Leasing at Prime

Sure... just ask. Accidents, tickets, longevity, customer and public complaints... all of these things factor into it.

 

You can match them up against your settlement. The first section is a breakdown of the revenue by trip... the descriptions and revenue amounts should allow you to answer this one.

They estimate lumpers fees as a percentage of the revenue... it's a place holder really. When you submit your trip report with a lumper amount included that amount replaces the estimate, and that becomes part of your revenue. You're reimbursed for the lumper, but it is taxable revenue.

 

LINE - Linehaul revenue
FUSU - Billed fuel surcharge
FUSUAD - Fuel surcharge adjust
FUSUGU - Fuel surcharge guard
OULU - Estimated lumpers fee
REFUSU - Reefer fuel surcharge
STPI - Stop pay
STPA - Stop pay

A couple of the more common ones. Make sure you have your settlements emailed to you, so you can go over them AND add them to your weekly accounting. In addition the "basic accounting service" ($25 per week) is invaluable doing a lot of the drudgery work, like collecting all of the LINE amounts into one figure for example. Makes putting together a profit/loss sheet a whole bunch easier.

After you have a couple of months on the road with us, make sure you get routed into one of the terminals for the ACE-II business class. You can ask lots of questions, have settlements gone over, have your business critiqued for places you can improve, etc. Plus they'll pay you $70 (that's what it used to be) for your trouble.
STPA -

 

General notes for buying your lease truck...

In the back of your lease as an addendum, there should be an amortized schedule for what you'll pay to buy your truck. You can either arrange bank financing, or if your truck is under 450,000 miles at lease end, Success Leasing will finance you. Their buy-in is $13,000 less $1000 for each year of service you have with Prime. If you're going to do this you need to be talking to them well in advance. In the case of a lease-end buy-out, understand that your truck will go on the auction list at about 5 months prior to lease end. You'll need to declare your intentions to Success before this time.

Once you pull the trigger a number of things happen. You become financially responsible for your maintenance. You can still charge things through your settlement, but it will be paid for out of your next settlement's revenue in it's entirety. This brings up the idea that having a lot of cash stashed is not just nice, but a requirement to remain solvent. You need enough cash or credit to finance major repairs on your own. If you haven't started already, a sizable weekly contribution to an emergency fund near the beginning of a 3-year lease is a good way to get it going... just don't touch it.

In the final year of a 3-year lease, many drivers let some of the maintenance fall by the wayside... you're getting a new truck, right? Not if you buy your truck, so getting as much done under warranty in that last year is important. Under the terms of your lease, you'll note the warranty limits... get as much done as you can. When you lease back onto Prime (or any other carrier) you'll be getting an inspection done before you pull your first load, and all of that needs to be negotiated as to what has to be fixed before you go out.

As far as warranty work during the lease, I had my turbo go out at 80k miles, and the DPF and DOC went out at the same time and were replaced. Two input throttle exhaust valves, wheel seals on the rear drive axle a couple of times, a couple of oil seals on the drive line, and two injectors. I highly recommend you get your engine work at the engine manufacturer's shops. The guys at Freightliner/Peterbilt/Kenworth are reasonable techs many times, but how many times a week do they tear into an engine? Get it done at a Detroit or Cummins shop.

Tires are another thing... some folks put el-cheapo tiress on during the last lease year, so they'll have some tread on it when they turn the truck in. Bad idea if you're keeping your truck... put some quality low-rolling resistance tires on it. You're keeping it, right?

My truck is an '09 Cascadia, titled as a 2010 model. Since maintenance has all been on my dime it's gone through some wheel seals, the carrier bearing was replaced, and I'm tough on clutches... so guess what? I've put a new clutch in it. One of the more unexpected things was suspension repairs. The goat trails we have for big slab roads now put a beating on your truck. Rear spring bushings, all 8 U-bolts securing the axles, re-squaring the mounting of the air bags, and a new front-axle tie rod ran me about $3,000. I've replaced all of the shocks... steer axle twice. Air conditioning serviced, had the air drier serviced, a major oil leak after the ol' arctic vortex, and the overhead done twice. The DPF was cleaned at 380k miles.

Ya know what? I'd say most of this was routine for a class 8 truck. All of that was done at my expense, except for the oil leak... warranty! I'm still at 7.9-cpm for maintenance, which ain't bad when you hear the horror stories on emission engines. Speaking of engines, I get my oil sampled at a quality lab (not a table-top cheapy) and the reports come back squeaky-clean... so the engine is in good shape at 550k miles.

Now the numbers tell me I'm still in the clover. Success gave me an offer of $1300 per week on a new 2013 Cascadia, and I'm doing about half of that buying my truck for two years. For the first two years of the next three, I'll have about $30,000 I don't pay leasing a truck every year I can sink into maintenance and break even with the lease deal. I'm confident that I'm not going to need a new engine in the next two years, so I can do a bunch of fixing, and be ahead of the game. In the last year of the next three, I'll have nearly $68,000 I don't pay for a lease... heck, I can buy another one of these trucks for cash if anything goes wrong.

Any way you look at it, knowing the numbers tells me I'm way ahead of the game.

Prime and Success still maintain a tire escrow account that I fund... which is fine by me, right now it's 7-cpm, and I'm stillfundad of the game. I'm putting back $200 per week towards maintenance, and will probably bump another hundred pretty soon... that should cover most things along with what I have in reserve right now.