The tonneau covers AKA truck bed covers are the most important part for every single pickup truck. Almost all pickup truck owners want to get the convenience, reasonable in price and good quality tonneau cover. In this article, you will get complete information about how to choose the perfect tonneau cover for your truck, which tonneau cover is the best, their prices, features and so on.
While selecting the tonneau cover for a truck there are few main things which everyone cares about, which are the toughness, features & cost. The particular cover should be enough tougher so that it can secure the truck bed. The cover should have good features like easy installation and removal. Tonneau cover should be fit perfectly with particular pickup truck models like ford f150, Toyota Tacoma, Chevy Silverado and more. The cost of the tonneau cover should be in your budget. So, let’s see how to navigate with it.
Benefits of Using Tonneau Cover For A Pickup Truck.
1) tonneau cover improves the mileage of a pickup truck.
2) It gives an average 5% drag reduction compared to an empty truck bed
3) The tonneau cover adds security to the material available in the truck.
4) Tonneau cover protects the bed from outer elements like snow, dust, rainwater etc.
Main Types of Tonneau Covers :
There are two main types of tonneau cover available in the market.
a) Soft Tonneau Covers – Soft tonneau covers are very lightweight & soft, which is easy to install and remove. These tonneau covers come completely seamless. You cannot put anything on upside them because of the softness. If soft covers get hit with anything then it will get damage very quickly. Soft covers are cheaper in the prices which can fit into the budget.
b) Hard Tonneau Covers – Hard tonneau covers are heavier in weight. These covers are very heavy and stronger with rigid material. Using hard covers is more secure than using soft covers. It protects from every single harmful element to the truck bed like snowfall, rainfall, dust etc. The best example of their toughness is you can put some heavy things on them like ATVs. So, you can imagine their rigidness. Hard covers have higher prices than soft covers because of their quality. But its really worth to have them for your truck bed.
Now, know the detailed information if you are thinking about what tonneau cover is best for you. let’s see the tonneau cover style types which are available in the market. Their prices, features, material quality, usage and more.
Major Style Types To Know What Tonneau Cover is Best :
a) Rollup Tonneau Covers
b) Folding Tonneau Covers
c) Retractable Tonneau Covers
d) Hinged / One Piece Tonneau Covers
1) Rollup Tonneau Covers –
The Rollup tonneau covers come as soft rollup and hard roll-up tonneau cover types. Soft covers comes with the support bars below it to hold folded cover’s weight. The Soft roll-up covers are easy to install & remove as well. You just need literally less than 5 minutes to roll up. The convenience factor is the major thing to buy this soft roll-up cover.
Mostly 99% of roll-up covers are the soft tonneau covers in the market. But occasionally you will get hard rollup tonneau covers users as well. To hard roll-up covers, we also call revolver rolling tonneau covers. These hard roll-up covers have heavy-duty aluminum slatches to get rolled easily. It is a secure and tough cover with ease of rolling cover. With these, both covers access to the truck bed is easy & quick. These covers can be rollup however you want. You can partially close or open them if you desire it can get loaded with large cargo.
Price Range – $200 – $500
2) Folding Tonneau Covers –
These folding tonneau covers comes with trifold configuration. That is why we call them folding tonneau covers. These can be found in Soft & Hard Types. They are much easy to install. It has various price ranges for different models, brands, colors etc. These 3 sections get folds over each other but unlike rollup they big section and grab large space of the bed. Which is a bit tricky to choose. These covers can get removed easily whenever you want to get extra space. But it takes a bit more time to do comparatively rollup tonneau covers. Folding tonneau covers are almost stronger and can hold more weight on them. You can choose soft or hard as per your requirement and your budget. The hard folding tonneau covers can hold upto 600 pounds distributed weight. All these features make this cover type more incredible.
Price Range – $250 – $1,000
3) Retractable Tonneau Covers –
The Retractable tonneau cover is the easiest style type to use among all cover style types. It is available in the hard cover type only. These covers can slide smoothly along with the rails and retract into the storage container fitted at the front of the bed. Now you will lose some bed space from the front side because of some space needed for the storage after the fold. These covers can be locked-in using the latch with any position throughout the bed. These covers are a bit expensive than rollup and folding covers. But if you have a decent budget and looking for a convenience and security perspective then investing in this cover is really worth it. You can also get electric retractable tonneau covers as well. Which much expensive than regular retractable tonneau covers.
Price Range – $700 – $2,200
4) Hinged Tonneau Covers –
These style type covers comes as one-piece covers. It has only hard cover type mostly. But sometimes you can get soft hinged tonneau covers as well. Which is very rare to see. Mostly you will get Hinged hard covers easily available in the market. These covers are the seamless, cleanest, shiny and OEM look because of the color match with your pickup truck which looks like it is an integral part of a pickup truck. They also provide better security and of course, they are good weatherproof. The major downside of this cover is you cannot drive when the hinged cover is opened because of their large space. They can hold heavy weight on them. Price is almost similar to other hard cover types. If you want to use hard cover but don’t want any mismatch color with your pickup truck brand color then this a good option for you.
Price Range – $700 – $1,500
Conclusion
This is the extensive information for every truck owner who dont knows about what tonneau cover is best for their pickup truck. This guide will help you to choose the perfect one for you. As per your budget & the usage requirement, you can select any truck bed cover. Choosing Hard tonneau cover and soft tonneau cover varies as per requirement. If you bad weather condition most of the time, your usage is rough then you should go with hard tonneau cover otherwise you can use soft tonneau cover.
