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

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 Swift 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 treated 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.

 

..............

 

I absolutely would lease from swift again. My first lease experience was with Schneider, and I don't really see much of a difference in the programs other than a few superficial things and one or two things of convenience.

As far as leasing is concerned, I'm convinced that some people just aren't cut out for it. You have a hell of a lot more responsibility on your shoulders and that's probably a bit more than most folks are willing to deal with, if they would judge themselves honestly before signing the papers for a brand new truck.

Solo leasing won't make you any more money than solo driving, and sometimes you will make less on your net than you would as a company driver for other companies. Personally, I like the extra freedom, so I would have no problem going back to solo driving rather than being a company driver again.

Being a trainer will net you quite a bit more than you would otherwise earn anywhere else. I have yet to hear of anyone that makes anything near what I (and others) pull in as a percentage trainer. Even on the mileage boards you still would make quite a bit more than you would otherwise make as a solo or team company driver anywhere else. But, being a trainer should be about more than just the money. If it isn't, you burn out really, really fast. Gotta have the right mindset to do this.

I do agree with Steve's comments listed in his post. Swift could choose to do much more for their lease drivers and owner operators, but they don't; however, what they currently do is sufficient to keep me signed on with them for the next few years. I would have no problem either paying the buyout on this truck or leasing another one from IEL/Swift.

Whether or not I stay with Swift for the long-term really depends on if they open up a Choice board, I think. If I could get into a position here where there are no dispatchers or load planners I would be in even better shape (Hands off my truck, you!), lol. I really don't require their oversight. I may take my butt back to Schneider after I pay this truck off. We will see, I suppose.

Anyway, it's a good program that is poo-pooed by a lot of folks. Know what you are getting into. Judge yourself honestly. Understand the straight lease program and all of your responsibilities, and watch your fuel closely. You can seriously screw yourself over if you don't understand when to fuel and how much to buy. Idleing too much can take your net profit down by a noticeable chunk as well.

There are a lot of successful long-term lease operators at this company. You can be one too if you have the internal strength and self-disciple that is required. Pay attention to your bottom line and let the stupid stuff roll off your shoulders, then just keep driving.

Good luck to ya, bud.

 

Steve ... I'm going to paly devil's advocate on these points.

Fuel ... Get Truckers Tools or some other fuel finding app for a smart phone ... I'm beating the national fuel average by $.21 for all my fuel purchased this year. Since the fuel rebate is on the national average that's what I manage to, not the discount at any one place. But that said I generally kick the living crap out of the prices for the big 3, where Swift and the other carriers have their biggest rebates ... Frankly I would have to get $.30 to $.50 off to match the prices I'm getting. You can get sucked in to getting $.30 off the pump price at the T/A in Ontario at $4.12 or go down the road and buy it at the Royal for $3.78. ... Now it would be great if Swift gave us a discount, it would add to our options. But they are not going to just give it to us. We have to force the issue. How? Do what I do, buy as little as possible from the big 3, When Swift starts seeing their rebate revenue dropping they may decide a half a piece of the pie is better than no pie at all. Plus doing so will be in your financial interest anyway.

Miles pay - I've always kind of looked at it as not so much as mileage pay, but simply as what the load pays. Swift just breaks it out in mileage for accounting purposes. The has really solidified my thinking since I've been on the "load board". Mileage is a scale, but flat rate is what negotiate and you get paid. I've subscribed to a web site that give me lane rate and I use that for my negotiating point. But I've also started comparing what Swift is paying us on a load and what the lane rates are. Some of the time Swift is doing pretty good getting 50% or more. Generally they get about 40 to 45%. But sometime, particularly on loads out of the NE and FL they take in the shorts, sometimes even at loss. Now, that's not to say that when I have a load, where the paid mileage and the actual are way out of line, I don't try to get my DM to adjust the rate and get me a little extra ... it's their system. I will use it to my advantage.

Qualcom ... Qualcom is as Qualcom does. Nobody gives the Qualcom away for free. But go to another shop. The Qualcom only has 3 components, When it break they replace the non functioning component. And given your level of frustration and the fact that you/we pay for it, I would demand they replace the whole thing.

Which brings us to support - Stay the heck out of Phoenix and Swift terminals in general. Other than IEL and Rapid Response, Phoenix is useless. Lancaster is just about as bad. The shops range from mediocre to down right incompetent mixed with lazy. That said, at most terminals I've had mostly positive experiences with the staff and the dispatchers. Salt Lake is great, Greer is great, I can't say enough about the help and support I got in Syracuse when I injured myself last winter and I'm certainly glad that I was lucky enough to wind up in the terminal I'm in at Lathrop. I will say this though, and I've heard the directive given at the manager level, if you are a consistent bronze level - or the O/O 2 star equivalent - Swift assumes you've dug your hole and really has no interest in putting forth any effort to assist you in digging out.

 

Good points all.

I downloaded Truckers Tools onto my phone and will try using it and see what happens. In the past I rarely bought fuel outside of "Swift's system/big 3 unless I had no other choice ad/or I saw a chance to save some money. So long as I can use my fuel card I'll start buying fuel where it's cheap, not convenient.

I have no choice but to deal with the Phoenix terminal. I live 20 miles away and need to park my truck there (home terminal is Lewiston). I'll try the Salt Lake Qualcom shop when I get the chance.

As for the mileage pay, I was sounding off. I double check the practical vs paid miles on EVERY load I consider and act accordingly. I actually got a preplan while in El Paso going to Memphis that only paid about 650 miles (actual was over 1000).

As for driver ranking, I was gold going diamond when Swift did away with rankings for O/Os. I averaged 10,540 miles per month for my 1st 12 months, pretty good considering the amount of home time I take.

BTW, what happened to the load board?

 

I am just a company driver and have noticed you get screwed on miles, I saw it first when I was given a short load that said 18 miles, when I routed it was 24 miles so then I checked another which paid 640 miles or so but the route was about 700
They need to pay us on the miles being routed not what the preplan dishes out

 

"Load board" is slowly growing ... I think they are up over 30 or more drivers now. You might want to pop by R/R in Phoenix and speak with Brian O/O VP make yourself known and that you're interested ... I can go from not using it one week, to running nothing but load board another week.

Keep in mind it's not really a load board per se. You work directly with a broker. Let 'em know where you're at or going to be and they will let you know if there are any loads in the area and where they are going ... then be prepared to negotiate the rate. I've run nothing less than $1.40 and as high as $2.42 a mile.

 

so the load board is part of Swift?
I thought I was told if you lease with Swift you cant work outside the company hauling loads, let me know if I misunderstood or im completely wrong.

 

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