to lease and not to lease...

I`d like to hear more on this to since I`m considering it soon.

 

Let me try and help here a little. I am just starting with Swift, in fact today, and they already know that as soon as I qualify, I am heading in the direction of L/P. I have been in contact with many different L/P's and I can pass on what I have learned.

I have been in a L/P program before, and it was working great until the company started to change things up, like trying to get the lease drivers to take the shorter runs with some empty miles on them to save the company trucks from the empty miles. This was not going to work.

When you become a L/P, you just need to remember that you are running a business. In my talks here, there are some concerns, and they have addressed them, like take a short one to help out, but before accept, make sure that there is something on the end that will make it worth my while.

You mentioned in your post about a couple that you know that is picky. Today when in the meeting with my DM, she told me about a O/O that was very picky. He turned down a 2000/mi load to WA, drop and hook on both ends, and a pre-arranged 2000/mi load right back. His reason, did not want to run into snow.

As far as weight, I can understand. If it very heavy and you know that alot of the trip will be in the mountains, you have to figure that in due to your MPG. You have to remember that as a L/P, you have to figure everything in, and this is where you have to also be able to get along with your DM and the planners.

On a final note, I was talking to a L/P the other day at a terminal, and after blowing some smoke up my &(*, I found out that when he had a major breakdown, Swift bailed him out, in other words, loaned him them money to fix his truck, so yes, his take home is less, but at least they worked with him.

Hope that this helps.

Mark

 

I still dont understand why anyone would want to make a truck payment for someone else. Very seldom does a L/P benefit the person doing all the work. If you really want to "OWN" a truck that bad, save your $$ and buy it from someone not affiliated with the company your going to work for.

 

Crash, I guess that you did not read his post completely. there are ways to make it when you do not have the credit, and from all that I have read, and talked to the people, there is a way to make it, you just have to work for it.

 

WE HAVE A WINNER HERE JOHNNY! TELL THEM WHAT THEY'VE WON!

Was talking to my former mentor today. He told me that last year he grossed $242,000(?) Was taxed on $46,000 after paying all the bills.

That was training for 10 1/2 months.

He was hoping to get his truck out of the shop in Phoenix today. It has been in there for 3 weeks. He rented another one from Swift to keep rolling.

Once he finishes the lease, and then pays the balloon note it will have 800+K on the ticker.

 

If nothing else, lease operators are great for the economy.

It's a great way for a driver with terrible credit but a desire to work hard to start a business. I have lost both my homes to foreclosure, my pickup truck was repossessed, I mean somebody start playing the country song backwards already! Swift looked at my work record for the time I have been working for them (just 8 months) and just based on that my name, reputation as a driver, my record, etc was enough for Swift to trust me with a 2010 Kenworth. I signed to lease a truck for just 24 months. At that time I could choose to buy it for the residual or turn it in or go buy another truck or even go back to my old job and my old life. In all honesty I'm not really that worried about it. Truck blows up, company sits me and starves me out or DOT kicks me off the road for a burned out bulb, it doesn't matter to me, I have nothing else left to lose.

However the upside is wonderful. I have never been happier in any other job in my life than I am leasing a truck and running my own business. That's priceless. It is a business not unlike say running a sandwich shop or a welding shop. You're either going to own the brick and mortar building or lease it. The truck is just a building with wheels. So you'd have to sell so many sandwiches or weld so many hundreds of feet to pay the lights and rent. With the truck you'd do similarly by driving so many miles to pay the lights and the rent-- simple. It's not how much you can make, it's how much of it can you keep to begin with like not wasting fuel economy driving everywhere on every load at 65 miles + per hour straight up the mountain both ways with GVW 79,999 pounds, and/or turning down little 300 mile loads in the hopes of that perfect 1000 mile load.

True owner operators have tried every tactic in the book to convince drivers that leasing is very bad all the way around. Look at it from the company's point of view. They have thousands of company drivers who want to go home every couple of weeks, want to idle all day long, hammer down 62 miles per hour everywhere with no regard for fuel economy or care for the equipment. The lease operator has a vested interest in fuel economy, production of miles, upkeep of the equipment. With lots of hard work, in just 2 to 4 years a lease operator has a chance to become an owner operator -- I believe that is the true problem with the O/O's who chastise, degrade, put down and bully on L/O's about. They (O/O's) are just whining how easy we have it.

Consider one of their arguments: "You're just a glorified company driver".

OK, what do you suggest? "Be a company driver and save your money and then go buy a truck".

OK, that's what we are doing, being 'glorified' company drivers as you say!! HELLO, McFly.

 

i have did not lease a swift truck i went in with my own truck and did it for just over 3 years...

you will be governed at 68mph and over speed hits at 72 unless something changed in the last few months... (if you run around that fast you will not make money!!!)

they pay a fuel surcharge but it is not the industry standard it was about 9 cents a miles below...

have to have a 90day dot no biggy there...

if you treat it like a business you can make money

Injun has some good post on here..

i used the maint reserve account they provide and you could pull out of it at anytime to cover maint or truck payments if you were behind.. or pull it out when you take time off which ever you decide..

you are not forced dispatch but i wouldn't get use to turning down loads you are paid by the mile and if the wheels aren't turning your not making..

 

Forgive me injun for saying this. Buy your own truck or go lease one from Lone Mountain Truck Leasing. I have seen the warranties that International Truck Center, Select Trucks, and Arrow offer. All are very competitive and the warranties darn near cover about everything that could go wrong within that period of time. Remember some lease programs are not walk away ones. Even MM knew not to go fleece.

# Scottie, four more months and you could be going to JCT which has a decent l/p program.

KH

 

I believe that the trainer claims to have grossed $242,000, to have had expenses/tax write-offs/overhead (payments, insurance, tires, fuel, etc) of $196,000, and taxable income of $46,000. He took home roughly $40,000 after taxes (depends on his particular tax situation), or 16.5%
of gross.

The trainer's weekly payments were not forgiven while his truck was in the shop for three weeks, so if he rented a truck during that time, his costs were temporarily higher. He'll pay for any non-warranty repairs and he'll probably run negative balances for a number of weeks.

If he wishes to pay the residual at the end of the lease and buy the truck, he'll need to have saved up more than $50,000. Otherwise, if he can, he'll finance the purchase and the truck still won't be his. From what I've seen, it's one thing to tell people to run the truck as a business and another for them to understand what that means.