Tips to Help You Choose the Best Truck Bed Rails

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Tips to Help You Choose the Best Truck Bed Rails

Having a pickup truck provides drivers with extra space to carry the items they would not be comfortable carrying inside their vehicle. If you are a driver that often carry extra items, you may want to keep the truck bed safe from dents and scratches using truck bed rails. Before choosing any of the many truck bed rails available out there, there are 4 essential tips to keep in mind to help navigate through the whole process.

Choose a Bed Rail Based on Make and Model

There are thousands of truck bed rails available on the market. All these bed rails are made for the different truck models available. No one truck bed rail can fit all the trucks out there, so this step is important to ensure a good looking and safe truck bed. The universal drill-type truck bed rails are the best as they allow full customization allowing fitment on any truck.

Choose a Style

After choosing the right truck bed rails made for your specific truck. The next step involves choosing the right style for the pickup truck. There are truck bed rails available in many different styles to suit different drivers and their needs. The most popular styles include the caps, half rails and full rails.

Caps-Truck bed rail caps are made from plastic and are used to cover the rail top. They are easy to install with no technical skills required. When going for caps, opt for the ones made from UV resistant plastic because they last longer than the others do.

Half-rails – Just like the name suggests half rails cover only a portion of the truck bed. Since they do not cover the entire truck bed, they tend to be slightly cheaper and easy to install. These are for truck beds that are regularly accessed.

Full rails – Unlike the half rails, these ones stretch from the back of the truck all the way to the front to attach to the stake holes. One disadvantage of full rails is that they do not protect the lip of the tailgate.

Materials Used During Construction

The materials used during construction should help you choose one truck bed rail or the other. Most rails are made using tubular steel but with different finishes. The strongest and most durable ones are those covered with chrome stainless steel. This makes them economical as there will be no need of replacing them every so often.

Installation methods

Installing a truck bed rail can be very challenging depending on your technical knowledge. Different bed rails have different procedures to be followed when installing them. Depending on your skills, it is advisable to opt for those that are easy for you to install. These steps are meant to help any driver narrow down the whole process and end up with a handful of truck bed rails to choose from.

By: James Langston

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