THE ADVENTURES CONTINUE - DFO gets a truck and hops on Schneider's IC Choice Program

Hi DFO,
If at the end of the 52 week lease period If you choose to purchase the truck, the residual value of the truck will be $52,000.
This mean your lease over? What I understand is you have to pay off your truck to end the lease !
How much your new payment after 52 week ?
Can you take your truck some to run somewhere else ?

 

You turn the truck in if you don't want to keep it, finance the $52,000, etc.

 

Your question about weekends is a tough one - honestly, I'd do everything exactly as I did it this weekend, same loads, same problems again, because at the end of it the only "real" issue was my final load is delivering tomorrow morning instead of today, but that was purely due to an issue at the shipper (they did not have an empty trailer to preload it, so when I showed up it was obviously not ready and they couldn't load me until this morning). Weekends are very tricky - its obviously great to have a nice long load to keep you busy through the weekends. Unfortunately, high-paying high-mileage loads are few and far between on the solo driver board, and the ones that do show up usually seem to send you into an area where it'd be tough to get out of, if not impossible on weekends.

For me I like to run in the south. I'm from the south, I like the warmer weather, I like the general lack of snowstorms, I know most of the places to stop for the night, etc. I can usually find loads going to/from my general home area and the Charlotte OC which I stop by a lot. Most of the loads I run are anywhere between 300-500 miles. Usually its the kind of thing where I pick up a load, drive for the day, deliver it the next morning, then repeat the next day. I'm usually in no hurry, can take my time, and enjoy doing what I do. As for how far out I'm willing to go, honesty since I tend to border myself with the southern states that means I'm not really too far from home - usually no more than 1000 miles away. Ohio I will go to if its a decent load AND I can immediately get back out (like I did this week), at least in the winter. During the warmer months I'll happily truck up there for longer periods of time.

Come late spring/summer I'll probably start to venture west some - I have a lot of family that live in Vancouver, Canada that I'd love to go visit. I've done that cross-country drive twice in my pickup truck (once there, once back) and would love to do it again but this time be getting paid for it, lol.

Hope that answers your questions, I'm just gonna keep doing what has been working for me since the start.

You are required to make your lease payments for the length of your lease, which depending on your experience/credit can range I believe from 1 to 5 years. Due to my experience I was only eligible for the one year lease.

At the end of the lease I can either turn the truck in (give it back to Schneider) and not have to make any more payments, or if I want to keep this truck (own it completely myself) I can refinance the residual amount ($52,000 for this truck) and continue paying it off.

I am not sure what the new payment will be after the 52 weeks. I am guessing it will probably be very similar to what I am paying now.

While you are still making the lease payments, you cannot take the truck somewhere else, you have to stay leased to Schneider and only Schneider. Of course once the truck is paid off you can do whatever you want with it.

 

Glad to hear things are going so well for you DFO. I'm enjoying reading this thread as much as the other and drawing from your experiences.

 

This morning I got up and checked with the shipper, they told me my load was at a warehouse about 30 miles away, so they gave me directions and off I went towards the warehouse. Finally found the place, I got lucky and pulled in the right building (no signs, no nothing to indicate I was at the right spot, lol). Just 2 guys there loading, so it was pretty slow, but everyone there was really nice, got talking with older driver who went as far as to call up his buddy and get me the correct exit number for the place I was delivering to because he was familiar with it but just couldn't remember the right exit.

About half an hour later it was my turn to back up to the dock, so I did. Then as soon as the boss man walked out the older man running the forklift grabbed his coffee and leaned up against the forklift and kinda had this twinkle in his eye, like he was digging deep back in his memory bank for some stories to share. I must have talked with him for at least a half an hour before he got back on the forklift, he had all kinds of stories to tell and wanted to know everything about what trucking was like now, how much the e-logs sucked and what truck stops were still open compared to when he used to drive. I know some people would have gotten pissed off at the wasted time, but honestly when someone genuinely wants to take the time to have a real conversation these days I'll be more than happy to engage them in it. Sometimes I find myself spending all my time worrying over where I'm going next, how much fuel its going to cost, how much time I'll burn, what happens after that, etc etc. It's easy to get in such a rush that you forget to slow down a little bit.

So, after we finally finished BSing, he had me loaded in 15 minutes and I hopped on 75 and then got on 40 and headed towards NC.

Crossed through the mountains all the way to just before Greensboro without incident, then of course I had my daily dose of witnessing something so unbelievably stupid I almost didn't believe it. I can't remember for sure, but I believe it is where 40 and 40 business (hwy 421?) split off, where 2-3 lanes split left 40 continues on 4 lanes to the right. Well, right at the split I see a pickup truck stopped. I also see lights, wait, are those ****ing reverse lights? Yes, this idiot has missed the 40 exit and is reversing right in the middle of the split, right next to the lane that I am in. I can't move, so I just slow down without stabbing the brakes in inducing general panic around me. So hes backed up far enough now, I'm approaching behind him, then as I'm about a truck length behind him he throws it in drive and mashes the throttle and starts accelerating in the breakdown lane on the far left of the split, right next to me. I just lay on the horn as I have no idea if this moron has any idea that I am even in the lane next to him, he doesn't seem to care and just continues on his merry way pulling in and disappearing behind my trailer after I pass.

After tailing me so close that the only indication he is behind me is this reflection of his headlamps off the ground at the end of my trailer, traffic finally opens up a bit and I can move over. He slowly passes by, I look down and of course, cell phone in hand texting or what not.

So, whatever, shake my head and continue on. I get all the way over in the right lane now since I was going to drop it back to cruising at 60MPH. Not 5 miles ahead, this time in the far right lane, I see lights again. Reverse lights again. Man, two people in one night doing this ****? What the **** is wrong with these idiots? OH, NO, ITS THE SAME GUY IN THE WHITE CHEVY DUALLY. HE MISSED HIS EXIT. AGAIN. AND IS NOW REVERSING, IN THE BREAKDOWN LANE, ON A 4 LANE HIGHWAY, AGAIN, RIGHT NEXT TO ME.

All I could think about was the accident that occured in NC that I learned about in trucking school where a lady and her kid were killed doing the same maneuver, when she failed to keep her car in the breakdown lane and backed on to the freeway and they were struck by a truck. Un-be-f******-lievable.

ANYWAY, that aside today was pretty easy. I'm anxious to fuel up tomorrow and see what kind of MPG I got this trip. I tried to drive the entire time at 60, took my time in the mountains and used momentum when I could and used a lower gear and less throttle at a slightly higher RPM vs lugging with throttle on the floor when climbing hills. This tank will have run me from Charlotte down to Decatur, GA then up to my pickup in TN and across back to NC. My load down to Decatur was about 10,000lbs, the load I'm on now is around 20k.

Oh, almost forgot, lol. So I got an "important message" on the Qualcomm today, its another trip planner, asking for help with the trailer number as the driver at the Atlanta OC can't find the relay. See, this is why "getting green check marks" is not good enough. As I guessed, the people I spoke with regarding the screwed up workflow over the weekend did absolutely NOTHING to correct it, and they were trying to relay a load that I had already delivered. I messaged her back explaining what happened and that the weekend folks obviously didn't do anything, she was really nice and got all the workflow fixed and reset them to me tonight. I also got 2 calls from whatever my form of a DBL is today, confused by the same thing. I told her the first time that the load wasn't a relay, and that the trip planners were fixing it. Ok, no problem. Then the trip planner pulls all my loads off me (had to do this in order to resend them) and the DBL got all confused and called and left a message telling me to call her back (its was 5:40pm at this time). So, I call in and of course it doesn't go to Charlotte, so I sit on hold for 20 minutes, get support shift, then try to get put through to Charlotte, but she had already gone home apparently. So, I just messaged her trying to explain the confusion. What can I do, LOL.

Well, I'll make my delivery tomorrow morning. Then I was going to go home. But then I also see this very good paying load going to Savannah. And I have a fricking brand new Great Dane trailer that I will lose if I go home. Yes, I think we might be going to Savannah. TO THE LOAD BOARD!

 

This past week was especially hard on some choice guys, I had 4 loads cancel on me throughout the week, support shift is horrible and I try very hard to never need them. DFO you will learn the customers that never cause a problem and you begin to mainly haul thier loads. I normally haul for about the same 5 or 6 customers weekly. Campells soup in Paris Texas has began to really go down hill. Past 2 loads including last saturday were not preloaded as normal and was told they did not know when they would get to it. At least got the $150 VNU pay. It is a learning curve and with time it will become much easier and enjoyable. I have been doing it nearly 4 years on Choice and I am very happy I hung on through the tough times.

 

This is a great read, DFO!

 

2 IMPORTANT things.......
First, make sure you get paid to play "hunt the empty". Anything over 50 miles is $50....(total miles.....talk to your DBL)
Second, (and I was told this by a DBL), you only pay the $500 re-power fee if you actually hook to the trailer and start the work assignment. Stuff happens, and they understand. I called off a load one time because I knew I wouldn't have the hours to complete it. I did the right thing and called a day before it was to be picked up, but nevertheless, as I understand it, as long as you don't hook to the trailer, there is no re-power fee.

nice to see you learned about driving 70 mph all the time.....hey, sometimes you've got to. But, I've learned that 60 mph and properly inflated tires yields about 1 mpg. Last month I bought 2000 gallons from Pilot.......simple math will tell you that that amounts to 2000 FREE miles....and that's real money, bro.

 

Thanks for the good read. I am currently in choice orientation at the Portland OC. Are scales reimbursed or our responsibilty, can't get a straight reply here.

 

23 + no kids + no commitments + work ethic= piece of cake.

You'll do well.