My promised report on Prime lease - after 7 weeks, I like it
 

Promised I let you know how the Prime lease is working for me. Although I'm just getting started, my first seven weeks have been great.

My best week I cleared (after all expenses) $2200. My worst week was $1200. I'm averaging about 2500-3500 miles a week.

I know it won't always be this good, but it's much more than the 26 cpm I would've made starting out at other good companies, like CFI.

I have a lot to learn, still. It's different when you're finally out on your own with your own truck. No training can really prepare you for how you are gonna handle that final step.

Perhaps when I get a couple of years experience under my belt, I can earn the 40 cpm experienced company drivers make and ditch the Prime lease. Until then, I can make more money doing what I'm doing.

Thanks again to all of you that gave me advice. I really appreciated it.

I am happy to read that you are doing well Scottie. Would be interested to hear what your average net cost is for fuel. Thanks

You state that you are clearing $1,200-2,200 per week after all expenses? Does that include fuel, maintenance, escrow and lease payments? I am curious as to what Prime pays per mile.

I see where this is going....He said he averages 2300-3000 mi. per week. Already knowing Prime is paying about a buck a mile there is no way he had calculated ALL his expenses into his (bring home). Scottie, break it down for us so we can all see how good you are doing. I think you will find out that the .26 cpm you were gonna get from CFI would have been better. Remember to figure in fuel, self-employment taxes, benefits, insurance, etc. I think your re-calculated (bring home) will be around $750 give or take. Not worth it for all the headaches you will surely encounter during the term of your lease.

what are your payments on the lease and for how long?

check this out
http://www.primeinc.com/drivers/succ..._to_lease.html
http://www.primeinc.com/drivers/prime_career_path.html

I believe he said 2500-3500 :wink:

Okay. Even at those numbers it doesn't equate. :roll:

GMAN I can see in 8 weeks or so this including fuel and lease payments since this comes right out of the settlement. What has not happend yet is a breakdown with its costs plus downtime .... nor a week or month of low miles ...

I can see paying about 1.50 for fuel since Prime has a contract program at that low dollar per mile. So 800 bucks for fuel and 600 for a lease payment computes.

I would be careful with that Prime lease, especially if you're solo, as I had the oppurtunity to speak with a gentleman(can't remember his name, I think it was Steve) who used to be some bigwig(or so he claimed) at Prime. He told me that Prime's leases are setup to fail for the solo drivers. He claimed that it's not too bad at first, to "hook" the driver, then near the end the miles drop off. Now, I can't say that what he says is true or not, but I would be very cautious. By the way,he is now working at some company that has a "unique" answer to owning a truck. http://xxfreight.com/ I DO NOT KNOW MUCH ABOUT THIS PROGRAM. I remember it was rather interesting, how it was setup. Definitely do plenty of research, before you sign anything in life!!

But you must figure about 22%-25% for taxes. Also take out maintenance fund and about 200-300 bucks a week for health insurance.

That looks pretty interesting. I might have to check more into it.

And a company driver gets paid vacations, paid holidays, and company-matching on his/her 401k.

A lease-operator (aka: company driver with a truck-payment) gets none of that.

yes, it does. at the time, i was thinking of becoming an o/o. now that i've researched it for the past few years, i have no desire to be one. i appluad all those that do and BOL!!

I pay $198 a month so about $50 a week

My understanding you never get the pleasure of owning the truck, when the lease is up you turn it back in and lease a new one. I had a friend that worked in the safety dept. at Prime, he said they have a year policy on equipment and they would not lease or keep anything over 4 years old. So I guess you can buy it after the lease is up and take it somewhere else, I bet you pay a fortune for it. He also went on to say that they average 3-4 different lease drivers on a truck during its life span at Prime, one a year.

Lease Purchase= company driver with a truck payment. No you are not an owner operator. :lol:

Ooops - I rechecked my settlements. I actually did about 3900 miles a couple of weeks. And one of my weeks I only cleared about $570.

My 8th week, I took off for Thanksgiving. I only had one load on my settlement for that week, so I lost about $100.

And yep, this is after all expenses, except for taxes and food - it's the bottom line money to me.

I don't know if it will be this good in January or February, but it's working for me now. Perhaps I've just been lucky so far, but I'm making more money than I ever have in my life. I'm gonna stick with it.

Again, thanks to everyone, but it's time for me to stop posting and start driving! Good luck and safe travels.

I used to work for Wil-Trans who runs under Prime's authority, they tell you in orientation that its not going to be benificial for you to purchase a truck after the lease is over, cause its residual is still quite high

$800-$1200/mo is insane Thats more than my workman's comp, liability, and comprehensive!

Yeah, I remember it being rather interesting, yet strange and that is why I caution people to thoroughly check out anything BEFORE they sign! :wink:

I do remember thinking if it was on the up and up :?

I'm a company driver and I make $1250-1400 per week with $8 week health insurance. No truck payment, no repair bills, no truck insurance, no workmans comp, 1/2 the social securty tax a O/O pays, a weekly 401K match by the company, payed holidays, payed vacation, and when I take time off, I'm not paying anything. O/O that lease on can't say that. Unless you have your own authority and your own customers it just doesn't make much sense.

If nothing goes wrong I suppose you can make some money, but these trucks are made to break down. And that cost big money these days.

evertruckerr wrote:
Ain't you special! :lol:

As a company driver you also give up your freedom to take vacation or time off when you want. Tell your company it's cold out and you want to go to the Caribbean to warm up and see what they say.

Your paycheck is only good if the company is still in business. Look at the workers at Enron.

Funny you mention that! Me and my Dad ( UVL O/O's) are going to the Carribean for an 11 day cruise in January :) He's looking at 2 full months of vacation this year.

Bandit,

If you go past St. Thomas then you will most likely go by my former house.

If you are a lease op or O/O isn't it against the law to have forced dispatch?

Why would it be against the law?

No problem. I get 3 weeks of PAID vacation per year and I can take em' pretty much whenever I want. Also paid holidays and accrued paid personal days.

When you take off, you get zilch because your wheels aren't turning under a load.

You settlement is only good if the shippers/receivers you deal with stay in business as well.

Well it would be against the IRS tax laws to account for the relationship as an independent contractor (and not collect income taxes and more so .. not pay employer SS taxes) and then have polices for the independent contractor of forced dispatch. One of the key questions to determine an independent contractor relationship is whether the individual can accept work / duties or is dictated that work and whether the hours worked are dictated or determined by the individual contractor.

So .. if you force dispatch this individual is no longer an individual contractor but an employee subject to SS employment taxes.

BTW) Social Security is just one addiional little expense of being self employed not seen in the settlement ....

um.... sorry I did not follow that.

Bottom line..... you sign the contract and you are responsible for the taxes owed, regardless of what the company does.

Contract or no contract the IRS looks at a Individual Contractors relationship differently especially in terms of Social Security taxes.

IRS Regulation § 31.3401 (c)-1


Note: Under certain conditions, the taxes and penalties may exceed 40 percent of the amount paid to the individual.


In order for an individual to be compensated as an independent contractor, the following four criteria must all be met:


The employer does not control or direct the performance of the task; i.e., the individual is and will continue to be free to use whatever means he or she deems appropriate to accomplish the task

The task or service being performed is outside the regular expertise, duties, and/or consulting independence of existing employer employees

The task is of short duration and is not indicative of an ongoing relationship (contractual relationships that are longer than 30 days, with very few exceptions, indicate that an employee/employer relationship rather than an independent contractor relationship exists)

and


A written agreement exists with the employer that spells out the task or service(s) to be performed as required on the Consultant/Independent Contractor Determination Checklist.

Thus the IRS could care less about the employer contract as much as the point does the contractual employment include "free to use whatever means he or she deems appropriate to accomplish the task "

I have done sone research and have seen rulings that Forced Dispatch crosses that line (Remember the IRS rules on a case by case baisis) ... as would be forced routing., and the employer would be subject to employment taxes along with substantial penalties.

That does not mean that a company might not use forced dispatch with its contracted drivers. It just means that an IRS agent might rule that yes the contractor provided his/her own tools (the truck) but that the employer dictated how the job would be accomplished and thus should pay the SS and Medicare taxes.

DOES NOBODY REMBER,OOIDA SUED PRIME FOR UNLAWFUL LEASE PRACTICES.THE ONLY REASON OOIDA LOST IS BECAUSE COURT WAS HELD IN SPRINGFIED MO....JUDGE WOULD NOT GRANT A CHANGE OF VENU..SOUNDS LIKE PRIME HAD THE JUDGE ON THE PAYROLL.

Or perhaps OOIDA's crack-team of lawyers (or is that team of lawyers on crack?) isn't worth the $45 a year that the members are paying.

No it doesn't. :roll:

Prime doesn't have forced dispatch. But as with all companies if you keep turning down loads you will do some sitting and if your continually late you will be starved out.

No you will never own the truck but every 3 years you can get into a new truck and most all of the major repairs will all be covered under warranty as well as that $100,000.00 or better you pay in lease payments over the 3 years all come off your taxes where as if you buy a truck you can only take depreciation off. So some may not like it but for others it works out fine.

My credit sucked from a divorce so it fit my needs just fine and I made good money. I even went through 3 leases. If I wasn't disabled I would still be leasing from Prime.

I have to admit that they do tend to prefer teams and they kind of try to guide you in that direction while leasing.

OOIDA lost because they had a weak case. They tried to assert class action status and the US District court for Western Missouri ruled that class action status was improper and subsequently dismissed the lawsuit. The eighth circuit US court of Appeals upheld all the rulings from the lower court so I guess prime has all THEM on payroll too.

The members of OOIDA even get to foot the over half million dollar lawyers fees incurred by Prime. Maybe that will teach OOIDA that it's pennywise and poundfoolish to be suing everybody all the damn time. :roll:

As usual, the only ones to make money are the scheister lawyers. :lol:

[quote="century451"]
No you will never own the truck but every 3 years you can get into a new truck and most all of the major repairs will all be covered under warranty as well as that $100,000.00 or better you pay in lease payments over the 3 years all come off your taxes where as if you buy a truck you can only take depreciation off. So some may not like it but for others it works out fine.

My credit sucked from a divorce so it fit my needs just fine and I made good money. I even went through 3 leases. If I wasn't disabled I would still be leasing from Prime.
quote]


You can buy a pretty nice truck for $100,000. And you would actually OWN something at the end. You can deduct the depreciation and interest you pay when buying a truck.

[quote="GMAN"]i would think that aside from the financial and business side of it, just like owning a home instead of renting, it would give you a sense of pride in ownership.

It is a good feeling to know the truck you are driving is paid free and clear and you don't have to worry about making payments. 8)

Working for Prime is like discussing politics or religion. It will always cause an argument. The bottom line is that as long as the person working there is satisfied and make the money they desire then it makes no difference what anybody else thinks.

There is a large percentage of drivers that have been with Prime for many years and are making fantastic money. Of course there are drivers that lost everything they had as well. I think that's more of an individual result do to bad management than a company result due to greed.

Probably the hardest thing I found at Prime was Playing Basketball with Robert Low. If you know what that means then maybe you know more about the company than what you heard from ol "BUBBA"