Thinking about leasing a truck

I would recommend financing your own truck as others have suggested and then lease it onto your company. They payments each month will be FAR less than with a L/P plan. One source I've heard that's good is www.truckdiscountmart.com

 

Yes as squeak said, I had a lot of down time in shops getting the truck fixed up. Plust I was reading the numbers off the website kiosk thing which reflect smaller numbers than the actual printed statement from the tax service I use. They show almost double the net (gross) pay than what the website shows. The last six weeks in a row have been sub 2000 miles weeks for me. Part of it was hitting a deer, and part was taking 4th of July +3 days off and the rest was being stuck in Colorado for over 100 hours reset (turned down long delivery time loads, plus hometime was put in for about a 3 weeks before which hamstrung me to the 11 Western states) then brokedown on the very next load for 3 more days.

Anyway, when I say I'm done with the leasing crap I mean I went ahead and got the cash together and paid off the remaining lease payments times the 20 months plus the residual plus the sales taxes etc-- the truck is now mine.

 

I think that's a good thing Scottie, Congrats!

 

I agree with Injun. Before you lease, you have to have a good idea about what you are going to be doing. It is a business. You have to watch where you are running, where you fuel and come the end of the week, how much you puchase. I will admit that I have had a couple of bad weeks, but still cleared enough to take of my bill and still put money in the bank, and this includes the .08/mi that I put into my personal account every week. Right now, in about 3 months, there is over $2K in it. My bank account is healthy, and also, I have the newer truck. that was my plan from the start. Did not want the used one. I knew what I was getting into from the get go. And like Injun said, you need to be able to rock the boat at times and put your foot down. I just finished 2 weeks running CA, and when they tried to send me back again, not only no, but H*(( no. Personally I know where I need to run to make a good check, and get some good MPG and cheap fuel prices. My bottom line, 1100 miles, and the truck payment is made. Everything else, well other than fuel, money in my pocket, and many weeks, it comes out to over .40/mi. Have had a couple weeks where miles run came out to almost .50/mi.

Is leasing for everyone, no. I have personally seen many fail. Now also like Injun, soon, I am taking a vacation for 10 days. Money is in the bank and money is in escrow. Will be heading to China. Come March, taking another 3 weeks off. Am I worried about the truck payment while gone, not in the least.

 

Can someone run down the money numbers for me please. I know that it HAS to be more than the $.92 a mile loaded/$.82 a miles empty that Swifts talks about on their website. That barely pays for your fuel!

Thanks,

 

I think those numbers are correct but you get some kind of fuel surcharge dunno how much that is.

 

That's what I want to find out.

 

The fuel surcharge varies according to national average for diesel, it's been running in the low $.40's cpm. There is also a small adjustment for west coast miles, usually 1 or 2 cpm.

The fsc is designed so that a truck that gets 6 mpg will have a fuel cost of about $1.46 per gal, reguardless of what the national price average is. This amounts to a cost of about 24 cpm. The fsc is paid only on loaded miles.

so for loaded miles,
.94 - .24 = $.70 per mile to pay for the truck payment, maint, insurance. What's left after that is what the owner gets.

empty miles are much worse because you don't have the fsc.
so for empty miles, an mpg of 7.5 and a cost of $4.00 per gal, the fuel cost per mile is $4.00/7.5mpg = $.53 cpm
.84 - .53 = $.21 cpm to pay for truck payment (you just went negative), maint, insurance, etc. Driving empty will bankrupt you in very short order.

 

This week's FSC was 43cpm. Also, you get $35 for each additional stop beyond a single pickup and a single drop, detention pay (I don't know the rate. Collected it so rarely) past 2 hours, $100 for unloading yourself...a few other extras I can't think of off hand.

I've been running on loan to one of our dedicated accounts. I haul freight out to stores from a distribution center. There are always at least two stops on each load. I haul it out, deadhead back. But I don't get paid deadhead rate. I get paid loaded rate both ways. That means I get the 92cpm plus FSC for the entire trip. Every dispatched mile I run pays $1.35 this week. On top of that, I get $20/stop because it's a special account. In spite of this, roughly $300 of each settlement is stop pay. It adds up quick.

There is a chance my status will change to being dedicated myself. The linehaul rate will go up to 97cpm, FSC drops about 10cpm, but the big tradeoff is being able to fuel at the dedicated account, for about 75 cents/gallon less than open market and about 30 cents/gallon less than the nearest Swift terminal. I lose nothing.

 

Can you not fuel at the DC now? Or do you just get a steeper discount when you are assigned?

I've fueled at Swift controled DCs before. I got got a pump rate about $.12 less than the nearby terminal.