances.

 

that was my thoughts as well. I doubt I will go lone mountain though. my local bank does commercial and business financing and banking. I have a good history with them, might get lucky there.

 

My experience with Lone Mountain has been pretty good to and I really think they go about moving equipment with the owner operator in mind. If people have 3-6k to put down and have been in the industry for some time they will work with them. The usual negatives like poor credit or other issues are put behind time and experience when they look at applications. Knowing that your putting the truck on at LS is a huge plus also,they have a good relationship with LS and I think that shows they are taking care of people.

Might you end up with a sick problem child of a truck,of course but thats a risk you run regardless of who you buy from. People need to take a some time to do some thier homework with on any truck,if they do this properly they are going to stand a much better chance of ending up with a good running reliable truck.

 

Is there something about Lone Mountain in particular that has you doubting them? I bought my truck from them and have had no big problems,I actually found it a better experience that any other vehicles I have bought.

 

I have kicked the idea of putting on another truck but drivers like us (LS BCO's) are so hard to find. Having worked as teamster for seventeen years and at Walmart for two I know what makes a good driver. You for example might be a great diver but lined up behind you are hundreds of guys that will not only turn out to be lazy and less motivated than me but they will trash both my equipment and my reputation. It would be a huge problem for many of us but if I were to do it I would look at someone who eventually wants to put a truck on at LS. This has it downsides because you might end up with a great driver but he will eventually move on and your back fishing around in the pool.

 

Local bank interest rates will blow away LM, it's just hard to find one that will lend on a truck. I have many friends with LM trucks, one has two in fact. It seems like one of the better deals out there. The gap insurance seems pricey though.

 

You bring up an interesting point about the interest,they work the deal as a lease and you get the title after your 36-48 months of payments.There is no set interet rate but Im sure its factored into the otal price of the truck. I need to break down the numbers for my truck and see what I would have paid had I gone to the credit union.

I tried other places including select trucks and arrow,they wanted huge down payments and I was not very impressed with thier customer service. Lone Mountain is filling a niche that is a real benefit for the non traditional buyer which might be a bad thing for some. Of course the best case scenario for anyone is to have a large down payment and cash held back to CYA but this is just not the case for some of us.

I had to add the gap insurance to my policy but Im still at less than 300.00 per month,the O/O insurance thing is new to me so Im not sure if thats good or not. I went with true north which saved me 20% over LS.

 

Thanks for all the responses everyone. I really appreciate your input, and will definitely take into consideration the wisdom you share.