Leasing A Truck

Hey guys, I've used this website to help me get my CDLs and everything thing else to learn more about the industry along with learning other things. I have been driving for about 6 months and have loved every minute of it. I'm considering leasing a truck either from schneider or a local dealership. I have ran the numbers and know what i need to run to make payment and such, but the problem i am running into is how do i know which loads are profitable and which aren't, and whether it is better to run one long run and then run short runs back home or just run in a triangle or square short runs around my area. I've used http://www.truckstop.com/ to find the average rate. Maybe I am just overthinking it. Any advise would be grateful.

Wesley, what's your motivation for wanting to lease a truck?

Wesley, what's your motivation for wanting to lease a truck?

My motivation to lease a truck is so that I can save up enough money to be able to buy a truck, or at the very least be able to lease with option to buy a truck. With that I also want to be able to plan my loads and not have to depend on someone else doing it.

Wesley, what's your motivation for wanting to lease a truck?

My motivation to lease a truck is so that I can save up enough money to be able to buy a truck, or at the very least be able to lease with option to buy a truck. With that I also want to be able to plan my loads and not have to depend on someone else doing it.

Please please please read Bretts article on here before you jump into a lease. Now, if you had the money to buy a truck outright and enough experience, you could lease to a company and make decent money but the guys who do that really know the industry and have been doing this for several years. For your own financial protection, read that article.

If you really really want to go owner operator. I've heard ok stories about LandStar. If your not set specific on OTR you can always get a super10 and a broker depending on how close you are to work.

the only benefit I can see about leasing a truck from the big guys is your check appears bigger. everything appears like more on paper and if your trying to get a home loan or something that you cant get as a company guy... then maybe that's your only option... the most succesful owner operators I have seen are actually local dump truck drivers.

good luck. (if you have a dream go big)

If you lease a truck your buying their equipment and paying their taxes. Not to mention big companies will govern the truck really slow 65 even 63 not to mention OBR's electronic logs.

I appreciate all the replys but I love this business and i am more than willing to accept the challenge of accomplishing the work, starting a new venture that will give me the opportunity to make more money and create a better life for me and my family, and the opportunity to build a business model that allows me to make more of the choices that affect my life. I have talked to tons of o/o and l/o at the company i work for, which is schinder, i have even met a couple guys that were able to turn the truck back in after the year with no consequences and met a few that bought the truck after the year was up, but this of course isn't the only option i have. As stated before I could lease a truck from the dealership. It will take sometime to be able to get my own authority which averages some people around 2 years. We have all have to start somewhere. I am still working out where mine is and if i don't find it by my time limit then i more than likely won't do it.

Let Us know how it works out for you...I'm thinking about it too...

Ken C.

Wesley, what's your motivation for wanting to lease a truck?

My motivation to lease a truck is so that I can save up enough money to be able to buy a truck, or at the very least be able to lease with option to buy a truck. With that I also want to be able to plan my loads and not have to depend on someone else doing it.

Wesley, the whole reason I asked the question was so I could understand what it is that is making you want to take the plunge. I think often times people think they are going to make a ton of more money by leasing when it usually means a lot more work, with a lot more risks, and less home time. People seem to think if they are in control of their loads and their home time they can assure their own satisfaction with the job, all while they are taking wheelbarrow loads of money to the bank. It very seldom ever works out that way, and there are a lot of lease drivers who end up turning their trucks back in out of frustration because they are making way less money, and never getting to go home because they simply can't afford to take some time off due to the fact that they are so far behind on their obligations.

As a person who was self employed for thirty years I can tell you that it's not all it's cracked up to be. I had some great years where I made lots of money, and I had probably just as many lean years where I lost a ton of money. It happens the same way in truck driving. If you are going to be a lease operator or an owner operator you've got to be prepared, and or take the measures necessary to cover yourself during those lean times. There are times in trucking where freight just slows down, there are times when freight prices take a plunge down so low that you just can't make a dollar, and then there are always those times when your equipment needs to be repaired. Limiting your down time is critical to an owner operator's success. If you are not very mechanically inclined it can be a real hindrance to success as a truck owner. Anything that an owner operator can do to perform his own repairs will go straight to his bottom line as long as he does not even consider his own time that he spends on repairs as labor expense. Being self employed (which is what you would be as a lease operator or owner operator) always requires more hours put into the job just to make an equal amount of money as a good solid employee does. If you are prepared to make the sacrifices necessary, and if you are prepared to take on a lot more risks, while putting in a lot more hours not only driving, but also by doing your own repairs, you just might make it to the point where you are making around 3 to 5% more than a good solid driver that is a company employee.

Now there are probably some who will jump in here and tell you differently, but if you will go back and talk again to those drivers that told you they had turned their trucks back in I think you will find an honest confirmation of the very things I'm telling you. I don't expect you to just take my advise, but I do wish you would at least consider what I'm saying when making your decision. I happen to like the way Schneider handles their lease operators by allowing them to choose their own loads right from an online load-board, that is a nice feature, but overall I just think these lease programs are designed to benefit the bottom line of the lessor without a whole lot of consideration to what happens to the lessee.

You've only been out here for about six months. If I were you I would definitely put this decision off for several more years. If you are hell bent on doing this then give yourself the advantage of taking a few years and making every effort you can to learn all you can about the industry. Join some groups like OOIDA and see if you can get some more insight into what you are getting yourself into. By all means don't believe everything you hear from drivers who are leasing. I've had several owner operators try to recruit me into working with them, and it only takes a few simple questions for me to find out things like they are changing their own tires out on the highway to save the expense of calling in a tire service, or perhaps it is because they have over due bills that haven't been paid so they can't get any one to come out to help them anyway.

Sometimes just knowing the proper things to ask can get you a lot more information than you bargained for. I say enter this decision with caution, and by all means don't rush yourself into a bad decision.

One mistake I see people make quite a bit is thinking you have more control when you become a lease operator. Yap, you can turn down loads if you like. You're not under forced dispatch like most company drivers. But can you turn down loads without any consequences? Cuz here's the thing....

There's nothing in your contract that says the company has to give you enough miles to make your truck payments. Now your company has piles and piles of freight to move and only a small percentage is what most drivers would consider "gravy runs". Loads with great miles going places most people don't mind going. An example would be Florida to California or Ohio to Texas or loads like that. Great miles with tons of wide open spaces.

The overwhelming majority of runs are not gravy runs. They're short miles in tougher areas like New Jersey to Chicago or Boston to Philly.

Now if you sit back and refuse loads until you get good ones, what's to stop the other lease drivers from doing the same, right? Right. But here's the problem. Now the company would wind up giving all the gravy runs to lease drivers and they're slaughtering their company drivers by giving them all the tough jobs and none of the gravy. So the lease drivers are thrilled but company drivers are quitting by the bus load. Can't have that.

So the lease drivers are going to have to take some bad with the good or this simply isn't gonna work. So what's the company going to do? Well they're going to give the lease drivers who take the good with the bad more freight to keep them moving. Then, to "influence" the lease drivers who only want gravy runs they're simply going to start saying, "Sorry you don't like the loads available but that's all we got."

Now what do you do? You don't want that stupid run from Boston to Philly but it's that or nothing. Now how much control do you have, right? You're stuck with the same loads you were getting as a company driver.

That's only one tiny example out of a long list of reasons why leasing or owning a truck isn't anywhere near the joy that people think it's going to be.

What about home time? Remember, you don't make money as a company driver when the truck is parked, but you don't lose money either. As a lease operator you have fixed costs to cover so anytime you're not moving the truck is losing money. Big difference. So how often can you really afford to go home as a lease driver? Not nearly as much as a company driver. You only have one truck that has to cover all expenses and no way to make up for a big breakdown or a bad week. Large companies can balance out their breakdowns and home time drivers with other trucks that are out there rolling.

I worked at US Xpress for a number of years and got to know some guys in management. One fella told me that on the average 500 mile run the company averages a profit of $50 after paying the driver. Think about that. It's a lot of risk to make a few extra bucks, and that's a company that's been around for decades. You think you know as much about the industry as they do? You think you can match what they're doing at this point?

Just some stuff to think about.