All about hard truck bed covers

Are you installing a tonneau to keep out the weather, or do you want to be able to haul your valuables without worry? Will you be carrying large or oversized loads on a relatively frequent basis? Hard truck bed covers aren't as quick and easy to remove as their soft, folding or retractable counterparts. At the same time, hard tonneaus are much more weather-resistant than are the soft types. If you absolutely need to keep your bed completely dry, a soft cover might not cut it. Truck bed hard covers come with a price, though; they are significantly more expensive than the other tonneau styles. At the same time, you won't have to worry about your cover cracking or peeling from exposure or coming loose and blowing off while you're cruising down the highway. It's all about what exactly you want to get from your tonneau cover.

Durable truck bed hard covers

You'll find hard truck bed covers made of fiberglass and, more recently, a composite polymer plastic. Fiberglass is great because it can be painted to match your vehicle for a custom look, but it's still, nevertheless, fiberglass; a material that scratches easily, shatters if dropped or stressed, and weighs quite a bit. Forget about moving a fiberglass tonneau cover by yourself. It's probably not going to happen. In contrast, composite polymer covers are lightweight, yet incredibly damage-resistant. The biggest drawback of these truck bed hard covers is their paintability (or lack thereof). Composite polymer can be painted, but you won't achieve the smooth, flawless look that's possible on fiberglass.