Swift lease purchase pay?

In general that is true. But there are some here that have made it work.

Any place you go, there is a system to be learned if you want to make the profit.
There is usually a way, if you are smart enough and want to spend the time to do it.

 

This is indeed true. Have a friend that left for that reason

 

I usually try to give the lease guys a bottle of water and some bread. I know they need it

 

That's really the only damnable thing about leasing. It's not some clever plan by the carrier. It's the fact that they will toss the keys to anyone with a pulse without vetting if they're qualified to run a business.

The vast majority of L/O's I ran into had no idea what they were doing. They had no clue how to run a business, nor want to put in the effort to manage thier business. ... The default to make it was/is to train.

Or they fail and blame the company instead of their own inadequacies ...

 

Take that wisdom with a grain of salt. A failed company driver may not be your best source, for information on the L/O program.

 

The clever plan by the carrier is simply that - that they will toss the keys to anyone that signs up for it.
If the carrier could not make some money on the back end of that failed attempt, they would vet the person much better on the front end.

I personally think that the people that succeed in the lease option might actually cost the carrier some money in the long run.
More people fail in the attempt, but the carriers keep offering it. Why is that?
Is it because they make more money from the failures, in some way?

Somewhat like you said, it is knowing how to run a business that makes you money.
These large carriers know how to run a business, and they would not be offering these deals to just anyone/everyone if they were losing money by doing so.

 

Pfft. My relationship with the company has nothing to do with the conclusion I drew a few months back when I seriously considered going L/P. It didn't take much time to consider that 1.35/mi after the fuel thing and determine it wasn't sustainable at the mileage they were getting me. Might be viable with another company that pays more, but when the planners barely move a COMPANY truck whose driver runs to the edge of the clock, why the hell would they move a LEASE truck with the same driver, which would make them less money? I don't have to be a genius to figure out that that's a recipe for expenses to be greater than revenue, which is how businesses fail.

And call me crazy, but I WOULDN'T trust a student with the keys to my truck, company driver OR owner op. Something about wanting to wake up with my truck straight and upright, and not in flames at the bottom of Vail. Call me an ###, but it would seem to me that my life and a potential quarter million dollar investment are worthwhile things to protect

 

Steve made great money with his first lease and so far good money with his second lease. And when our kid almost died he parked at Edwardsville, jumped on a plane and got to the hospital. He didn't think where do I store my stuff because they are going to take my truck? He even was able to get fridge space for his cold food there. When the load that was supposed to be loaded on Friday when he arrived on Sat wouldn't be loaded for another 8 hours, he said F this bad weather is coming I am going to bobtail home. States or areas he doesn't want to go to for weather or permits or whatnot, he doesn't go. He has parked in CA to do Vacations with us, no trainees, etc. He is very specific that it is a business and plans for everything taxes, miles, gas, and rebates.

 

Moose ... You're falling into the assumption that the carrier is making big bucks off of leases. The reality is they make a very small margin on leases, if any at all. And that margin solely exists in the volume discount the carrier receives from leasing tractors in bulk. The fact of the matter is 1 in 4 leased trucks at Swift are either owned outright or are purchased elsewhere

The second fallacy is the carrier doesn't bear the cost of operating the tractor. True, but they pay out around 70 to 75% of the revenue per mile to a leased truck. At best the carrier breaks even versus a company owned truck.

The reason carriers do leases, is the are more efficient. Lathrop used to post up the KPIs. Company trucks on a 52 week average run about 1700 miles per week ... O/O trucks 52 week average is about 2250 miles per week.

 

Well on the plus side, you're smart enough to figure out you're incapable ... A man has got to know his limitations.

The truth of the matter is your relationship with the company has everything to do with it. The company doesn't give your your miles, you have to go get them. Successful business is all about relationships. If you don't manage them you may not fail, but success will be more difficult.