The Good, The Bad, The Honest Truth of a New Roehl Lease Operator

I too feel a commitment to ROEHL and know exactly what you're talking about. Must be the stubborn, don't quit, attitude that I had when I was in the service coming through.. I've run the whole list from being a company driver to trainer to L/O to O/O. I have run in every division in the company except PDM and enjoyed all of it, for the most part.

We'll just have to see what the future brings...

 

Make the switch to PDM. Might as well get the full experience.

 

I would have loved to try that division. but now? Nah... Truck is too heavy and besides, as I understand it, you have to be based in Marshfield... Thanks for the thought anyway.....

 

I use to feel a ton of pride and commitment to roehl. Then they charged me 5k to upgrade trucks bout 1500 was parts the rest was "labor" haven't been happy since. I know I asked for it but they did things like charging an hour labor to change a bulb, or an hour to remove a power wire, that was disconnected and took Maby 5 seconds to pull out. I feel like I'm married to a rapist here. I make good money still but that isn't everything for me.

 

Same thing happened to me when I turned in my old truck in lieu of bringing on my new one. I also refused to sign their "promissary note" until they included an amatorization schedule. I only have a couple more weeks and then I'll pay it off and be done with it...

 

I wish all of you that are leasing trucks the best of luck... I have been an O/O, not for Roehl, but for myself, and then leased to a couple of smaller flatbed companies close to home here. I have kicked around buying another truck, but everytime I start to think about it the economy takes and dive and I change my mind. I kind of like having someone else's name on the door, but I do miss the independence. I guess that is why I do butt heads with management so hard sometimes, I know when they are doing something really stupid. So what are the lease payments running per week now? I know that most of the guys are making money, at least as much as the company guys.

 

828? I thought your truck was 848? LOL! I was parked next to 929 in the Dallas yard Wed night....

But! I think that we have to keep in mind that ROEHL really was never set up to handle leasing trucks. In the early years, we had to go through Schnieder to lease the truck and then bring them on with ROEHL. And you're right, we are black sheep until they need a load moved that can't be done at 62 mph with gutted trucks..... Then we're the "Can you, please?" brigade.....
Dan did a lot to try and bring the O/O's into the fold but he wasn't able to fully bring everything on line before his health started getting him down. After about Sept last year, everything sort of just maintained but couldn't move forward.

I hope Jeff is able to get up to speed rather quickly and move the program forward otherwise I'm afraid it's going to die out eventually or devolve into a program that nobody in their right mind would sign onto...

 

It is 848, I feel bad for the guy in 929 its wore out. I'm looking at buying a Pete from i65 truck sales and doing it that way I'm tired of throwing my money away on these junk freightliners