Lease Or Purchase?

It's greatly appreciated!

You've heard me say before - a lot of what I teach about attitude being everything and don't sweat the choice of companies to start out with - that kinda stuff sounds like crazy talk to a lot of people. But when people like yourself come through here, go out on the road, have an awesome start to your career, and then keep coming back here to help out new drivers it really helps reinforce that what we're teaching is true. I mean, the proof is in the pudding, right? Nothing that anyone says means squat until it's proven. And you guys have done that.

So it's nice to have people like myself, Guyjax, and Starcar here that have been out there for 15+ years doing it. But believe it or not I think it's even more valuable to have people like yourself and sooooooo many others that are still fairly new to the industry come here and help people understand what it takes to make it out there. It's nice getting advice from the old graybeards, but it's even more relevant and valuable hearing it from a relatively new driver who is out there doing it successfully.

I guess you could look at it like getting ready to ride a roller coaster for the first time. Sure, an old time roller coaster junkie who's been on a 1000 of em is nice to talk to. But the people you really want to talk to are the people that are on the coaster pulling into the station right now with their wide eyes, big smiles, and barf in their laps. You're about to do what they just did so it's important to get that immediate first-hand knowledge. It's just priceless.

Dang it...these rookies that Brett and I brought up are gettin' so good..... Now I don't get to give my "DON"T EVER LEASE OR BUY A TRUCK soap box talk.... Oh well...Roger is just showing a healthy curiosity for the subject...now if he gets really serious...and I see that Chrome gleam in his eye....I'll know that I'll have to do an intervention....

Hey Star..your way to late..my pop put that gleam in my eye before i could walk, but he did his best to keep me from driving to...it worked for 49 years...now he is too old to stop me!!...LOL :P

Oh and btw i am completely in love..or is it lust?? with the new KW T700..I think having her on the road just might be almost better than sex!!..LMAO!!! :D

Roger, I wanted to respond to this the other day when you first posted, but I just didn't have time. I was in a manufacturing business for thirty years before I started driving a truck. I owned trucks that we used to deliver our products to job locations and had some crane trucks that we used for installing those same products. At one time I owned six big rigs at the same time. The one thing I learned about owning trucks during those years is that they are money pits. You just never can tell what may happen - my company truck that I've been driving recently dropped a valve which caused all kinds of other damages in the engine. The estimate for the repairs is $37,000.00! You can buy a decent used truck for less than that.

I've puzzled over this thing about being an O/O and I really think it boils down to ego. I really admire some of the beautiful customized rigs I see while out on the road, but I think the main need they fill is an ego need by the owner. Ego is one of those mysterious things in ourselves that we don't usually recognize, and because of that we will be willing to lose all kinds of money just to keep that thing that feeds our ego.

Please don't just jump right into this business without being a company driver with a solid trucking company for a few years. If you want to own your own truck, there are so many other things that you need a good grasp on. Like where good paying freight comes from and goes to. You need to understand what the major freight lanes are, and how the brokers work, where to look to get the kind of loads that will actually make money. I'm new to this, but I do know about being in business, and I can tell you there is a lot to learn in this business. Your first year will barely give you the chance to learn anything but how to handle that rig and get accustomed to the completely new lifestyle you just plunged into.

The numbers don't make sense when you look at them rationally, but ego usually throws all ration out the window. That's why it's important to be a company driver for several years, it helps to get us focused on the realities of what it's like to be a professional driver without the glitter of lights and chrome distracting us so that our egos become more important to us than our rational thoughts.

Thanks Oldschool, you and brett and the other commentors have answered many questions that i had, and believe me, i appreciate the sound advise. I do not plan to jump right into getting my own truck just yet, and I agree that i need more time under my belt before I do. Thanks again to all of you for sharing your incite and knowledge with me and it has been taken to heart. (even tho I am still drooling over the T700!! LOL)

Drool all you want....I still drool over the Western Stars....just don't write your name in blood for one !!

Just a note to you about O/O

I am currently finishing my Dual major Automotive Engineering Technology / Heavy Equipment repair with Ferris state Univ and I have been asking some of my professors about this and they all say the same thing. "It's too risky."

Prof. Walters did it fairly successfully but he was also a Master diesel tech and had that and a business so if his truck went down he took it to the shop repaired whatever it needed and was back out again.

He also told me it was more of a hobby that paid for itself... lol

I agree with everyone on here about it. It's mainly ego. There really is no reason to O/O or lease unless you have decided you want to play Russian roulette with your livelihood.

I have no disagreement with the prevailing opinions here about owning/leasing, but a minor correction to Brett's math re: 3% profit margin on $100 is $3.00, I believe, not 3 cents, still not an attractive number for operating a business.

I will offer this as a FYI. A niece of mine in Oklahoma is a Partner in a CPA firm that has a few trucking companies as clients. She told me recently that those companies are making lots of money in dollar terms, but she did not know what their profit margins were, offhand. It appears that volume is the key to success. As an example, if each driver produces $100,000 in revenue for a company, that's $3,000 of profit and if the company is running 2,000 trucks (as my company does), that's an annual profit of $6,000,000, not exactly chump change.

Now, how many trucks are needed at minimum to reduce the risk that a catastrophic event could put you out of business, I don't know. But, if the numbers above are even close to being accurate, an owner would need about 35 trucks in operation to net $105,000 a year. Food for thought and good reason to keep the ego in check and stick to being a company driver. BTW, earlier this week I saw an ad for drivers to drive for Walmart and it stated they average $76,000 a year as a company driver. You do, however, need 2 years experience and 250,000 miles under your belt as a minimum qualification. So, keep your butt in the seat and keep driving! lol

What Brett,Roger and Daniel said. My 2cents worth as a former truck owner ,the only advantage to owning your truck is you can trick it out with all the chrome accessories,pinstripes and fancy graphics your little heart desires but none of those things make you earn one penny more .Stay a company driver and all you have to worry about is keeping yourself legal and making it from point "A" to point "B" as safely as possible .