Swift: The Nightmare Of The Trucking Industry.

Shows the quality of new trucks are going downhill. When I work there I had one truck for close to a year. 04 Columbia with 400k on it. Only problem was the new alternator when replace over charged and killed my speedo. Had a diff leak and PS leak. Got fixed and that was it. Ran pretty well the whole time. Shop isn't perfect cause the high volume of trucks they deal with but they always fixed my stuff. Swift wasn't bad IMO but the pay was pretty low. For the most part they left me alone to do my job.

 

Inver Grove Heights has always taken good care of me, with only one exception.
But in that one case several other shops, and even a dealer, failed to diagnose the problem correctly before I got to MN.

I ended up telling them what the problem was.
No one thought to look for a scratch in a race... but after several 'fixes' I knew that had to be the problem. And it was.

 

I got a $70 take home check my first paycheck in training. After that they averaged about $450-500 in training. Solo at the $0.25 per mile last year the checks starting out averaged about $550.

How in the world did you manage to make more than one check at $60? By "taking the whole paycheck" are you saying Swift was deducting for something that wasn't right? Something doesn't add up here.

How big were the chunks that were missing in the steers? I just had steers replaced, no questions asked, with less than 60K miles on them, with a hairline crack in the sidewall that was about 2-3".

 

Good advice for rookies would be to find some other drivers with a few years with Swift at the terminal you are having issues with and ask them what they would do. Some of them may have had these same experiences before and now know how to better escalate attention to these problems.

 

I see signs of where the maint issues are coming from. All the drivers are saying to deal with the problem and keep running, unless it is a safety issue.
I have been there and done that. But you have to have some idea about what you are letting go. Many issues are cumulative. If you catch them early, they are minor. If you let them stew for a few thousand miles, it is now a real problem to fix.
You are getting trucks that other drivers have let go, in order to maintain their income. They let it get pretty bad, then take some time off so that they have to turn it in and get another.

I am not saying that some things cannot wait. But make sure you know what the issue is if you are going to wait.

Anyway.
Does anyone know what the pay scale is for dedicated drivers running walmart in FL? Like Winterhaven or another DC in that area? Just been wondering for a while, and I know they run allot of store loads down here, since they seem to have all the walmart contracts in the area.

 

I am also from there and they have always taken care of me just great. Found stuff that I did not and fixed items and not charged me

 

honestly that sounds like 100% bull crap

 

Honestly eckoh it most likely is but hey it's his story let him tell It how he wants to.
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