Lease Or Purchase?

I dont know if there are any Prime drivers on here that might be able to toss in thier 2 cents, but maybe someone can give me an idea of the differences between leasing a truck or purchasing one. I have looked at prices and see many good used trucks that are only a couple years old, that seem would be more affordable than leasing a new one. for example, prime literature says about 950 a week to lease a truck, which seems a little outrageous to me, vs purchasing my own truck, not subject to all of the company truck restrictions and lower payments from my calculations. So what would be the advantage to leasing vs owning? Thanks in advance for any input you choose to give. Roger

I dont know if there are any Prime drivers on here that might be able to toss in thier 2 cents, but maybe someone can give me an idea of the differences between leasing a truck or purchasing one. I have looked at prices and see many good used trucks that are only a couple years old, that seem would be more affordable than leasing a new one. for example, prime literature says about 950 a week to lease a truck, which seems a little outrageous to me, vs purchasing my own truck, not subject to all of the company truck restrictions and lower payments from my calculations. So what would be the advantage to leasing vs owning? Thanks in advance for any input you choose to give. Roger

Roger, how far into trucking are you? Are you just starting out?

Roger, I can guarantee that the one piece of advice Brett (and everyone else) will want you to walk away with is:

Don't lease or buy a truck.

It's not really financially viable to do it. You're much better off staying a company driver.

Now I'm waiting for Brett to come in and give the spiel!

Daniel, I am just starting out, but I know that once i finish my training with prime, that they really push leases, i know i need to wait, but I am curious as to validity to each of them. I know that the prime drivers that i have spoke with have raved about the leasing and stated they made a lot more money than they did as company drivers, and had more control over thier home time than company drivers get. That and the price of a decent used one seems to be cheaper payments than what they are wanting for a lease. This is why i ask..food for thought so to speak.

Daniel, I am just starting out, but I know that once i finish my training with prime, that they really push leases, i know i need to wait, but I am curious as to validity to each of them. I know that the prime drivers that i have spoke with have raved about the leasing and stated they made a lot more money than they did as company drivers, and had more control over thier home time than company drivers get. That and the price of a decent used one seems to be cheaper payments than what they are wanting for a lease. This is why i ask..food for thought so to speak.

Yeah, treat leasing a truck in the same vein as playing with poisonous snakes. You can see others doing it and saying how great it is but don't for one minute think that that thing wont up and bite you. Get about 5 years behind the wheel before you even BEGIN to think about leasing a truck. By then, you'll be experienced enough to know you wont want any part of it.

Actually, Prime doesn't push the lease all that hard. They give you the option but they don't jam it down your throat.

Those drivers you spoke with make a lot of money. That's true. But how much of that money goes to their bank account? Every week they pay for insurance, truck payment, repairs, fuel, fuel taxes. Heck, even a simple oil change costs 250-300$! You pop a tire? That's about a grand coming from your wallet. Your truck breaks down on the road? You're paying for a truck repair service to come to you and drive to you. Labor usually runs about 80$ an hour plus parts and the miles they had to drive to get to you. You make a lot of money, but you spend 70% of it.

Truck payments are slightly under a grand a week. If I drive 500 miles in a day with 6mpg that's about 80 gallons in a single day. Which is 300$ dollars of fuel for that day alone.

Want to go home for a week? No problem! But you're still paying them all of the payments they don't care if you didnt make any money that week. So essentially, going home for a week will cost you over a thousand dollars.

If you purchase your own truck you have to buy all the permits which can be very expensive.

See the problem is, it complicates everything. Life was simple. You drove, didn't pay for anything not even fuel that you used. You got paid good money weekly and any work related fee you had to pay out of pocket you got reimbursed for. But now, you're adding 10 large bills that must be paid weekly to your life. All that stress of worrying if you'll have enough miles in a week to not make a negative paycheck. My buddy leased a used truck and he broke down in Fort Worth TX. Luckily his repairs were covered under warranty but his paycheck was 1$ and the next week it was -500. No joke. Negative 500.

If you want to lease no one is stopping you. But you should at LEAST work 1 year as a company driver to learn the industry. To learn what you're doing before ever considering leasing a truck. You basically make the same amount of money for unnecessary stress. Your first year should be about learning how to do your job safely and effectively. Everyone knows, if there's any money to be made it won't be made by a rookie.

Thanks Daniel, that was the kind of info I was looking for. I appreciate it. Roger

Now I'm waiting for Brett to come in and give the spiel!

There's other drivers here that know how to answer questions too, not just Brett haha <(^_^<)

There's other drivers here that know how to answer questions too, not just Brett

Yeah, and I'm incredibly thankful for all of the guys and gals that help out here in such a huge way! You can't tell from looking at a site how much traffic it gets, but this site is huge now - over 100,000 unique visitors every month and over 650,000 pageviews. I have a ton of things going on behind the scenes and it's very difficult to juggle everything. People helping out here in the forum has made a major impact on the quality of this website and you've helped tons of people! And I mean tons!

Roger, it's true - you don't want anything to do with buying or leasing a truck. Trucking is a cutthroat industry. It's a commodity service with razor thin profit margins. The average profit margin across the industry is 3%. So for every $100 a trucking company brings in, $3 is profit. Now that includes paying the driver. So if you were to buy or lease a truck performed at an average level, meaning you're outperforming half of the trucks in America, you stand to make about 3% more by buying or leasing a truck than you do as a company driver. But there's a small catch to it - you stand to lose everything. The upside is severely limited by the nature of the razor thin profits in a commodity business. The downside is unlimited. You could go bankrupt and lose it all.

So with a very limited upside and an unlimited downside, it's not a wise business choice to buy or lease a truck. A businessman once said, "Never buy yourself a job." What he meant was never go into business doing something for the same amount of money you could have made being an employee. You're taking a ton of risk and putting in a ton of extra work and commitment for nothing.

Brett, when I was starting out all of you guys helped me more than you realize. It's only fair that I return the favor.