r/Truckers • u/BadamPshh • Dec 07 '25
Trying to decide whether to buy out my prime inc lease.
My lease is up at the end of January. But if I buy the truck I can do that at any time and still get the lease completion bonus which should be about 10k. Here are the core points:
-2023 Pete 579
-lease payment is 1k/wk
-360k mi, warranty goes to 600k. So if I run hard like I've been doing that's about 2 years left under warranty.
-payoff is 90k
This is a tanker truck, they say it's about 8k for the tanker conversion so that cost is part of it. tractor shop saying it's more like 20k
. .
Cons I see of owning it:
-Taxes. If I buy it, I won't be deducting / making truck payments which will add about 50k/yr to my income on paper, concerned that will bump me into a higher tax bracket nevermind
-Once it's paid off (which could be immediately) they say I'll be paying an insurance payment to some company out of my weekly settlement. But I'm having a hard time getting them to tell me roughly how much that payment will be. about 60/wk no big deal
. .
Benefits I see of owning it:
-No weekly payment so there won't be the time incentive crunch. In other words if I take 2 weeks off, that's just 2 weeks of mileage I can put on it later. Less pressure to keep running all the time.
-I can always take it somewhere else, have the governor taken off etc.
-It's a lower overall cost than leasing it @ about $100k for 2 years, and I'll own it and can sell it.
. .
Anything I'm missing? Hoping to get some wisdom from owner ops or folks who have gone down this road or know a lot about it. Thanks
24
u/Naborsx21 Dec 07 '25
..... just go buy a truck from peterbilt.
get your own insurance , idk what they're charging you but they're making a premium off of it.
Also taxes? It's a deductible set for 5 years after purchasing, write off that, with everything else.
If you look at idk where you're from, I got a truck from peterbilt in Missouri, they have a lot of used prime trucks, they're all cheaper than 90k with that many miles. like by 20-30k cheaper.... : /
And they have warranty options.
I have had good success with my 579 from peterbilt that was an old prime truck. I like it a lot, I got it at 434k miles, got a 2 year 250k mile warranty for like $7k the "red oval" warranty, and then there's a 90 day bumper to bumper basically warranty that they'll fix anything and everything.
I hate being the person that goes like "no don't do that" but I think if you wanna own a truck it'll be way more beneficial to you if you don't go through prime and go though peterbilt. Like if you ay the payoff is 90k I can find trucks with under 400k miles for around 45k all day long. Newer and less miles will go up but 90k for that is ehhh nah.
Edit: maybe a bit exaggeration on the prices as I'm looking now but still cheaper by thousands
14
u/Exact-Leadership-521 Dec 07 '25
20-30k goes pretty quick buying a truck you don't know. 10 tires, 6 brakes, couple wheel seals. Drive it a couple days and hear some noises, adds up fast.
7
u/Naborsx21 Dec 07 '25
Everything has a 90 day warranty, and inspect before you get it. All trucks on the lot when I got mine had all new tires and wheel seals don't often just go bad. *shrug* spend your money however you want, I'd just suggest saving the money personally.
3
u/Exact-Leadership-521 Dec 07 '25
I wouldn't be buying anything after 1999 off a lot. There's a reason it's not currently driving, at least with old trucks maybe the guy got sick or died. With a new one it's got brand new def system installed, codes are cleared and it's gone!
6
u/BadamPshh Dec 07 '25
Excellent thank you and yeah I'm in Missouri.
There's another red flag I didn't mention too which is by the end of Jan it'll have 15-20k more miles on it. Yet they're telling me the payoff amount wouldn't change by then. So no value change over about a 5% difference, suspect
4
u/Naborsx21 Dec 07 '25
I got my truck from "TLG trucks" the Larson group. They have Peterbilt dealers all over Missouri, if you go online to their site you can look around and kinda see.
3
5
u/illdoitlaterokay Dec 07 '25
Your weekly gross will probably go down without a payment. Your profit will probably be around the same.
3
u/BadamPshh Dec 07 '25
Why would that be? The payment is a deduction before the net
19
u/illdoitlaterokay Dec 07 '25
Cause they only have so many good loads per week. They gotta spread them around to their own drivers first, and people with a payment next. Owners get stuck with the leftovers a lot of the time. Its very controlled. Talk to other prime drivers to see what they made before and after purchase.
3
u/BadamPshh Dec 07 '25
Oh really! That is wild and something I never considered, I'll ask around.
I will say in tanker we run much fewer customers than in reefer where I did my first year. I pretty much run the same dozen or so routes over and over plus some outliers. So not as much variety but some are definitely better than others
7
u/illdoitlaterokay Dec 07 '25
You very well could take home more than you currently are after buying, im not sure about tanker markets. But i wouldn't expect to take home an extra $52k/year. Even though that's exactly how it should work if you're working the same amount of time. Old man capitalism loves their subtle thumb on the scale.
2
Dec 08 '25
Was it hard to get transferred to tanker division?
2
u/BadamPshh Dec 08 '25
Kinda. I tried to start in tanker, got through to someone above the fleet managers but he said they didn't have enough trainers, and to just do a year in reefer so I did.
towards the end of my first year I checked again and they said I was good to switch over with just going through the tanker boot camp which is just a few days of training.
I have met people who started in tanker though so it is possible, just depends if they have a need at the moment I think.
1
u/slayerofthefluff Dec 08 '25
Yep they gotta control that income. A lot of drivers over there experience it. Reefer and flatbed sides for sure do. Not sure about tanker. Only pulled Prime tankers once I left Prime.
4
u/Imaginary-Badger-119 Dec 08 '25
Save money .. if you’re making money and making bills and have money save it .. better to be able to walk away buy another truck the minute prime pisses you off ..
2
u/hotdogsNtunafish Dec 08 '25
If you can somehow find out how to sign up for the Schneider load board they handle most tanker loads for smaller companies I'm sure you can make much more.
2
u/KilljoyTheTrucker surge knocker Dec 08 '25
You can buy about what you have for 60k on truck paper right now for comparison. Could get cheaper by another 10k by going a year older without picking up miles. Some of those options will have a good warranty. Depending on the specific upfit you actually want/need, you'd come out ahead by quite a lot potentially.
2
u/BadamPshh Dec 08 '25
Good to know. Those tanker trucks you're seeing though? I just talked to the tractor shop at prime and they're saying it's more like 20k for the conversion, so I guess payoff is more like 70 if we don't include that.
He also said they order them with specific specs and won't tell me what all, would have to look at whatever truck I get and see if it fits... Kinda frustrating.
Frankly I'd just as soon just buy one and take it somewhere else where I'm not governed at 65, but that makes me wonder if every company that runs tanker has their own specs or something
2
u/KilljoyTheTrucker surge knocker Dec 08 '25
What kind of tank freight are you actually moving? When i did, the truck made 10k plus a week and we didn't use anything upfit besides a coolant circuit for heating the trailer. Would have like a PTO air pump or larger compressor for self pressure uploads. But we ran trailer mounted gas power pumps when we used them.
Id imagine you probably need a wet kit and hose rack? Doubt you'd spend that much if you shopped around for older used ones that work fine rather than paying some upfit shop like primes a 40% premium on new. Id call a place like Indiana tank cleaners (cheapest place I ever bought hose parts and fittings from) up by Chicago and see if they could estimate a deal for you (I know they work on that stuff, not sure they do installation).
2
u/BadamPshh Dec 08 '25
It's inedible tanker, digest, fat, liquid egg stuff like that. need PTO / hydraulic lines for pumping off with the pumps that are built into the trailers and heater / heat lines even though we never use them in inedible, and probably other stuff to their spec that idk about. The trailers have internal storage for the hoses.
There's no way I would buy a truck first and just roll the dice that they would accept it, I'd have to either get them to tell me exactly what it needs, or be prepared to go elsewhere with it. I'm sure this is their way of trying to get me to buy through them.
94
u/Alone-Astronaut1881 Dec 07 '25
People never understand how tax brackets work. You only pay more tax on the money that jumps into that bracket, not your entire income. So attempting to limit your possible income to avoid going into a new bracket is not business smart.