What is the best choice?

I am always looking for a tractor. i feel this may be a good time to buy with all the repo's. and ppl behink on pmt's. and such. may not even drive put it in use for another year. but i am considering lowball offer for the truck of my choice.

we all know "cash talks"

 

Bigray you might be right, if one is finacially secure enough to make the payments while the truck sits or better yet pay cash on a nice repo,now could be the time to look for the deal, but the original post left me with the impression thats not the case. IMO if you are going into this type of a deal and funds are tight, you could be headed for disaster. For every success there are several failures, sometimes people need to be reminded to look before you leap.

 

If money and all other things are about equal if it was me I would go with the dry van outfit.

 

and the main reason for this is most companies have pretty much the same insurance benefits and it has not really become a factor in choosing a company. then there are the ones who don't care about insurance because it can get expensive and only pay when they go to a doctor. i myself have weighed the options of carrying insurance and not carrying. i can pay approx $50 a week which comes out to over $2500 a year or i can pay as i get sick. last year i spent a whooping $140 and about the same as the year before. and those two years alone i have saved $4700.

 

Pawpaw, I'd choose dry box. More drop and hook, less night deliveries and runs, less lumpers to deal with, less loading and unloading time at the docks for dry van. And, (this may or not be relevant to you), easier backing, as alot of grocery warehouses have more congested docking areas. For instance, at Tempe,Az. safeway, it's a challenge to get in their docks! I've never hit anything, but everytime I went there, I saw someone who did!

 

PawPaw, Actually, some were, some weren't. I saw an owner op with a brand new western star smash into a compay driver's truck. Man, he was really depressed! Funny thing is, I worked for DSW at the time, which is leased to Swift. I've also worked for Swift and while alot of their drivers are lacking backing skills, I met alot who could REALLY do some good backing. Not sure if you've ever been to that Safeway, but it takes a good, experienced backer to get right in. You have very little pull up. Stay away from pulling reefers if you don't enjoy night driving or the drone of the reefer. One good thing, most of the time I found the miles to be better than average, as folks gotta eat. Let me know what you decide to do if you can. I just decided to go to flatbed.

 

Dont know if this helps, but if you are definetly going owner op, most reefer loads are 44,999 which means a hell of alot more petroleum to push you over the hills.