if you did do one of these.....what are some things to watch out for?
You need to watch out for the fact that most of these are weighted completely in favor of the company that is leasing you the truck. Actually, all of them are weighted that way, because they are designed to take most of the risks away from the carrier, and put them on the driver. Then again, that is the same reason that just about all companies lease on owner operators.
First and foremost, you need to wade through any and all comments that simply trash leases. 99% of these people never did one, or didn't do their research and got into a bad one. Tends to be a lot of comments that are simply repeated over and over from people that heard about it from someone else.
Watch out for tricky leases. When the company sets a fixed revenue per mile, sets a fixed fuel cost per gallon, you can basically see the future there, and the future is that the only way you can earn more in a week is to run more miles. With most of these situations, as long as you have no truck issues, you will make possibly a tiny bit more than a company driver.
If the company you want to lease a truck from doesn't pay the type of revenue you would expect to get as an owner operator with your own truck, don't lease a truck from them.
Find out how restrictive they are with how you spend "YOUR MONEY" on the truck. If it is your truck, they won't care which tires you put on it. If it is your truck, you will be able to maintain it according to the manufacturers requirements, rather than theirs.
Find out how much the truck is going to cost, total money, once it is paid for. Compare that to a similar truck, including the bank financing. If you are being ripped off at this point, don't lease the truck. Some people will do this due to bad credit, and that is a major mistake. Drive a company truck, get your finances fixed, and make a smart purchase once you have good credit to back you up.
When I leased my truck, I ultimately did it because I wanted a new truck. At the same time, I wasn't 100% comfortable with the risk involved with the emissions that are on these new trucks, so I ultimately did a lease purchase through Schneider, effectively putting that long term risk on their shoulders instead of mine. Turns out, the truck was a constant problem, and I got out early. I knew the process of getting out of the truck early, meaning I knew exactly what I was getting into, and I ended up defaulting on that 3 year lease just after 1 year.
Honestly, now that I have been through this, it doesn't matter if it is a lease purchase, or financing a truck on my own. I will not advise to anybody that they go out and get a truck with any sort of emissions on it. That includes those that simply have EGR. I don't have any intention of driving any truck that has emissions on it in the near future, unless it belongs to somebody else. You shouldn't have to constantly wonder what is going to break next when you are driving a truck down the road trying to earn money.
This is an industry with slim profit margins. You have to operate the truck efficiently to make good money, and you can't afford things breaking while you are making payments.
One more major fault with lease purchases. That is "weekly payments". Weekly payments, unless you have money built up to cover those payments without depending on your settlement covering them is a horrible way to operate. This causes you to bypass good loads in favor of loads that you can get in by the "cut off date" in order to have enough money in you settlement to cover expenses. This ultimately costs you a lot of money over the course of a year, because you are effectively taking bad loads. It's genius for the lease purchase company because it locks 90% of the lease purchase drivers into their trucks, unable to take any time off.
