Thinking about leasing a truck

Social Security is paid as part of your income tax. It's best to have an accountant familiar with the trucking industry to do your taxes. There are a lot of deductions.

5 to 7 cents per mile for a new truck under warrenty.

Yes

I use both. Dealers will generally get you in and out faster. The terminal can be very convient. You will need a annual safety inspection done every 90 days. In general there is less paperwork involved if you use the terminal.

Don't lease or lease/purchase a new truck. The economics are very much against you.

Don't lease from the company you work for, they will act like they own the truck.

The miles you get as a company driver, will be the same miles you get as an o/o.

The money to be made is in the mpg's you get. If your dedicated account is 3 axle refer work, you are going to go broke. You must as minimun get 6 mpg loaded.


good luck, being an o/o at Swift has worked out for me, but I started with a $30k truck.

 

I still cannot understand why anyone would want to lease a truck??? Oh well good luck and hope it works out well....

 

The best reason to lease is that you get some measure of control over your life.
At Swift as a L/O or L/P you are not under forced dispatch.
You can take the truck home.
You can have a decent sized inverter.
You can take a few weeks off without having to clean out the truck.

The money can be much better than a company driver, depending on what choices the operator makes.

There are downsides of course.

 

It's not forced dispatch for company drivers either we just need an actual reason lol. I take my truck home. Inverter definite benefit, you can't or wouldn't want to take a few weeks off doing a lease anyway so that's kind of moot. The money being much better, I have a friend who has completed two leases with swift and he mentors, he said the money equates to being a top tier pay scale company driver when all is said and done. The lease is walk away though so that's a plus if for some reason its not working out. Not being forced into specific fuel stops is nice as well.

I'm not against leasing by any means but I'm a skeptical person by nature and because its so easy to get into a lease it makes me have to question why.

 

I could understand this but the payments per week are way too high. If they where lets say 1200 month I could see why but over $700 a week is way too much for me.

 

find a good attorny to go over word for word on the actuall contract you will sign. If Swift won't let you have said cotract, to let your attorny look over, RUN AWAY.
This goes for any other lease program out there.

 

I am leasing a truck from Swift's leasing company. I gotta say I don't recommend it. Try try try to get a truck from some other source then lease it onto Swift (or insert your company name here). After just 5 months, I've paid over $12k for the truck payments, $28k for fuel, several thousand dollars for various other charges like insurance, fuel taxes etc. Total net to me (which is really gross pay) is just over $6k. That's just barely over $1k a month and still owe taxes on that income.

When you call them up for a solution, their suggestion is hire a teammate or become a mentor. That might work but bear in mind they charge $.05 cents a mile for the student and $.09 cents a mile over 11k miles per month. So in addition to the over $2k a month you're paying for the truck, you'll pay up to another $2k for a student or teammate that if you brought an outside truck they would not be able to stick their fingers in.

I'm done with this leasing crap.

 

That is why it is best to stay company........ Leasing really is a win for the company not you!