How to protect your truck bed

Pickup trucks when used for cargo hauling can take a lot of punishment from regular use. One of its more important components, the bed, takes the brunt of this use and abuse as cargo is regularly placed, dropped, or even slid across it. Most of the time the bed is exposed to the elements with the heat of the sun bearing down on the paint and water from the rain posing potential rust problems. 

That’s why as a pickup truck or truck owner making sure your truck bed lasts is one of the most important things you need to do aside from regular maintenance. With that said, we have made a short list of ways you can protect your truck bed and make it last longer.

One of the first things you can do to protect your truck bed, especially if it isn’t treated or coated is to buy a tonneau cover for it. These are placed over the truck bed and are used to cover it. These act as an extra layer of protection for your bed as well as with any cargo you place in the back. It also serves as a way to help keep your gear from being stolen as these covers can be locked and are made of durable materials. What makes them great is their ease of use as some come with automatic retracting versions, while others are manual. If also done right it can also give your pickup truck a new more stylish look.

It's a general term but it can also be called a camper shell. It functions like an extension of the roof on the cab of your truck. It covers the bed and protects your cargo from the elements. For ease of access, some models may even come with windows on the side with locks. The difference between a bed cover and a tonneau cover is that it can rise above the bed of the truck while the tonneau cover just lays on top. This gives you more flexibility in terms of room inside the truck bed for taller items. Just like with the cover, these camper shells or bed covers can also give your truck a more stylish appearance.

One of the more common and flexible ways of protecting your truck bed is to use a bed liner. These can be bought pre-molded and attached to your truck or they can be sprayed on depending on what kind of protection you want. Just make sure that with the pre-molded versions your truck is clean and that it is properly installed with the necessary hardware to prevent rust from building up. These bed liners come with the advantage of protection but without the restriction of a bed cover that may impede taller or bulkier items from being placed on the bed. These are also the industry standard for higher variants of pickup trucks in the Philippines, though some models don’t come standard with it even at the highest trim levels.

Protecting your truck bed doesn’t just stop with the top half, you also need to consider protecting the bottom half as well which is exposed to the road. The best way to do this is with rust-proofing, while some pickup trucks may already have this from the dealership floor some do not. This is why you should consider getting one for your vehicle especially if it's older. Rust-proofing helps protect the metal of the truck bed by creating a layer that inhibits water from touching the metal and oxidizing it. Rust proofing is also a good long-term solution as it will last for several years before it will need to be reapplied. You can also apply it to the top of the bed itself as well.

Overall there are several ways of protecting your truck’s bed, the most cost-effective and flexible solution is to use a bed liner or bed liner spray on it. It gives you the flexibility to load bigger and taller items that wouldn’t normally fit with a camper shell and gives you the protection you need from scrapes and scratches to the metal. It can also be used to toughen up the bed and make it more resistant to drops as well. If you don’t typically use your truck bed for bulkier items then the tonneau cover and the bed cover will do just fine. They give you better security when stowing things in the back but with the restriction of the bed high and bed cover height to consider.