What happens at the end of the 1 year lease?

 

At the end of the 1 year lease, you have the option to continue the lease on the current truck to payoff, you can do another 1 year lease on another new truck, you can walk away.

 

Just say if you want to continue lease. How long till the truck is 100% paid off?? Also does your payment of 800week stay the same the whole time??

 

You beat me to it Mackman....

 

I can't answer that right now, but I will ask that question ASAP at orientation. I do know that there's no balloon payment at the end. You can also make larger payments if you can/want to.

 

I really wish I could be positive about this, but at 1.50 per mile and the price of fuel what it is, I think you'll be lucky to put a thousand dollars a week in your pocket after all expenses. If your only goal is to have a new truck, then you have it, but if your goal is to be an owner operator, then you're still a lease operator, and hopefully you can walk away with this truck. Remember, you don't own anything till it's paid for. My hunch is that by the time you get the truck paid off it will have 900,000 miles on it and you've worked for years for company driver pay. At first it will feel like freedom, but in the end it will be a sacrifice that you'll have to make or you'll lose all you've got invested up till that time. Personally, if I was gonna do that program, I'd do it with a cheaper truck and double your income. They will all haul the diapers down the road. Remember, these companies use lease operators to cover extra freight in the good times, and their company drivers when freight is scarce. It sounds like you are bound and determined, so I say good luck, but since the truck isn't even built yet, I'd look for another way........

 

Malaki86, you've really got some real friends on here that have spoken to you in very reserved tones and with a lot of wisdom, which tells me they are real friends, because being somewhat of an outsider and not being on the board for a while, when I first read this thread I was thinking your friends should arrange an intervention. lol.

My friends usually just grab me and shake me, so I'm not used to this.......

 

I'll play the other side. Everyone has to start somewhere. When I bought my truck it was a lot cheaper then what he's doing. But... I was running rail containers. I was told average was 1.50 a mile. Never calculated it... Didn't care. I did what I needed to do. Worked my ass off. But I also worked smart. Very smart. I started July 1st by the end of the year the truck made $86k. Might not be a lot to some but it got me to where I had to be. I do hope it works out. But it'll only work if YOU figure it out.

 

I'm still waiting to get a chance to talk to the finance department about the total length of the lease & what the payments are like if you pay the entire truck off. I do know that the payments are different depending on the length of lease you sign. My lease is for 52 weeks. The truck payment is $800 & maintenance of $81 per week. A guy sitting beside me is doing a 104 week lease. His payment is approx $750 plus $150 maintenance per week. So, the length you're signing for definitely affects it. At the end of my 52 week lease, my truck will have a residual value of $119,000 which would be the amount you would finance to pay the truck off. The starting value of mine is $148,000.

The gave us "guest" access to the Choice load board yesterday. While there are a lot of loads in the $1.50-1.65 range (your share with FSC included), I can stay within 300 miles of my home in northern WV and make $2.50-3.00 a mile all day, every day. These are mainly short-haul and heavy, but they're there. I found a load yesterday that went from Wheeling, WV to Chambersburg, PA that paid well over $1,000 total. It's also a drop-hook at both ends. So, a 5hr trip for a bit over $1,000. Pretty good in my book. Yes - that is the rate paid to the truck, not to SNI.

 

Left out of Green Bay this afternoon to start my new career. They bobtailed us all out, at a rate of $0.90+$0.41fsc. I'm picking up an empty trailer in Belvidere, IL, then going to Milwaukee to pick up a load for Charleston, WV that delivers on Monday. I had to go through the house, so this works out good for me (I'll be there Saturday). This load is paying the truck $1,195 (95 empty, 546 dispatched miles).