For those who have leased a truck from Swift...

..........

 

May as well yelled "release the clowns". Everyone without an original thought is going to be compelled to provide their illiterate and ignorant comments.

For the record I'm on my second truck with Swift.

 

My condolences.

 

Some people are happy with just leasing, its a new truck often, you just dont make as much money in the long term

 

I have 1 year and 4 months to decide on 3 things,1.keep this truck and pay a lot down and finance a small monthly payment.....2.keep truck as said,but lease a new one drive it and put a driver in this one...3.lease a new one.....let you all know over the coming year what I decide coz now money will be an issue as I should be getting married within that time frame too(mostly my main concern since I started was to learn the business) and I take 4 months off a year and still stay afloat,but all will come together as in new term on truck,get married and work a full year....

 

yes, I would do it again. Other than the recent breakdows, I have been doing quite well. The breakdows, they are not Swifts fault, but when I was broke down for longer than planned, they helped me out.

 

Unleash the dogs from H

 

While I qualify as a sucessful lease/operator with Swift I have several issues with the program.

Fuel: Swift could do A LOT to help their lease-owner/operators.......but choses not to. Currently the price a L/O-O/O pays for fuel at a Swift terminal is at or above the street price. This forces you to buy you fuel at truck stops and if it's in Swift's "fuel network" Swift pockets the discount. If you're willing to look for fuel stops that take Comdata or pay "cash" you can do better than the national average. That said Swidt can and should be giving back part of the discount they receive to the L/O-O/Os. They could also discount they fuel sold at their terminals (as they have in the past) but for some reason refuse to do so at this time.

Support: L/O-O/Os are treat no better or worse by the support staff than company drivers. This bothers me because Swift treats their company drivers LIKE CRAP! They "dumb everything down" and talk down to you. We are supposed to be "business partners" (with Swift), but I just do not see it.

Qualcom: Yes, it's required to do business with Swift and saves you A LOT of time and work. My issue is with having to pay $20 a week for a piece of crap that works correctly less than 90% of the time. My Qualcom issues have cost me money and loads. I've given up trying to get the Phoenix shop to fix it, they're clueless.

Miles: Swift uses the Rand McNally movers guide and shorts you between 5-10% on nearly every load. I drove my truck 7800 more miles in the first 12 months of my lease than I was paid. The equates into a lot of LOST MONEY! I routinely drive 20-30 miles across town to pick up a load and get paid NOTHING for it. This is on top of the miserable $.81 per mile MT pay.