Am I Out Of Line To Expect Decent Equipment When Paying Almost 7000 At CDL School?

Ugh, this school has been really great. And I have been in several trucks that are just fine, older but in good working order. Now my group has been assigned a truck that every student and even one instructor admitted is a piece of crap. The transmission has obviously seen too much hard student usage. I was able to drive it okay most of the time and I know I will get better at it with practice but because this is the truck that I will drive almost exclusively it makes sense to test on it as it will be the one I know best.

I'm wondering if I need a reality check about expecting better equipment. All the other equipment has been great but this truck is below what I thought made sense. It seems like it should be a truck that is there if the others are needed for something else but not one that is actually assigned to students.

I'm hoping you all can give me a reality check that it is okay and if I can drive that truck I can drive anything. I just don't want to mess up my test due to driving a truck that is extra hard to drive, it's hard enough it feels like without the extra barrier of a difficult to drive truck.

Thanks everyone I do want to say I'm not trying to not take responsibility for my ability to drive just wondering if I should feel so disappoint that I have one more hurdle to jump.

I do want to say I think the instructor will let me come in on the weekend, as long as one instructor is willing to come in, and drive one of the other trucks so I have a feel for it and can test on it rather than this crappy one. So it's not the end of the world just feel sort of jipped and wondering if that is valid feeling. Ok Thank you so much for this site and support I feel so much more prepared for the industry than a lot of my classmates. I am telling them about TT but not sure many have bothered to look it up.

Amber, if anything is out of line it's the price you're paying to get your CDL. That's twice what most private schools charge.

You've been here with us for a little while. I know you've noticed our bias toward the Paid CDL Training Programs. Now you are realizing one of the many reasons we recommend those programs. They teach you on the very equipment you'll be driving for the job. It's all up to date and well maintained. They are focused on obtaining drivers for their team. Private schools are focused on something else.

Your concerns are something we hear often here. Private schools struggle with cash flow. One of the easiest ways for them to cut back on expenses is to keep older equipment and not maintain it properly. It just comes with the territory.

Hang in there. It will all be in your past soon enough. Don't let it be too big a concern. Once you've got that CDL it won't have any indication on it that says you tested out in a junky old relic. It will just say commercial driver. At that point you'll be working like crazy just to prove you're capable of doing this job.

A Commencement Speech For Truck Driving School Graduates

Thanks old School I needed to hear that

I knew it was on the upper end but they do have a 350acre campus with a mile and a quarter private hwy so you can learn to shift without the worry of traffic. Money wasn't a big issue for us and we thought the private hwy would be worth the trade off of having a guaranteed job because we have clean records and clean driving records, and being a husband/wife team we kept being told we would be slightly more sought after.

Like you said I just have to focus on the goal of getting my CDL a very obtainable goal it feels like. I've always been lucky to be a person who just gets it never had to study overmuch in school. I was upshifting fairly smoothly and the instructors were saying my straight back is nearly perfect (haven't tried any other maneuvers yet). Down shifting was the hardest but I think I figured out that I was thinking of a ten speed and driving an eight speed so we'll see how it goes today. So it all seems to be coming to me fairly well just practice, practice, practice now.

Thanks for the support!

It sounds like you're doing well. Just stay the course. I can't wait to give you the dancing bananas award - I know you're gonna get there!

When I was in school the first truck we drove was a 94 with over a million miles, they did that because it's cheaper to repair than a newer truck with all the electronics on it. After you proved you could shift and drive that dinosaur you where moved into the nicer truck which definitely shifted better since it didn't get the abuse the other one did.

Good luck

$7000..sure hope that's for both of you. If not $14K...yeesh. when I went to CDL school I believe the freshest truck had 900,000 plus and the others had 1.1 million or more. For the few weeks you need them they serve their purpose. Hang in their, once licensed and working you should have much better equipment.

When I was in school the first truck we drove was a 94 with over a million miles, they did that because it's cheaper to repair than a newer truck with all the electronics on it. After you proved you could shift and drive that dinosaur you where moved into the nicer truck which definitely shifted better since it didn't get the abuse the other one did.

Good luck

Hey

When I was in school the first truck we drove was a 94 with over a million miles, they did that because it's cheaper to repair than a newer truck with all the electronics on it. After you proved you could shift and drive that dinosaur you where moved into the nicer truck which definitely shifted better since it didn't get the abuse the other one did.

Good luck

Hey Bobcat_Bob any chance you can give me information about your company I’m doing over the road now I’m looking to find something local to be more with my family .im from Connecticut . I would like to know how they pay by the mile percentage or hours thank you

My first trainer told me he paid &13k at NTTS. Maybe that’s why he had a problem with me, Ipaid around $5K at Sage.

Superlejera, you'd have to choose between P&D which is going out to customers and linehaul which mostly runs at night you would go to different terminals and then come back ( maybe east coast may require you to stay in hotel).

I started 2 years ago at 55 cpm and am at 69 cpm now, hourly starts at $25 a hour and gets a 6, 12 and 24 month raise I am at $30.50 a hour now if I'm ever on the clock.