Quality leasing?

Here's some current information about quality and the Indianapolis location.

A new 2016 Prostar is $660 a week for 7 years with $1 buyout. No money down.

Used low mile 2015 Lonestar was $620 a week 5 years with $1 buy out. $0 down. Actual payment is $615.49 and $4.51 a week is held in escrow and you get this back if you complete the lease.

The interest rate on $2667.12 a month, ($615.49 a week) on the 2015 Lonestar calculates to be about 12.3%

Pricing on the the trucks is pretty much done by the year of the truck no matter if it was a higher resale truck like a KW or Pete with the premium interiors or a stripped down bare bones Freightliner.

Used 2012 trucks can take 2 weeks before they are ready. It's a wait to get into their shop. 2015 & 2016 ready to go within 24 hrs or less.

30 day warranty from them on top of whatever warranty remains on a used truck.

The trucks get governed to whatever company you are leasing onto want them governed at. Mine will be governed at 75 which is what I wanted anyways. I generally drive between 60 and 65 and I like a little bit of pedal so I'm not drag racing another castrated truck when I want to pass them.

Maintenance escrow, insurance etc depend on the company you lease too. In my case I have nothing but the truck payment coming out and I need to save my own money for maintenance and business capitalization as well as get insurance for the truck. Insurance I will purchase through the my company and have them take it from my settlement. I've always done that when I could before. On my own I use Brown and Brown for comp collision and bobtail.

There are 38 companies you can lease to listed on their website they lease trucks for pulling dry van, reefer, flats and blanket wrap. Mileage and percentage leases. Hook and drop to married to your own trailer. Companies that babysit your funds and some that expect you to manage on your own. Finding your own loads to letting the load planners and dispatchers find them for you. Company's that sign you on as a lease purchase driver to some that sign you on as an owner operator.

Talking with one of the employees there when he was taking a smoke break he said they have a better success rate with drivers in the new truck and the slightly used trucks that still have factory warranty left on them.

I was there last Friday... wow, madness and chaos ensued. I drove my car down to Indy to look at trucks and woke up earlier than I wanted so I arrived about 6 AM and started looking trucks over well before the shuttle buses got there. The lot was completely jammed with what I estimate to be 400 to 500 trucks and there were about 50 drivers at the location. Drivers I met ranged from the completely broke wanting the cheapest truck he could lease because "It's all I can afford" (wow, he might want to think about the cost of fixing a truck and downtime) to an old owner operator that drove in his 1.5 million mile Freightliner Century and was looking for a second truck.

Quite a few Werner Pete 386 and Kenworth T660, A couple Melton T660, Several T700 from a couple fleets I don't recognize, a couple Tango T680 (these are stripped down bare bones trucks, looked like company used every delete option when they ordered them lol), several CRST Cascadia and Volvo 780 and a hell of a lot of Prostar with the Maxxfarce engines and New 2016 Prostars with the Cummins engine and quite a few Volvo 670. Only a hand full of Lonestars both set up for flatbed and van and I did see one W900 on the lot. The majority of the used trucks I looked at had around 300,000 miles. I did see some 2012 trucks with mid 100k and 200k and one with 600k on the clock too.

The trucks were in a heck of a lot better shape than trucks I looked at at Arrow truck sales a couple years ago. Especially the interiors. Almost all the used trucks had new recaps on them.

I was there the entire day. This place is extremely busy. Throughout the day I saw them helping a couple drivers switch to other company's, let a driver turn in his truck for another truck as he needed a white truck for Atlas Van lines and didn't want to spend $5k to get it painted (several bed bug companies give require the truck to be white or painted company colors and often give you up to 6 months to get it done and will reimburse half of the cost) and also wanted a condo as his wife is now riding with him. I never once saw the staff at quality act in an unprofessional manner although I did see several drivers yelling at the ladies that are just service writers for the shop and have a desk in the drivers lounge as well as #####ing at other employees there in not a very nice tone of voice.

I leased the 2015 Lonestar the Atlas driver turned in. I was looking for a used truck that had some warranty left, a little nicer interior than stripped down fleet trucks, Cummins or Detroit and a 13 speed and preferably a Kenworth or International as I have both within 20 miles of my house. I met him about 630 AM and we wandered the lot together for a while. He had told me the fuel milage he was averaging and the speed he drives and that the truck had been dependable and hasn't had to be in the shop as well as a few other things about it. Blanket wrap special commodities that he is doing are light loads too so the truck hasn't been worked hard either. It's kinda nice seeing how the truck was kept up before it was cleaned up for resale as well as get a little history on it too. I got very lucky here. I'll be using the truck to do the same thing at STI Exhibit fleet, lower miles but higher revenue freight. I have experience with pad wrap and special commodities / Electronics and trade shows.

IMHO the trucks are not a horrible deal. Not the best deal that can be found but definitely not the worst. I have no buyers remorse. I'm not worried about weekly payments or being in the hole some weeks after taking time off or having a slow week and in trucking there are slow weeks, months, and if the economy goes into chitcan, slow years.

Daily, Weekly, Monthly, whatever... It's the same in the end. This works for my financial situation and doesn't affect the household. I've spent the last 2 months figuring how I wanted to make a move back into being an owner operator again, working on spreadsheets and researching companies that I thought would be a good fit for me. You need to figure out what is right for you.

My new horse. 2015 Lonestar mid roof, ISX 450 hp, 13 speed.

 

Did you hear about being able to ask for a balloon payment on a used truck to lower your weekly payments

 

You'll need to call them on that one. It says you can on their website in the FAQ section but I didn't discuss that with them and heard no mention of it when I was there so I don't know if they do that anymore.

 

Wow thanks for the info trueblue

 

Good post. I was actually going to ask if anyone outside of eagle had any luck getting a lonestar or w9.

Anyone else? I was approved for a truck swap and that is what I'd like to get

 

Good info and can concur as well. Went there back in August and got mine. Been happy with it all so far.

 

Ive seen a few of them with other carriers. Always best to check more then just indy from what im told...how or why did u need to get a truck swap?

 

Emission troubles in my '13 386. Have replaced basically the whole system and it still won't passive regen then the stationary required lights up for about 15seconds and then stop engine light. Been in shop 6times in 8 weeks and 3 have been in past 2 weeks, and stopped by a quality shop today to force a regen so I can make it to my new truck tomorrow

 

Seen plenty of people with the lonestar . haven't Seen anyone other than Eagle or Celadon with a W9.

 

Getting a lonestar.