My experience in Prime's lease program so far.

If you only made $500/week then you were doing it wrong..

My biggest pet peeve is the cost of their lease trucks. It's freaking ridiculous how much they charge for the trucks. They make its hard to go home and still pull a profit. You have to plan it very carefully.

With that said I'm still making money.

I've run for 20 weeks now. Of those 20 weeks, 1 week I sat a few days due to being sick and broke even. I took home time one week and had to add a little emergency fund money to break even..

With the other 18 weeks that I actually ran, I had 1 week where I went negitive due to a prime #### up of not scheduling a appointment.

Counting the 1 negitive week and the remaining 17 positive weeks I've averaged $1,515.58/week to myself after all expenses aside from taxes.

If you want to be all hard ### and count the full 20 weeks its $1,368.61 but the reality is each of those 2 weeks I ran 1 load to cover expenses and took the week off which is why I don't count them.

If you couldn't make more than $500/week then you did it wrong.. Honestly though I just #####ed a bit to my dispatcher because I have noticed my last month or so was trending downward aside from one really good week that averaged the month out. I've only had 2 weeks that I was under $1k to me and both those weeks were last month.

I'm debating if I want to get a truck from outside prime and bring it on their fleet or go elsewhere with a older truck. My main complaint is running their truck cost me around $3k per week when all expenses are said and done.. I'm debating if I want to finance my own truck from a outside source or buy a older truck for cash and put it on somewhere like Landstar or Mercer.

Honestly though I'd prefer to finish off my year buy a Sprinter van and run LTL/expedited loads but from what I've been reading the money is bad in that.

 

It's my 1st year.. I would imagine this isn't your 1st year that your expecting more? I really don't think $1,5k/week is bad for me being a new driver. I'll get my year's experance in and change, but I'm not gonna go anywhere else and make that my 1st year.

For the record though, if I wasn't using their lease truck my income would be much better. If I was buying or leasing a new truck from a dealer I'd be paying closer to $2-2.5k a month. With Primes lease I'm paying closer to $5k with the lease cost, tire fees ect..

You might clear that every week, but you probably arent going to raise that income level by much.. I'm putting my time in to get my experience and I'm saving for my own truck. I don't plan to average just $1,5k/week in 2 years.. I will be a owner op by then if I stay in the big rigs. As a company driver in another year you will likely be making the same as you do now. I won't still be a lease driver in another year.

 

Yes is expensive but that's including my opperating costs. Fuel is usually $1k of that. To be fair its usually around $2.8k with $1k being the fuel then there are tolls, tire fee ect..

Not trying to justify it but when I say $3k its including all my costs for the week as a average, not that the lease its self is $3k. Meaning it cost around $3k to run the truck each week.