Prime Upgrade Freeze

I assume you already signed the contract for leasing? That was probably the worst thing you could have done, i would go home now and take advantage of it while you can. Once that lease starts you will be lucky to make it home at all since you will need every penny you can get.

Lease? BIG mistake. Worst thing you could possibly do. You don’t even know how to drive yet, and you’re starting a trucking business? That is never, ever something that we recommend. All the odds are stacked against you, and all the risk is on you. The company, any company, gets all the rewards.

Tell us all the perks and benefits of jumping into this lease.

Did you read the contract? All of it? Does it make perfect sense? If it does, you didn’t comprehend what you were reading.

You mentioned your time away from home up until this point. Get used to that being the norm every month if you want to make minimum wage. Meanwhile, successful company drivers are raking in the money.

Sorry but I’m here in this thread to address the OP and the original topic. There are plenty of threads debating the merits of leasing vs company and I avoid those like the plague.

I’m also well aware of what this is going to be like on the home time. I just did three months without going home and never once complained. All I was saying is that if I knew after completing TNT I was just going to be asked to TNT even longer I would have went home sooner because I could have.

You seem to feel comfortable making a lot of assumptions and assertions about me yet you do not know me, you don’t know my background and you don’t know anything about me. I’m comfortable with my choices and confident in my decisions.

I’m simply stating for the original poster, while keeping to that posters topic, that it is indeed fact that right now there is a delay on upgrades. At least for me and others who came to prime at the same time as me. That isn’t rumor or second hand. That’s my first hand and very current experience.

:-)

Lease? BIG mistake. Worst thing you could possibly do. You don’t even know how to drive yet, and you’re starting a trucking business? That is never, ever something that we recommend. All the odds are stacked against you, and all the risk is on you. The company, any company, gets all the rewards.

Tell us all the perks and benefits of jumping into this lease.

Did you read the contract? All of it? Does it make perfect sense? If it does, you didn’t comprehend what you were reading.

You mentioned your time away from home up until this point. Get used to that being the norm every month if you want to make minimum wage. Meanwhile, successful company drivers are raking in the money.

There are plenty of threads debating the merits of leasing vs company and I avoid those like the plague.

:-)

That’s blatantly obvious.

In a very short period of time, you’re going to wish you had read the advice from experienced drivers against ever going into any lease.

You seem to feel comfortable making a lot of assumptions and assertions about me yet you do not know me, you don’t know my background and you don’t know anything about me. I’m comfortable with my choices and confident in my decisions.

:-)

Oh, I know more about you than you realize. You’re the rookie driver with less than four months experience that is going to pay a company for the “privilege” of driving their truck for them, hauling their freight, for whatever money the company wants to throw your way, assuming all the risk, and spending a bunch of your money doing it. Really sounds like a bad idea (which it is) as we have explained in many thread conversations since Brett started the site.

Anything there that’s not a fact?

New drivers come on here routinely, fresh out of school, fresh out of their initial training with stars in their eyes and get suckered into the lease option. “No money down”, “pick my own loads”, “be my own boss”, “walk away anytime and owe no money”, etc., etc.

I cannot recall a single one that ever returns with real numbers to validate why any lease makes sense. Usually, they jump off the site when they get a dose of reality.

We encourage success here through factual sharing of information, so if you are the one lease driver that gets it all figured out, and is a success doing it, please be sure to educate the rest of us.

Companies like Prime and my own company order a set number of trucks each week. This is not a freeze, its just basic supply and demand. They know averaging out over the year about how many they need per week and they bring in that many. You just so happen to be in a peak period where the demand is higher than average. Sit tight and youll get your due. Although, I have to agree with Packrat. Leaseing is bad, but feel free to learn that for yourself, I wont try and talk you out of it.

Eric....

1) You CANNOT drive any truck solo without upgrading. Therefore, you will upgrade before you take your trainers truck solo, if so choose. At that point make sure he is paying you the 44cpm, not the 14cpm many try to. Otherwise you are running a truck for peanuts and many lease ops try to fo this for the cheap labor. Others will be honest about it.

2) There are always trucks available on the Success Leasing site. If you are going lease and are not in Sprimo, you cannot reserve a truck from that site. I can understand going home for a spell, but go.back and remain on the list. Otherwise, you could be skipped over.

Success Leasing Inventory

Trucks are constantly coming in, Spaceman and I just saw a bunch coming in last week. Being tood you are 85th on the list is normal and you get a truck in a few days.

3) Talk to Pam in leasing. She will have accurate information and being a former driver, she understands our concerns.

good luck

You seem to feel comfortable making a lot of assumptions and assertions about me yet you do not know me, you don’t know my background and you don’t know anything about me. I’m comfortable with my choices and confident in my decisions.

You said you purposely avoid discussions about leasing, and yet you're confident and comfortable going against the advice of people who have many years, and sometimes decades of experience as truck drivers and also as business owners. There's an expression for that; it's called remaining blissfully ignorant. Good luck with that tactic. Is that how you think successful people operate?

We're also not making assumptions or assertions about you. You're making it quite clear to us what you're all about. You're a student driver who barely knows the first thing about being a professional trucker and yet you're going to jump right in and run your own trucking business - those are facts. You're ignoring the advice and experiences of very knowledgeable people and falling for the marketing tactics of those who stand to make a lot of money off of you. You're naive and you're remaining purposely ignorant about the path you're about to take. Those are also facts.

We hear silliness like this all the time. You think you're smarter than everyone else. You think the tales of caution don't apply to you. You think only others failed on this path but you're special, you're different. In fact, you're so damn brilliant you think you're going to outsmart these huge corporations even though they have decades of experience and gigantic teams of people setting up leases that stack the deck in their favor.

You'll find out the hard way like all of the others who came before you.

There is not an "upgrade freeze" but simply a list of people waiting for a truck. This happens at every major company in America from time to time. There is a constant cycle of new trucks coming in that have to be prepared for the next driver. Some of those trucks are turned in by other drivers, some of them are new from the factory. You might wait a few hours, you might wait a few days. But to say there is an "upgrade freeze" is like saying there's a "grocery freeze" because you have to wait in line at the grocery store.

If you're going lease (not recommended here) I would team it up and save some cash until you upgrade. You're gonna need it.

Another update for the original poster. Approaching two weeks out of TNT and still cannot upgrade. Fleet manager says will be another 1-2 weeks. If this turns out to be true then one can expect 3-4 weeks wait to begin upgrade as of mid June 2019.

Rainy, thank you for the non combative response and advice. Very much appreciated. Success leasing did confirm there is quite a back up and upgrades are quite delayed at moment.

My orientation roommate has been done with TNT for two weeks. He’s at SPRIMO now taking his classes and such. Says he’s being told to expect another two or so weeks so he’ll be driving his trainers truck for the time being.

Eric, there's still the possibility they send him/you to another terminal like they did me and two others in a rental car. I understand what you're saying, but there is a number of changes going on in the company that may feel stressful on our end as drivers but is necessary for the company to do. Prime had a six month TNT phase at one point in the past I understand.

Let me just say this, for these few weeks of relative inconvenience, they will be a blip in your memory in no time. It's a hurdle you just have to mind while keeping the race going. Once you get that truck and your first load, there's no looking back.

Best of luck