Surprised at Prime Lease Purchase

What are you paid for the linehaul before fuel surcharge?

 

Nor the fuel discounts, nor the tire discounts, nor the insurance discounts, nor the contract rate negotiating strength etc etc. The 75% they give their contractors is on average more than the 100% I get for my loads on the spot market. Especially by 2019 rates. Plus I never have to talk to a greasy slimy broker ever again. That bonus alone is worth a pay cut. Had the same basic set up at Mercer and I really loved it. Too bad they were skimming and fired me for asking questions. If they hadn’t I would still be at Mercer right now. Oh well I can’t complain. I got the title to my trailer and a big fat check. But the more I talk to Prime and check their numbers and talk to some other contractors working for them right now I really like what I see. So far the only people saying anything negative aren’t giving me any detailed examples. They just say they don’t like Prime or they don’t like leasing on to other companies. But I’m telling anybody who reads this, the days of the one truck operations are going away. I’ve been seeing it coming for a while now. It’s why I leased onto Mercer a few years ago. The insurance underwriters are going to drive all of the small operators out of business. If they don’t then the greedy brokers giving us pennies per mile will finish us off. We just don’t have the negotiating strength to get the rates we need. So yes I am trying to bend over backwards to find something good about the leasing situation. If I can’t find anything good then I’m going to have to change careers in at this point in my life that’s just not feasible.

Here is an interesting article to support my position. Texas-based flatbed carrier with 260 trucks shuts down, citing insurance costs - FreightWaves

 

That’s what I thought when I looked at it. I’m glad somebody else saw that. I’m going to call ATS just to verify I wasn’t reading it incorrectly. But a .46 fuel surcharge is just too unbelievable to be true.

 

Brother I’m just gonna have to admit I don’t know what you’re talking about. I quoted $.46 FSC because that’s what you quoted. $2.51 per mile and $1.33 per mile after expenses isn’t bad. But based on the numbers I’ve seen at Prime I should be able to do that over there or better. So whether I am paying $.90 per gallon or making a profit of $.90 per gallon on fuel like you apparently do, as long as the average per mile rate is high enough I guess it really doesn’t matter. All I know is there are thousands of contractors at Prime driving brand new trucks and still paying their bills. The same can be said for a lot of other reputable large carriers.