Swift Is Good

and you leased a truck from swift, right? Everytime i see a lease truck from swift, specially the ProStars, i always say to myself "sucka". Cause swift picked em up for MAYBE $50k-60k? What you're paying in 4 years equates to about $110k? not to mention if you want to BUY the truck after that, and 500k on the ticker, you gotta cough up another $50k. Congrats, you not only just bought yours, but you bought another 2 for Swift. Only way you can make it work is to run team or run with a student. I've asked about trucks that are 'outright buy' trucks, which they wont put you in unless you go thru a lease FIRST, and my DM keeps asking me "be a trainer". I tell him 'no way'. Why be a trainer? so the student can tear my truck up and hope swift pays for it? (which they wont) i basicly have to pay to have a student on the truck? not to mention i've only driven for 2 yrs. i dont know everything. (gulp...did i just say that?)

what gets me shakin my head , when i go into terminals and hear all the drivers whining about miles. Then if you listen long enough, you hear them talk about how they turn down 200-300 mi runs because "i cant make it out here with less than 500mi runs".

I picked up an intermodal trl in Edwardsville once. The bills showed the weight of the load about 43,000lbs. I knew that was going to be pushing it to keep me legal. Sure enough, i was 150 over gross. I had already fueled at the terminal, so i just started my clock. I go back inside with the paperwork, tell 'em i cant take it cause its too heavy and i'm over gross. They take it back off me, but in the meantime i'm loadless. I go talk to my DM, and he has me talk to his fleet manager. Since my DM knows i want to stay busy doing SOMETHING, he got with the FM to do just that. What did i do? i got paid local pay, AND i got paid $10/hr.....to run empty trailers all over K.C. to reposition. 8 trls in all, and i ran about 120 miles, and it took a good chunk of my 11 hr clock. sure, didnt make much in mileage, but ended up making about $200 that day. How many drivers would have done that? They'd have said "oh way too much work for 120 miles" and have turned the work down.

You lease a truck, you already start roughly $800 in the hole for the week. a 200-300 mi run atleast gets you $185 to $280 bucks. Sure beats the $0 you get. And if you get a load and turn it down, are you really going to get layover pay? and if you do, consider yourself LUCKY, cause i sure wouldn't give it to you if i were the company.

6 months, and already turning down loads? dont think i ever turned down a load in my first year regardless of miles unless i had an issue with HOS.

Now as far as rail loads go....i use to get 1-2 a month. And NEVER have i gone to one where it went totally 100% smooth. I'm not given all the info in the dispatch, or billing isnt set up (once i sat for 4-5 hrs waiting for billing to go thru, and ended up running out of clock) or nobody bothered to give me a trailer number that i was to pick up. And when you go there, they expect you know where you're going. And heaven for bid you stop a yard dog and ask for the location of a trailer. So anymore, when i get a railyard PP, i dont accept or decline it. It just sits on my qualcomm.

Got a phone call from Lone Mountain truck leasing. i might have been approved for financing. Thats the only way to drive for Swift, not as a company driver, and make any money. Lease on an outside truck and then lease it on to Swift. $300 a week truck payments, compared to $500/wk. No balloon, and after 104 weeks, the truck is mine. Less than that, if i pay extra on weeks i have good paydays.

 

Which truck are you thinking about ?
http://www.lonemountaintruck.com/inventory/

nothing on their site inventory for 24 months

 

it'll be 24 months or less from the extra i can pay at any given time. If i have a great week, and find myself a few hundred above normal, i'd be crazy not to put some of that into the maintence account (which i can transfer into my regular bank account at any time) and pay a little extra the next week for the truck. Sure beats leasing thru the same company you rely on getting those miles for to MAKE that lease payment, doesn't it? Not to mention, i'm paying on a truck i know will be mine. Rather than leasing a truck thru the company, paying $200 more a week, knowing there is a $50k balloon payment that i can't afford or save for, no bank will finance and the company wont take payments on. So.....they get the truck back, you end up having to "lease" another, and keep paying 100% interest on what......u got nothing to show for it.

 

Thanks for the info , I know how to make it work , I own my trucks and trailers never did a lease deal , was just asking about which truck you had been interested in from their inventory.

 

See below...

Yes you did, lolol.

 

Hi DickJones,

May I ask why you couldn't run a load 150lbs over gross and full tanks?

You would have been under in about 100 miles ... just sayn'

 

i'd have been under in 150 miles. Seeing how i get a little over 7 mpg, and a gallon of fuel weighs 7 lbs. But really, u dont know my luck. The one time i do that, and i get spot checked on the side of the road, or i happen to run into a weigh station that is open, and i DON'T get the green light, THEN get pulled around back. You going to pay my ticket?

See...Swift/Planner/whoever...probably knew that it was a container loaded heavy. And unless a daycab takes the load, whoever else happens to take the load would probably be over gross. Okay...so now Swift knows "hey..so and so will fudge a little bit"...so the next time, the next load they get will be 300 over...then 400...then 600....then 1,000. 80k is a limit for a reason. i'm not going to chance it.....regardless how much it was over.

 

ok i got to say this. im not saying how heavy i would pull but id be way way way over 80k. i almost got screwed once by a driver telling me that the chicken coupe was closed when it was actually open. thank god i rerouted instead. im not being smart or anything so dont take it that way..you get about 20-30 miles out from the chicken coupe start asking if its open. if one says no ask again if he says yes ask once more. then find a spot to pull over and get your road map out and find a different route AROUND the weigh station. take the back roads

 

Hi folks,

I'm considering go to the Lewiston school. I haven't sent in an application yet. I have a couple of questions that perhaps you guys might have current knowledge on:

1. driving record reqs. I know the recruiter told me "no more than 1 in last 12 months and 3 in last 5 years." I meet that requirement and the recruiter I spoke to said my record was OK for swift. I'm wondering though if that is the difference between what the recruiter says is OK and what the company actually accepts? My record has a 15 mph speeding ticket in may 09 and a 11mph ticket in July 2010. I also got a dismissed ticket from Feb 2009 that I don't recall what the speed was on it. It's definatly not on my mvr.

2. If I show up to lewiston and for some reason they tell me to go home, what do I wind up owing? Does it depend on how long I'm there (ie, prorated)? Or if I'm there just one day, do I owe the full tuition? I think my driving record is the only thing that would be of concern for me though I suppose I could get kicked out for not learning fast enough or something.

3. It sounds like the class is pretty fastpaced. I would of course do my best to learn and keep up. I've watched a number of youtube videos and read the cdl manual from the dmv. I think I would be a good student but if I needed extra time or wasn't learning quite fast enough, what is swift's procedure? Do they give you the extra help or are they quick to send you home?

From what I heard, Lewiston is overall a nice school to learn from. I'm not set on going to swift's cdl school but I want to consider it. I've researched other options and I'm still looking around- just want to get people's 2 cents on this.

And yes, I am using cruise control and trying to be very conscientous of my speed, thanks for asking.

 

Nothing against Swift drivers but. . . .If I had my own truck I wouldnt lease it to Swift. #1 they will make you turn it down to 65. #2 I can make better leasing it on to another company such as Land Star,Schnyder etc. and have the speed set to what ever I want it to be set at. After all thats one of the reasons of being an owner operator is the freedom to run your truck as you wish as long as it is legal. As for the trainers. They do not hire senior drivers. As I been told by my Mom's next door neighbor (a safety manager for Swift ) he said they only hire entry level drivers so they can train them the company way.