Financing a Truck and My Experience

[Rawze]

It sounds like he has a lot to learn.

Problem #1. Your family member was failing his second lease for likely the same reasons that 85% of all owner operators fail at truck ownership. $700/wk is not unreasonable for a new truck with low miles on a lease. Not the easiest thing, but it is definitely doable for someone who knows how to keep expenses and fuel costs to a minimum, mitigates downtime by doing their own repair work and saving costs. It sounds like though, they have no idea how to manage their major expenses like fuel and maintenance. $26k for a major repair is "WHAT IT COSTS SOMETIMES TO SO BUISNESS IN A BIG-RIG!!!" and if it puts you out of buisness and makes you fail your lease,.,.. YOU F%KED UP!!! --- YOU (I.E> your family member)!!! -- For not planning and being prepared for the high cost of repairs for this type of equipment, Not your leasing company.


Providing him with this nice truck and lower payments is NOt going to fix this for him, and you will pay the price for it in the long term, because now you will BOTH fail, and have a family falling out and hatred in the process. -- this is how i see your future, because you have one person who "couldn't make it", and could not manage their truck expenses TWICE, and another person who knows nothing whatsoever about what it takes to own and operate a truck, has never driven, and has no idea how to keep it profitable dishing out all the advice.

Call me a prick for saying this, but this is my first thought after reading such a lengthy post. hopefully i am wrong, and your family member is suddenly "wiser" with YOUR CREDIT AND MONEY than he/she was in the past, but I doubt it.

there are certianly bad leases out there, but people who fail at leasing trucks do so 90% of the time AT THEIR OWN PERIL!. They have this "I should hold the steering wheel and go as fast as i can to get as many miles as i can, the let someone else fix it when it stops working" attitude and that in itself IS THEIR DOWNFALL!.

Prime example,....

-- I met someone who said "they can't make it!" who is leased onto the SAME EXACT COMPANY I AM LEASED ONTO, making THE SAME EXACT PAY! -- and just like you said,.. They looked at their statements every week, and they run 3,000 miles+ solo and HAVE NOTHING LEFT OVER when all the expenses come out. They were dishing out $720/week in lease payments -- They are failing miserably, and are proclaiming EVERY PROBLEM they have on their bad deal. I went through the entire year worth of settlements with them, and it was THEY THEMSELVES Who pissed it all away and was completely broke by way of poor cost management and bad decision after bad decision, and the bit of money they did take home,.. was gone and they did not have 2 dimes to rub together.

I then took my settlements for that same year,.. Went through them and ADDED IN the $720/week, and STILL CAME OUT MAKING A DAMN GOOD PROFIT of more than $48,000 take home!!!. Not bad for someone that would also have been 1/3 closer to owning that $130,000 vehicle. Thats $48,000 in take home pay + another $43,000 in gained assets for the year.

I worked with the guy for a week here at the house and got him a pyro-boost gauges, showed him how to drive it for max effeciency instead of max miles, and showd him how to work on most things huimself,...

One year later,.. he was proclaimed THE MOST PROFITABLE SOLO TRUCK THAT FLEET HAD EVER SEEN!. and was asked to give seminars and suggestions on how he made it. -- when he did,.. ALL THE OTHER TRUCK OWNERS GAVE HIM THE SAME EXACT ATTITUDE BULL4HIT REPLIES AND ARGUMENTS THAT HE DID WHEN HE MET ME!.

Some people you just can;t teach,.. and others are just too damn stubborn to learn,.. and to "proud of themselves" to crawl under a truck at 3:am in the morning to find that broken wire or to replace that worn out sterring king pin in a truck parking lot because it has just failed. -- You know,.. THAT GUY who is driving at 55 mph and keeping it moving steady to make for the slower speeds instead of 68 or 70+,.. maximizing profit every mile of every day,... -- GETTING YOUR HANDS DIRTY, WORKING ON YOUR EQUIPMENT, STAYING OUT OF SHOPS AND KEEPING IT MOVING, AND MANAGING EVERY PENNY AND COST is what it takes to make it out here and if your family member is anything LESS,.. he will just fail again!.

My wife recently met an O/O who had been sitting for almost 3 DAMN WEEKS!!! in the T/A truckstop in L.A. because someone backed into him and slightly cracked one of his headlight assys. he said he was waiting for the insurasnce approval BECAUSE HE DID NOT HAVE THE $400 FOR A NEW ONE!. and they were giving him a hard time because the police did not make a report. this all while his lease payments and every other expense he had were getting behind. --- BAD BUISNESS DECISIONS!!!--- LOOSE $10,000 IN REVENUE FOR A GODDAMN $400 HEADLIGHT THAT ACTUALLY WAS ONLY CRACKED AND STILL WORKED! + HIGHER INSURANCE PREMIUMS? -- WHAT AN IDIOT!!! -- My wife had to walk off in dismay.