Merrick....there is always the debate of new truck vs older one. Since you have many of the new ones what has been your experience with the EGR/DPF that everyone complains about.

Thanks GMAN. You know what they say, expect the worse and hope for the best. By the way I forgot to add to the list of my year end woes of lawsuits, taxes, insurance etc, I got my other hip done. But way less damage on this side and you would never know that I had hip surgery 3 weeks ago yesterday. As they say (and I truly believe) well at least I got my health.

Honestly, I don't pay much attention to it as they aren't my trucks ( I lease them) and we just call the Ryder helpline with breakdowns. With that said, we having a ton of trouble with so many sensors I can't even name them all. I never hear anything about the EGR anymore. That was a huge problem when they first came out. The big problem now is something to do with the regen. Ryder is not being trained properly on these things and they just found out that you have to clean the regen filter or some filter with regard to the regen.

If I were just starting out, I don't think I would buy a new truck. I had a long talk with one of the drivers today. He wants to basically do what I did. I told him I don't think I would redo this. I also told him that that was my opinion and he does have a great attitude and work ethic but a lot in life is timing. I got into this just as everything went downhill. I had freight out of Florida throughout the whole downturn. I could get insurance which I don't think I could do in South Florida today. Then I switched to Ryder when they had so many trucks sitting they had special pricing to entice people to get the trucks off the lot. A lot of this so called success was just due to timing and luck.

This is a brutal business even if you do make money.

There is much more to running a business than most realize. If someone is in business and hasn't been involved in a lawsuit at some point, they have probably not been doing much. When some people don't get their way about something the first thing they want to do is find a lawyer and file a lawsuit. It is the world in which we live. I expect insurance rates to go up again this year, especially if the trial lawyers and the ATA get their way about forcing all carriers to raise their minimum liability. We will all be paying higher taxes this year, thanks to Obama, obamacare and some of his other taxes that will kick in this year. I am glad to hear you are doing well after your second hip surgery. I am sure it is a relief having it behind you. No matter how much fame or money you have, without your health, you have nothing.

I have read this thread from start...well almost start, skimmed the first 30 pages once I realized this thread...journey began in 2007. :lol:

I personally want to say thank you for taking the time to share your experience since day one until today. It definitely seems like it's been a constant roller coaster and I'm looking to get my first leased truck from Penske sometime next week. I'm excited and nervous at the same time. I've been watching loadboards for a few days now and being based in Memphis may work out for my friend and I in running our authority. He owns the auth and I'll be running under his wing for a while and we'll both be learning as we go along. He's coming up on his one year anniversary tomorrow actually. He's only had a 26' box truck and 2 cargo vans, and I'm footing the bill for the tractor and trailer. We hope to be fair with our drivers (starting the first one out with .45/mile, others .38-40/mile) and hope we can keep that promise with the contacts that he has made as well as the various loadboards. We understand that being on the road is tough mentally and physically and we definitely want to bring our drivers home daily if they wish to be. I just hope it all works out!

Good luck Twinsen. Treating the drivers well is a double edge sword. In the years I've started nobody ever can say I owe them a penny or have abused anyone but trying to by right be these guys, well I guess call me jaded. One thing goes wrong and all the good you did goes out the window. They have no idea what it's like in the office and what it takes to get decent customers and good paying loads. They want to count your money instead of their own. However I actually had one tell me, and I'll always respect him for this, (we were talking about one driver who was talking about how much I make) " I come here to drink the milk, not count the cows".

Again call me jaded, but make sure you realize that while it's a team effort and everyone needs each other, (the office people can't deliver the freight and the drivers can't get the loads the people in the office get) always remember who the lawsuit is going to go to. Because one of them gets a little greedy and want to start fooling with the logs, he'll get OOS and it reflects bad on the whole company and you can fire him but it's on your CSA score for two years. Anyway again best of luck to you. We are all here to answer questions and help so don't be bashful of asking.

Just a point to clarify you may want to confirm.

It's on your CSA for three year. First year is 3x weight, 2x second and 1x the third year.

What does weight mean in this case?

You get a CSA violation, its worth 5 points.

1st year, 5*3= 15
2nd year, 5*2= 10
3rd year, 5*1= 5

There's a bunch more to how it figures into your actual score that includes severity a right and, time

Its the total weight/ time weight makes up your score.

I do believe you are mistaken (of course I could be too) but last I looked it was 6 months *2 and one year * 1 and it falls off after a year. I check the CSA site regularly to make sure nobody got a ticket and didn't inform me and also to see what's falling off.