Lease purchase newbie

I have moments .

 

The emoji plumber posted holding a document and berating the lease purchase operator as to why he’s in essence screwed. Kinda sums up the lessors hold over the lessee

 

Ill tell ya up front im not a TWUCKER never even turned a key on one but i can read . Been on this site for a year and you'll be hard pressed to find a successful veteran driver that will say its better than company driver . Good luck.

 

I’ve said this before but I’ll say it again for the OP. I’m 3rd generation trucking. I’ve not drawn a paycheck since I was 18 from any company that I wasn’t involved in either loading, managing, or driving trucks. I’ve long yearned to own my own truck . At times I could make the math work in Pennie’s and dollars but when I factored in the RISK involved I could never make it make sense. Given the modern state of this industry and the issues and quality of current equipment it can be a huge gamble. An emissions issue can ballon quickly to many thousands of dollars. These trucks don’t seem to be able to get beyond 600,000 without major problems. Insurance is nuts. But my house will be paid off this year, I have no credit card debt and I own and drive vehicles I pay cash for. Raised 4 kids and let the wife stay home and home school them when they were younger. I’m not saying it can’t be done but I’d be billy bob darned if I signed up where the folks that hold the note on my truck also control my ability to earn. If you want to own your own DO NOT do a lease purchase through a carrier. Save money and get your truck from a different entity than a carrier then lease your equipment to a carrier. It can be done, going owner op, but d not go lease purchase through a carrier. D Tibbitt a member here did it but his carrier wanted him to succeed and to this day he is the ONLY one I know who successfully completed a carrier lease purchase

 

Well, I would be #2.
I leased my truck through Schneider, after 2 years I let my maintenance account build up and my savings as well and I bought it outright.
It can be done if you're focused on your business.
Too many drivers come here and talk about how bad they got screwed over, but never talk about how they conducted their personal life. It's the 'entitled generation' I guess.
I never had a single problem with Schneider and I was quite successful. But at the same time, I had no problem getting out of bed either.

 

Look at Prime inc. lots of drivers try it and lot of drivers fail. When the trucking company sets the lease payments and then controls the loads and miles and everything else I can be almost impossible to be successful. Those drivers are paying some were around $1200 a week just for the truck payments. That’s a lot of pressure to keep the truck rolling.

I had my own truck for several years working for Landstar. It was fun to pick my own loads go were I wanted to for the rate the load paid. There is a lot of cheap loads. You could get good load from California to the northeast. But nothing was leaving the northeast or it so cheap it almost not worth the trouble to pick it up. But running empty is expensive also and something is usually better than nothing.

When I would go home as O/O you are always looking for that next load or thinking about truck repair you need to get done or something. You’re the boss now and your alway on the job basically because you got that next truck payment and insurance and taxes.

Im back to driving a company and when I go home I turn the truck off and don’t think about. Depending on who you work for. You are now the driver and the dispatcher and the repair guy and the fuel manager. Wait till you run the PA turnpike and it $300 or wantever the price is today.

When I was at Landstar long time ago I did not make the extra money for all the extra jobs I was doing. I made about the same as a company driver.

 

We’ll hello number 2, I would ask when you did this though. I remember when this started to be a thing. Used to be lots of adds in the old job books at the doors of the truck stops advertising the opportunities to lease purchase. I think when it started out it may have been okay but then these companies figured out they could make a profit center out of these predatory lease agreements. So I’m glad it worked for you but I still wouldn’t trust the outfit that holds my note to control my workload. Also the insurance and equipment were not as much of an issue. The soft freight market at this point would be another deterrent

 

The main reason I sometimes mentions Greatwide is the driver holds the note on the truck and it's in the drivers name. I guess it's still that way. Good question to ask.

 

If u want to get into ownership just buy ur own truck from a place other than a trucking company... then find a good company to lease on somewherre that has freight in the area you want to run...you will come out miles ahead in the long run.