DIY bedliner

Donstar · June 23, 2018

1 hour ago, Doublebase said:

Well I think the job bc-chris did looks awesome, but I've seen others that didn't look so good. A friend of mine tried to convince to to do a roll on liner like his...said it works great, great stuff! Real easy! But he says that about everything. You could be talking about performing brain surgery and he'd tell you it's a piece of cake! It's wicked easy! Anyone personally know anyone like that?? And of course what always happens is it seems not easy for him, he just perceives it as easy. Meanwhile he's without his truck for weeks. Right now he's been without one of his trucks since September because "its real easy to buy a used bed and replace it".

Back to the subject; the roll on Bedliner he used looks like garbage and it has come off in several places. But he says, "I just need to touch it up".

I bought a drop in Bedliner for $180 online. Shipping was $40. It was EASY to install. It looks good, no problems...I don't know?? I mean I know some people don't like them, but it's a bed liner. It works. Of course my buddy hates it. It's going to blow right out of the back of your truck! I see them all over the highway! Wait till you take the Bedliner out! It'll be scratched! Things will slide around in there. I have had ZERO issues. Zero. And why would I take it out?? Who cares if it gets "scratched"? Oh and he says it'll be noisy. Noisy? Haven't heard a thing. And this guy runs straight pipes, now he cares about noise. Lol.

I know the type of friend you are talking about. Why spend money when you can do it yourself? "I'll fix your brakes, its simple" -Oh no you won't.... Some people seem to be able to fix just about anything and do a good job and there are others who don't know their limits. Drop in bedliners are great, imo. They protect the bed of your truck and are easily cleaned. I had one on each of my previous two trucks. They were genuine GM bedliners that fit properly and didn't scratch up the box. Spray-in's have gained in looks, quality and popularity in the past decade. They have virtually taken over the drop-in market. At first, I couldn't understand why people would remove the factory finish in order to protect it. But if you look at the spray-in liners as a replacement to the factory finish, then they make more sense. I think the uv protected, professionally applied variety look good. The install is space, skill and tool intensive and not an average DIY job, imo.

Doublebase · June 23, 2018

46 minutes ago, Donstar said:

I know the type of friend you are talking about. Why spend money when you can do it yourself? "I'll fix your brakes, its simple" -Oh no you won't.... Some people seem to be able to fix just about anything and do a good job and there are others who don't know their limits. Drop in bedliners are great, imo. They protect the bed of your truck and are easily cleaned. I had one on each of my previous two trucks. They were genuine GM bedliners that fit properly and didn't scratch up the box. Spray-in's have gained in looks, quality and popularity in the past decade. They have virtually taken over the drop-in market. At first, I couldn't understand why people would remove the factory finish in order to protect it. But if you look at the spray-in liners as a replacement to the factory finish, then they make more sense. I think the uv protected, professionally applied variety look good. The install is space, skill and tool intensive and not an average DIY job, imo.

Yeah I agree, the spray in liners look better. I’d prefer that over the drop in liner, but I just didn’t want to spend the $500 after just purchasing the truck - as it was I already needed to buy steps, mud flaps and some other things. But the spray liners look awesome...probably do a better job keeping stuff from sliding around, etc.

Speaking of “that one friend” we all seem to have. He owns a F250 with a 6.1 diesel. Thing has blown hard gaskets. So he replaces all the injectors and puts new leaf springs from Rough Country in it. I ask, you still have blow head gaskets, right? He says, yeah but that’s no big deal, I don’t drive much. Lol. True story

johnsnowkornar · September 16, 2018

On 6/22/2018 at 10:49 PM, 15BlueSilverado said:

Personally, I wouldn't use the "roll-on" type of bedliner. I've seen those on other trucks and they seem to peel easily and don't look too good. I used to work at a shop that did spray in bedliners and yeah, a good 80% of the work is in the prep of the bed. You have to really scuff it up so it adhere's to the bed really good and you have to tape off what you don't want to spray. That stuff doesn't come off easy. But a $1k for a shop to do it, that does seem kind of high to me. I got mine done for $300, cause the dealership wanted like $700 for them to do it, and it still looks good after almost 3 years.

How long it will last??

5

DirtyAndy · September 16, 2018

I will toss in a vote saying to have it professionally done as well. I did Herculiner on my 2008 Sierra. I took my time. Spent half a Saturday prepping it and cleaning. Then the other half rolling on as thick of a first coat as possible. Then propped a fan to blow in the bed all night. Spent half a Sunday applying a 2nd and 3rd coat.

Looked great at first. Within a year the sun had beat down and thinned out the coats on the bed itself. The walls held up really well. But the bed itself looked pretty piss poor. The upside is, it never looked worse than it did after the first year. It also did what I wanted. Just wanted something for cargo to grip to.

Other downside is, if you ever plan on sitting on the tailgate to have a beer or whatever....do NOT wear white or light colored clothing. It rubs off on your clothing. Something that I’m pretty sure does not happen with Line-X or Rhino Liner type applications.