We started trucking school in August '05 after 30+ years as a very successful touring/recording musical lifestyle, as musical touring mates we then married on 4/4/04, we have always traveled together well, 2 peas- 1 pod!
We sold our home and put musical and personal belongings in storage, using her folks 20 acre ranch guest bungalow in Iowa as more of an address than a home, after school we both set out with training @Werner on Sept. 5th, he finished in about 5 weeks and was assigned our truck on Oct. 17th, 2005, she joined him on November 9th and the Dream Team was back on the road together again.
We ran as company drivers taking little time off , combined income we grossed a bit over $100K in 2006 having put 290,000 miles on our truck by December 31st, 06, that got us caught up and ahead to where we convinced Werner to sell us the very truck that was assigned to us back in '05.
One year ago this month we were sitting in this same motel room working out our purchase agreement and doing the transition to Owner Operaterville, the deal was financed through a Werner/Wells Fargo bank @ 12.75 interest, within 2 months we re-wrote the note with our own bank to escape the financial control werner had over our maintenance fund, truck payments, extra 3 cents a mile toward note we re-wrote our note at 9 percent interest saving $3K in interest, we have continued to run hard and have just put 260,000 miles on in 2007.
We recently acquired our own Bobtail / Physical Damage truck insurance which frees us up TOTALLY from any ties or committments to Werner, in fact our 1 year lease expires next Tuesday 1/21, we have paid a bit over $18K on our truck including $8K downpayment, we have 2 payments ahead in the truck payment account, and just short of $10K in our business account. We are very proud of what we have done, we have proven we can work and drive hard, and especially while being extremely SAFTEY minded, through all these miles we have never lost sight of striving to learn from experience and experiences, while accepting graciouciously all the advice from drivers that have been doing this much longer than us.
NOW, we feel like we can do better and want some advice if we should seek out a more Owner Operator friendly company or keep what has been working and stay with Werner?
We get low base of 84 cents per on loads over 700 mi, 89 cnts 500-700 mi, 92 cnts 300-500 mi, 1.12 100-200 mi, 1.24 100 mi or less, PLUS Werner National rate Fuel Surcharge, 37.5 last week, we R on a dedicated 3M account and recieve 5K-6K miles+ per week so we are running damn hard and hauling many 36-45,000lb loads, we just put a 300,000 extended advantage plus warranty on R Cat motor.
....CAN WE,... Drive Less? Make More Per Mile?
Save Wear and Tear on US & R TRUCK?
Or should we keep on keepin on with where we are, a change will include changing many ways we do what we do, It will be nice to have a company NOT treat us like company drivers---werner personell are rude and demanding, all thes changes to our Insurance (health), Logs(paperless now), payroll, how we are dispatched, permits-plates, 48 state authority, etc, etc,etc,
Life is easy and on auto pilot now, will these changes HELP US EXPAND OUR HORIZONS? Make us as much more profit per mile? Make us work harder not smarter?
We feel a need to move on, but we we wish we could sing that song from the old days like we KNOW WHAT TO DO
"We can see clearly now the rain is gone, it's gonna be a bright, bright sun shiney day"!!!!
But we ain't singing yet!
WE WANT YOUR INPUT!!!!!!!

 

If you want to continue leasing to a carrier, you should make more by leasing to one that pays a percentage of the line-haul. If you are happy with Werner and the money you are making then you can always stay with them. I am amazed that you could save much with them. Running team you are racking up a lot of miles on your truck. Putting that many miles on a truck will wear it out quickly. You need to consider the cost of replacement running that hard. You should be able to run fewer miles with little or no loss in income. You could run expedited freight. There are carriers who pay percentage that have better rates than you are currently receiving.

 

We hear you loud and clear G-Man, we are very much believing at this point in our research this week that Werner is definitley in the rear view mirror. We are leaning toward expediting, we just want some more first hand knowledge of Panther, so far not much feedback from current or former drivers who have leased with them. We like the government division they offer @ $2.05 per mile, we have run hard enough this last two years that the down time on expedited might be welcome and will allow us to try it knowing if it does not pan out we would still have options.
Thanks for being there for us G-Man!

 

How about proper sentence structure/grammar and paragraphs.....

You might get more responses, if your post did not look like a run on sentence.[/quote]

BIG DIESEL.....Really Dude...R U Serious? dude
Sorry bout that sentence run thang, hey dudikins maybe you should get some reading glasses to enable your reading skills....LOL DUDE

Guess we failed at Journalism dude, we do best playing music or trucking, but dude we will take your advice and try and save some money for a journalism class AFTER we get our truck paid off! dude

 

Just ignore him. There are a few people on here that do nothing but cause trouble.

99% of us enjoy reading what you write so keep it up.

 

How about food grade tanks? Cyanide posted 6 mos of his travels on here in food grade and listed several 650-700+ days. Team driving you'd get the product there sooner, call ahead to see if the delivery could be made early. Otherwise you get some time to sit and relax. Here's a link to one of his threads that details what pulling tanks involves.

http://www.classadrivers.com/phpBB2/...t=7031&start=0

Carry Transit is a food grade hauler and has terminals on each coast, FL and TX so there's probably some long hauls (miles) available. Their website lists $1.20/mi + 100% FSC loaded and 60 cpm unloaded. Liability insurance paid, no trailer payments/maintenance. They also have a terminal in Keokuk,IA. If interested, it might be worth a PM to Cyanide for his insights on teams in food grade.

On another note, if you're clearing 6 figures I hope you have a 401k setup. $40-60k of 401k contributions deducted would save around $10-15k in taxes and the gains in the 401k wouldn't be taxed til withdrawn.

Oh yeah, us other 1% on here enjoy reading Steve's thread. Six more readers and I think he gets a free subscription to Readers Digest, large print edition!

 

Jesus what a mess the first post is! It makes my eyes hurt just looking at it. Maybe you should listen to Themz otha Spellaz.