Do It Yourself: Truck Bedliners
- Truck bed carpet liners look like wall-to-wall carpeting on your truck bed. Since they can begin to smell a little musty if they get wet, they work best on trucks that have a truck bed cap or shell. Carpet liners may look like a luxury accessory, but they can be tough. They provide a soft bed for fragile cargo, they are relatively inexpensive compared to some other bed liners, they can be custom fitted for the truck, the bed cannot be scratched if it is entirely covered in carpet and they are simple to clean. A carpet liner is not a good choice if it will be in the weather a lot or if you plan to regularly transport muddy or greasy cargo.
- Truck bed mat liners are usually made of rubber and are very inexpensive. The rubber mats are tough and are perfect for transporting bricks, concrete blocks or something that might tear up or scratch the truck bed. Another good thing about the mats is that most of them can be reversed, meaning you can get a mat that has rubber on both sides or carpet on one side and rubber on the other.
- A plastic truck bed liner can handle the toughest jobs. It is a lot thicker than most of the other liners and is almost indestructible. It is a medium priced liner that comes in one custom-made piece to fit the truck bed. Some come in multiple sections in a drop-in variety designed to fit the sides and bottom of the truck bed. On the downside, your truck bed must be able to drain water well. And if a plastic liner is not secured well, it will slide around and scratch the paint off the truck bed.
- Roll-on bed liners are inexpensive and are popular for older trucks. You must clean all the old wax and grease out of the truck bed and sand it down before applying the paint. Then you roll on the thick paint and let it dry. A roll-on bed liner does not offer a whole lot of damage protection for the truck bed, but it can help to dress up an old truck.