Swift Owner Operators

Well, hugs and kisses to you too!

The look of desperation on the L/O's is all you need to know. Many become mentors because they can't "make a living" any other way. When your lease is up you either finance the balloon note or enter another lease. You know, pay for the truck twice. Once you go lease with Swift you can't go back to being a company driver.

Who's the moron?


Welcome to the forum with 2 years experience you know it all twice!

 

DING! DING! WE HAVE A WINNER!!!!!!



Guess what? A student tears out the tranny? You pay to fix it. Even a moron would know that.

 

well I guess you have to be a ex-trucker, to call other drivers, suckers.

 

I am sitting in my 670 Volvo in Joisey I am truckin. When we resort to name calling we can't prove our point because we don't have a valid argument.

Do some research on this site. And get back with us on why leasing is a good deal.

Did you already get duped into the FLEESE? Maybe that is why you are upset.

Just like the driver on the radio raising Hell about Swift drivers then find out he got fired from here.

Anyone that comes onto a forum and results to name calling......... to try and prove their point?

 

$108,000 to lease an International, then buy it for $40K+ that makes great business sense to me! Where do I sign?!

 

after reading that swift program, those trucks seem to be rentals maybe i'm wrong, that member MysticHZ linked on his post, it states if you drive more than 11,000 miles per month you will be deducted 9 cents per mile for eash mile over that, that comes to 2750 miles per week you can drive, this also means driving the truck home and stuff like that, not one mile over and you will pay the piper, sounds like a rental to me, i like to start driving next spring after a 7 years of being away from it, when times get better but wright now, to many drivers out there, thats another reason why rates are so low, and yes i to would like to buy a truck but it will be a cheap one from a dealer about 40,000 dollars or so thats a better chance of success, but i do like being home every day, but it is boring

 

one more quick reply before i sign off for a little bit, please when going to driving school buy a CALCULATOR and use it, now i hate to afend anyone but i want everyone going into this field to be successful, but hooly cow, 106,000 for the international for 204 weeks of payments of 525 comes to 147,100 dollars, maybe i missing something here and i hope i am, but you can't and won't with those payments, unless you make 1.50 or 2 dollars a mile, the trucking companys are now used car salemans, if i'm wright and i hope i'm wroung, (EXAMPLE) you go to work clock in turn and pay your boss 20 dollars so you can work, then do your 8 hours clock out pay your boss again 20 dollars for letting you work all day, and some of you people talk about cheap mexican labor, they work for less, but you pay to work, HELLO

 

I had someone mention that Swift might have lost this. Supossedly they are trying to settle out of court.

The company trucks are switching logos. We are now Swift of Phoenix AZ LLC.

 

If you are a solo driver avoid the swift lease purchase at all costs. The program is setup to only be profitable for team drivers or mentors.

Unfortunately I know this from my own experience. When I train I average about $2,300/wk NET when we start teaming.

When I'm running solo between trainees I average about 2200 to 2800 miles a week. Less than $1,000/wk net most of the time. Solo I might break 1200 once a month.

Here is the breakdown of all costs per week. (this is after the 100/wk down payment and 50/wk for performance bond that was the first 20 something weeks)..

Truck payment $525/wk
All insurance costs are $103.52/wk
Qualcomm and prepass $22.30/wk
There are other expenses like rider insurance and FHUT (highway usage tax)..
So its $650.82/wk.
Here is a typical week for me running solo. This was on July 16th this year. The FHUT and Rider insruance was not in the picture that week but would have only been about an extra 22 dollars.

Loaded miles 2558 ($2353.36)
Empty Miles 65 ($52.65)
FSC on ld mi at $.257/mi ($657.41)
Total Gross $3063.42
Truck Pmt/ins $650.82
Fuel Purchses $1422.20
Total Deductions $2073.02

Net profit that week was $990.40

I also had 3 cents per mile going into the maintenance account that week(after the 990.40) so I brought home less. I had recently lowered it to that since i had pretty good balance in there. It was at 10cpm for over 5 months and only had to do a couple of PM's during that time. I have just recently put it back up to 10cpm because I am going to need a new set of steer tires by the end of the year and I'm just more comfortable with it set that way. Had this truck since Sept Last year and its been good so far.

There are weeks where I don't make any money and there are weeks where I go in the hole. I average about 3 weeks out of every quarter where I don't make any money and/or go into the hole and its only because I stay out for several weeks at a time (5 or 6) then take about a week off and don't make money because of that. Sometimes I pull money out of the maintenance account to cover those weeks and sometimes I don't.

I have averaged about 10,500mi a month solo and about 16,000mi a month while I'm training. The excessive mileage they charge goes towards the balloon payment at the end of the lease if I decide to buy the truck. If its still a good truck then I will.

The excess miles is only on dispatched miles... not actual.

Also... the 3rd week every month is where Swift takes out the Fuel Tax. I have actually learned to use a website to find cheaper fuel stops... and I look at the cost after fuel taxes so I usually get a fuel tax credit (refund) or owe very little. Everytime I go through IL I fill up becasue its cheaper after tax than Indiana... seriously. When I first started I always owed like 200 but filling up where the fuel tax is high occasionally will help with that. Tax is tax and the amount you owe will be the same regardless if you just go by the lowest fuel pump price or look at the after tax cost (cost less tax as they call it). Really don't matter I guess... you can pay now or pay later based on where you decide to fill up.

Anyway. I don't think its a terrible thing that I'm L/O at swift however if I had known better at the time I would have just went straight to the dealer and got the truck exactly how I wanted it and the payments to own the thing would have been a little less than the lease on a weekly basis but in the end would have been pretty close.

Hope this info helps.......