Taylor Truck Line Inc reviews

A warning to others stay away from this company! Million mile filthy trucks bought from other companies. Incompetent office personel. CYOA is the word for dispachers and load planners. Shop staffed by monkeys, zip ties are their answer to everything. A 300 truck company with 2 orientations a week says a lot. Load planners wait till your empty before finding loads while your 14 is ticking away even if you drop and hooked over the weekend. Myself and another driver took a rental car from Northfield Mn to Portland Tn to get are trucks. When we got there trucks had flat tires and were full of urine bottles. We found out they were just recovered and hadn't been through shop yet even though they had 2 days notice we were coming. After returning rental car 20 miles away we had no way back to yard no one planned anything. PLEASE! stay away.

I will be adding a thread on here about my time at Taylor. I am a flatbedder and only know a little of their van operations. I have been here a while now, and I can say. After being a owner op for years, I really like it here. I am a company driver now. The biggest thing for me to get used to was elogs but its easy as pie and I can still get 3000 + miles a week. And there are quite a bit more than a couple new trucks. The fleet is full of cascadias and t700s that I have seen. 

These are the facts regarding Taylor Truck Line out of Northfield MN:

Company Van Drivers- will run primarily north central ( Minneapolis, Chicago, Columbus ). Running trips averaging 400 to 500 miles per day.

Most drivers, after completing orientation will have to ride along with a shuttle driver to the Portland Tennessee yard to pick up a truck that has been dumped by a previous driver, as dirty and as nasty as you can imagine. Company drivers will average about 2200 miles per week.

Company Pad Wrap Drivers- will by far make the most money. You get $100 blanket pay for folding blankets per load. Sure, it may be 110 degrees outside, and 120 degrees in the trailer while folding, but it is an extra $100. If you dont mind dripping sweat folding 150 plus furniture blankets, you will probably be ok. The pad wrap division, is the only van division that drives all 48 states.

Company Flatbed Drivers- I do not know enough about this division to leave a comment.

Lease Purchase Drivers- Just know that Taylor Truck Line subsidiary leases the trucks, and therefor will do all it can to make money. If you lease a truck from Taylor, you will not be allowed to make any modifications to the truck that would benefit you, (APU, Bunkheater, Oil recycler, Etc. ) as the prospective owner/operator, in any way. Some trucks have 800,000 miles, some have less. Depending on the year of the equipment, determines the weekly payment. A 2008 Volvo 670 for example, will cost you $435 a week, or $1740 a Month. Mind you, this is only the lease purchase cost, not insurance and every other escrow they can come up with at the time. There will also be a $2500 down payment required by you. You can either pay by check when signing contract, or pay weekly until down payment is completed. Everything is deducted in percentages, therefor the more you make, the more they take.

Taylor at times, because it is beneficial to them, will not pay you for all of your bills, but will only pay you for bills that cover fuel and the truck payments ( Lease, insurance, and Escrows ). Do not think this is morally injust, this is Taylor's primary objective for lease purchase drivers. 

If you decide that Taylor's lease purchase program has put you in the poor house, and you can no longer continue receiving $15 a week paychecks, do not fear. Taylor will also make sure they consume all other escrow account funds for cleaning, and other miscellaneous costs. 

Taylor's lease purchase program will have you swimming in debt before you dip your toe in the waters of "Owner Freedom", but fear not. You will play a major role in the ability for Taylor to make exponential profits. 

Orientation- This should last about three days. The usual schedule. Day 1 is drug test and physical. Day 2 is company policy and road test. Day 3 is get a truck and fuel card. They will reimburse you for travelling expenses up to the Northfield MN yard from your home town. They will rent a car for whomever lives furthest away, and pick you up as they go. Know this: if there is any reason why you may not be hired, they will not reimburse you, nor will they give you a ride home. 

Hope this helps clear up some questions. If a company is not a good fit for you, you may have to reconsider what it is you are looking for. Perhaps your expectations are too high?

I was here two weeks until my beat up truck broke down in TN.. At their yard, they tried to get me into a loaner truck with 2 million miles on it. This truck could not even come close to passing a DOT inspection. From a bad air compressor to leaking shocks, an air leak to even the top bunk that was dangling over the bottom bunk, ripped out of the supports just hanging, ready to fall. I tried to get them to repair the loaner truck (I was at their shop), but they refused. A guy at their home office told me the truck was fine and I needed to drive it. This went on for three days until they fired me. I was dropped of at a bus station and was told "beg for money for your ticket home". I had no money because I spent most of my first full paycheck just trying to get my first truck livable, it was that trashed. After I finally managed to get home, I was then informed they will be keeping my final paycheck for recovery of their truck (that was left at their terminal) and cost to clean the truck that was left 100 times cleaner then when they gave it to me. I eventually got my money but wow, 10 years of driving and have never expirenced a nightmare like I did with this company. 

They are a good carrier. I know a lot of people over there. They run good equipment, LTL, TL, van and flat. They use qualcomm. Their main lanes are south, southeast and midwest. They have dropyards in Romulus, MI and (I think) Portland, TN. I think that their starting pay for company drivers is average at best, but that is everyone nowadays. 

They run their business in an honest way and a lot of drivers have been there for a long time. I don't know if they will be a good fit for you, but plenty of drivers are happy there. They are an out and back carrier for the most part, so you should be back in Minnesota pretty much every other load.

Of course, no carrier is perfect, but my opinion is that Taylor is better than average.