If I could go back in time to the point I signed for my truck (used) I would do a lot of things differently. First don't trust Swift did a thorough 'refurb'. They put new tires on yes, but they left the old mattresses in the sleeper for instance. I asked the shop manager to look the truck up and tell me the maintenance history, she said they replaced the passenger side mirror, cleaned the DPF filter and the batteries had been replaced a few months prior and that road service had been used twice with the previous L/O because he had run out of fuel. First load out the truck broke down. $256 road call to tighten a bolt on the turbo which was leaking hella exhaust. Tcalled load in Troutdale, they held truck for 4 days working on DPF issues (check engine light says filter clogged), and replaced turbo clamp plus I told them the truck leaks water when it rains. 50 miles out of Troutdale OR, again the check engine light came back on and water was coming through the truck like a sieve. But I wanted to take advantage of that "first 23 days no payment" deal and not burn up that time sitting in shops so I ran with it til hometime and put in shop again. This time for 7 days and again check engine light came on 50 miles out. I pulled into a Petro and they plugged in their computer and came back with 21 faults. In the end I just drove it til it broke and put it in 2 more shops to clear the DPF codes which didn't really fix the problem (just lightens your pocket by $390) just gives you a 50 mile reprieve then you run with check engine light. Finally broke down good in Denver the Cummins guy from across the street at Peterbilt Rush fixed the turbo clamp the right way and cleaned the DPF filter the right way and have been running perfect ever since. Long story-- my advice take the used truck to a shop and have them plug it in to look for faults then get it fixed and bill Swift. Get your alignment checked too. Mine was 15/32nds out on the middle axle shredding tires. Another fine example of Swift sweeping the dirt under the rug by putting new tires on the used rig-- the starry eyed new lease operator assumes everything else is in fine working order as well. Bottom line, if you have $3000 for the down payment for this program, hold on and save about $10,000 more and go down to Arrow truck sales and plop that down on one of their $27,000 dollar beauties and run it til you bank up about 30% towards a new or newer truck and do it again. Nothing worse than investing mucho dollars into a lease truck directly and indirectly (days not running 500 miles at $1.33 + add up to missed income) just to have your company come along and cancel your contract and take their truck back away from you. You go out and buy your own truck, you can take it with you if that worst case scenario happens. Plus you don't have to give up $0.09 cents per mile whenever you go over 11,000 miles in a calendar month, so teaming up you could pay off this truck in little time and bank up some cash then hire a driver or a team to take it out and run it while you go get that next truck and repeat. Pretty soon you have your own small fleet leased on, each truck returning you some fat money such that you can now take an early retirement playing golf while the big trucks going by are pulling their air horns on your backswing.
Scottie, at least half a dozen of us here told you to leave that KW alone. You lucked out in the end, as far as I can tell, but it took you a lot of hard work you shouldn't have had to do. Regarding the Columbias. There's a guy on the fleet I'm on who has one. He has it paid for and I never see it in the shop.
Scottie, it sounds like the problems you had with the truck were more of an aggravation than anything serious, although you did lose some income from being down. I am glad that you got it repaired. Having someone hook up to the truck computer is a good way to check for potential problems along with doing an oil analysis and dyno. I am surprised at how many people won't bother to do basic checks before signing an agreement to buy or lease a truck.
