lease purchase
 

I am leaning toward doing a lease purchase (have'nt decided what co. is best yet) but,I've heard a lot of horror storries. Some about not getting enough miles,others getting less miles just before end of lease, and I'll need some advice on these too,but, what about ,how much money should I put away for fuel,TAXES,repairs etc.,etc.,etc. And would a new truck be a better idea than used because of the warranties? I know I'll get a lot of different answers but I'll appreciate any advice I can get. The reason for my decission is I can never seem to get home when I need, or want. And I think I can make good money if I do things the right way. What do you think? Can You help me out?

Don't and if you are serious about this wait til the HOS garbage has shaken out

operating cost is 0.85cpm, thats from truck payment to your coffee

so deduct this from what they are going to pay you per mile
and you will know how much you will be making per mile

before paying yourself.

Re: lease purchase
 

If you like working for $0.18/mile with all of the expenses of running a truck you may never own, a fleece purchase is great. If you want to make an above average income and be an owner operator, save your money for a good down payment or enough to pay cash and be a real owner operator. Your operating costs can easily run over $1/mile with driver pay and lease or truck payment. Fuel alone will run $0.50-0.60/mile at current pump prices. If you lease a truck from a carrier, you can easily pay them upwards of $800 per week with all of the add on costs. The base payment will normally start at around $250-400/week.

As far as buying a new truck. New class 8 trucks are running about $135,000 with the new engines. You typically need 10-30% down. If you can afford the down payment, you can pay cash for a good used truck. And warranties may or may not take care of everything that goes wrong with a new truck. Payments on a new truck can easily run well over $2,000 per month. Collision insurance cost 2-4% of the stated value. One other thing to consider when thinking about a new truck is the lower fuel economy. I know of one guy who bought a new truck and can't get more than 4 1/2 mpg. On top of that he has a truck payment which runs around $2,500/month. A pre-emissions truck should get over 6 mpg. That is a lot of money. It would be good to have about $10,000 set aside for major repairs and expenses. All trucks break down, whether new or used. You either have the funds or resources to make those repairs or you are out of business.

If the reason you want to lease a truck is to get home, I would not count on it. You won't be able to afford to go home if you lease a truck from a carrier or buy a new truck starting out. If you want to be able to go home more often and still earn a good living, either stay a company driver or buy an older used truck in good condition that you can either pay cash for or have a low monthly payment.

Leasing a truck is NOT the way to get home-time. When we leased our truck at Arrow we could NEVER go home without going in the hole and once in the hole you struggle for weeks to get out. this only happened to us one time and we were out in 1 week BUT we had no other bills to pay and no kids or home to support. I was with Bo on the truck, if not I would have NEVER seen him much.

They make it sound all good but there is so much they dont tell you.

Really the best thing to do is get your OWN truck then lease to a company or get your own authority. :wink:

tootie

UM Im kinda new at the Owner Op buiz, but it seems sometimes you guys are a little hard on guys with limitted resources that want to lease with the option to buy from their company.
I was talkiing to a company 1 year driver, with an old hand listening in, and the younger 1 year driiver wanted to go lease/purchase with his company next year...and although we did caution it was a bad way to buy as truck when compared to other avenues, given his resources, it was probably his best way for him to own a truck
WE both cautioned him he would be basicly a slave for his company, and all that could go wrong, but the key to him was, he WOULD own a truck when all was said and done and that was his goal and all that seemed to matter to him....quess its like getting your first lady or wife to some.

Not hard on them pepe....just giving the cold hard facts, the truth and nothing but the truth.

Nothing with a failure rate of 95% is good.

tootie

Pepe, we simply don't want these people to get themselves into more financial difficulty by leasing a truck from a carrier. I have been in business for many years. In fact, most of my life. Most people who get involved in these leases have poor credit, little experience and little or no money. It is a formula for failure. There are things such as illness or an accident which can interrupt your livelihood and ruin your credit, but for the most part poor credit is the result of bad decisions concerning financial matters. Unless you can change the behavior that caused the financial woes, things will never get better. According to an article I read not long ago, most consumers get into trouble because of high credit card debt. That tells me that most of these people don't have the discipline to stop spending until they can pay for what they want. They see something they want they whip out the credit card and charge until the card screams in pain. They don't think about how they will pay for their purchase. They just see something they want and they are going to get it no matter what. By not waiting until they can actually afford something they over obligate themselves and mess up their credit.

I see those who get into these leases as being much the same way. They see a nice shiny truck and think they just have to have it right now. They just know they are going to get rich by leasing a truck from a carrier. They don't want to wait until they can afford it. They just want to be an owner operator. They have little or no experience, little or no cash and poor credit. They don't want to wait until they learn this business. They are unwilling to discipline themselves to save enough for a good down payment. They are not willing to work on rebuilding their credit and change their spending habits. It is a formula for disaster.

Sorry. I didn't mean to get up on my soap box. :?

Why does Kevin Rutherfurd say that there are some good lease purchase programs? I listen to this guy on XM and I think he seems pretty knowledgable but I was surprised when he said he endorses some lease purchase programs. To me it seems like a bad deal but I make more being a company driver than an O/O around here, plus I don't have to worry about maintaining a truck.