Leasing program


JasonD

Member
I'm thinking of doing the leasing program at US Express. I was wondering if anyone has done this and how it works. Did you have good success at making good money?
 

I'm thinking of doing the leasing program at US Express. I was wondering if anyone has done this and how it works. Did you have good success at making good money?

I’d avoid this particular lease program.

If you’re set on a lease or lease purchase there are other companies more geared toward these things.

Schneider is actually one. @Mike did it and didn’t starve...too much.

If you’re married with a mortgage and need decent steady money and home time my advice would be to avoid them entirely.

If you’re young, or single and don’t have a lot of financial obligations outside the truck then these lease deals are a better option.
 
I'm thinking of doing the leasing program at US Express. I was wondering if anyone has done this and how it works. Did you have good success at making good money?
I would find out how their pay is structured. The website says $1-$2 per mile, need to find out if it is a pay per mile program or a percentage program.

According to the website, it is a walk away lease, so if it sucks at least you can bail before you go broke.

Is your goal to own the truck, or do you just want to lease?
 
Own is what I want
I would find out how their pay is structured. The website says $1-$2 per mile, need to find out if it is a pay per mile program or a percentage program.

According to the website, it is a walk away lease, so if it sucks at least you can bail before you go broke.

Is your goal to own the truck, or do you just want to lease?
 
Know anything about this @dchawk81 ?
Don't know anything about it other than the truck numbers start with L if you spot one and wanna have a conversation.

I received an email a bit ago saying they'll do it on dedicated lanes FWIW. So you have the theoretical potential of steady if you're in the right area.

Personally, I'd never lease because the payment/prices are too high when ownership is the goal. IMHO. It's like paying 33% interest on a normal loan.
 
Never lease a truck from the same place that gives you the loads.


If ownership is your goal, then get financing someplace else than your carrier. They have the power to destroy you by starving you out.
 
Personally, I'd never lease because the payment/prices are too high when ownership is the goal. IMHO. It's like paying 33% interest on a normal loan.

Yes and No.

Some are ridiculous, but others are pretty competitive. At Schneider, I could actually buy a Cascadia cheaper than I was able to go get it myself at the time as a first time truck buyer. Their discount is big enough that they can resell it via a lease purchase and you can ultimately pay less for it over 6 years than what you would pay financing it on your own at first time buyer interest rates.

I don't know if that is still the case with Schneider, but that's how it was when I was looking.
 
Yes and No.

Some are ridiculous, but others are pretty competitive. At Schneider, I could actually buy a Cascadia cheaper than I was able to go get it myself at the time as a first time truck buyer. Their discount is big enough that they can resell it via a lease purchase and you can ultimately pay less for it over 6 years than what you would pay financing it on your own at first time buyer interest rates.

I don't know if that is still the case with Schneider, but that's how it was when I was looking.
How high are we talking as a "first time buyer rate?"

When I was shopping nobody ever mentioned such a thing. 10% was thrown around a lot based on my credit. That was already too high, IMHO, so I recoiled back into the cash for clunkers plan.

As far as Schneider stock, all I see is rows and rows of overpriced meh-mobiles.

Then again I was looking at used stuff. I'm kind of a cheap basturd who wants little to no payment tho and my planned needs are quite different.
 
Yes and No.

Some are ridiculous, but others are pretty competitive. At Schneider, I could actually buy a Cascadia cheaper than I was able to go get it myself at the time as a first time truck buyer. Their discount is big enough that they can resell it via a lease purchase and you can ultimately pay less for it over 6 years than what you would pay financing it on your own at first time buyer interest rates.

I don't know if that is still the case with Schneider, but that's how it was when I was looking.

Schneider Finance also allows you to take the truck elsewhere, correct?

I get emails from them a lot still since I was all set up to go there leaving QC but then Wal-Mart popped up.

Anyway regarding the OP I still don’t see USX being a company anyone should lease purchase from.

Or Werner for that matter.

Last year they started an “Owner Operator” program. I was getting passed by and dirty looks from all sorts of guys who they’d they’d hit it big and Werner just hooked them the hell up!

That happens significantly less nowadays...
 
How high are we talking as a "first time buyer rate?"
I had to pay 10.9% for my current truck.

Lower for my trailer, and when I was planning on another truck, my %was in the 7’s. Those numbers are through the same people that financed this truck. Haven’t shopped locally for financing yet.
 
Freymiller has a doable l/p program. I cleared $72000 last year after everything was said and done. I'm not getting rich, but that's isn't a shabby living as far as I'm concerned. The trucks are real O/O spec'd trucks and not cheap fleet trucks like a lot of them lease. You can't take the truck elsewhere though unless you get your own authority on it and even then you have to stay with the company through most of the lease. But if you stay busy and run your tail off, they will give you all the miles you need to do very well. Schneider is another, but I have read that their freight is a little thin on the good paying loads, so you might want to research that. Also there is a tanker yanker company down south that leases glider trucks and is supposed to be great, but you will have to figure out who and where because my old foggy brain can't remember who it was. I know they were out of one of the southeast States. As for U.S. express, I've talked to a few of their drivers and never talked to a happy one, so I would be wary of them. And Werner, well we lease a yard to Werner so I've talked to more than a few of their drivers and they can manage to keep even their company drivers in hole and not earning a paycheck, so yeah, I wouldn't touch them.

As far as leasing in general, I completely agree with sinister. I do great because my wife and I live on the truck, we don't even own a house, so overhead is low. I can pay all my payments to the company for the truck and all of my personal expenses including groceries and gas on 1800 miles a week at 1.07 per mile plus fuel surcharge. Another pointer I might add is that I have found that a quick way to narrow down lease purchase programs is if the don't pay percentage on the load and 100 percent of the fuel surcharge, or in the case of mileage programs, if they don't pay the same rate and fuel surcharge for both loaded and empty miles, then they are out. Doing otherwise is an immediate duh sign that the company is greedy and will take you for everything they can. If you doubt me, look up a couple of companies that do this and then go talk to their drivers. Also if you look into Schneider choice, keep in mind, I think they require down payments now, so that is something you should ask about, and they won't take you if you have had more than two or three jobs in the last two years.
 
Oh and nobody really mentioned this, but if you are a new driver, don't lease. Spend at least a year or two driving company and learning the industry. In your first year you don't have much of a clue of the numbers involved and the trucks of the industry, and all of this is absolutely a have to have to make that truck your own successfully. Also your much more likely to have an accident in your first couple of years which can break you and end your lease instantly. Just some things to think about. Another company I just thought of to look at is Hurricane Express. I have heard a few good things about them and not a lot of negative, so you might research them.
 
The truck has thrown me a couple of curve balls, one was warranty work that would have cost me a week of wages if the company hadn't rented me another truck. The second cost me $9000. But I recovered all right and still chugging along. They deferred my truck payment and took it to pay that bill along with my maintenance fund of course and I threw a little extra in to pay it down sooner. It took me about six weeks so that's six more weeks on the end of the note, but nothing much lost in pay.
 
We get detention although it isn't guaranteed for us as it is with the company drivers. We have a couple of customers that have a grease period of 24 hours before they pay detention, but outside of those we do get it and often more for our time than the company drivers because we get 100 percent of what's paid, they get a set amount because it's guaranteed. I get paid empty or loaded exactly the same. And all my tolls are reimbursed as long as the company route uses those toll roads running empty without a route from customer to customer I get reimbursed for my tolls as long as it isn't a banned toll road. I average between 2800 and 3500 miles per week.
 

Back
Top