[Turns31]

Really my only consistent complaint with the whole truck (which is a good thing) is how soft the black plastic bed caps are. Mine were scratched after a week of owning it after putting some very thin, light brush in the bed. I'm talking 1/2" diameter twigs. Luckily my tonneau covers 90% of the scratches but man they were cheap on that plastic. Heaven forbid we actually use the bed.

 

[rynoman03]

Yeah. I'm kinda disappointed in that as well.

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[JHP]

Yep. It is a disappointment. Its a truck. Most people use the beds. They should have used better materials than what is there.

 

[Crock]

Nope, if they used a hard plastic they would be prone to cracking. I'll take a few scratches.

 

[404 Not Found]

While I agree with Crock, I think a somewhat harder plastic would be better. I keep my truck detailed like a show car and don't haul much other than trailers. Lately though, I can no longer drive past discarded appliances or scrap metal without scooping up some free fuel money. The cap on the tailgate now has a few good chew marks in it. I suppose those parts would be easy and maybe even cheap to replace if needed.

 

[RatRacer]

Yeah, it's too soft. I had my 6ft fiberglass ladder gouge it good already. The material they use for the drop in liner has a better surface hardness for scratch resistance.

 

[TrustyRusty]

I'm using a TracRac and the clamps compress the caps when I mount the rack. You can see the cap noticeably dip under the compression of the rack clamp. This also means the racks loosen a little over time so you have to keep checking them if you leave the rack on for any length of time. I'm thinking of taking the caps off and using some kind of filler between the cap and the truck metal so the rack won't deform/compress the plastic. Maybe I can fit some strips of hard rubber in there.

 

[rkj__]

What I don't like about the bed rails, is that those caps fit into a bunch of big holes. That makes removing the caps, and doing an over-the-rail spray-in liner less straight forward.

I have an over-the-rails spray-in liner on my 2008, and I step all over the rails, and they are no worse for wear.

 

[pltctycanyon]

you're lucky it saved the paint or you'd be even more disappointed

 

[Janster]

I can agree with that....after several trips of sliding the 75lb kayaks in & out of the bed....the soft plastic on the tailgate top edge is roughed up pretty good.

Have you tried using a hair dryer to soften and buff out the scratches?

I've done this with other things (soft plastics) before and if you search Google, I know there are other methods of fixing it.

It is kinda a disappointment, but at the same time..... as someone mentioned before, harder plastic can crack and get brittle and probably not easy to 'buff'.
It's a truck.... and I haven't bothered to fix my tailgate.

 

[MV10]

What I don't like about the bed rails, is that those caps fit into a bunch of big holes. That makes removing the caps, and doing an over-the-rail spray-in liner less straight forward.

I wonder if anybody has pictures of those holes with the caps removed?

My LineX guy said they won't do over-the-rail liner on trucks with factory caps because too many people complained about how bad all the mounting holes look without the caps. I was a little annoyed, I would prefer LineX to those bubble-gum-soft caps, but I've always wondered what they really look like. (I imagine I could have talked another shop into doing it, but these guys are the best in town and the only ones who honor the lifetime warranty with no-questions / no-cost respray, including the UV-blocking coating.)

 

[toy4x4]

I wonder how they would look with Bed liner sprayed on them. Not sure you can even do this. Just a thought.

 

[MV10]

I wonder how they would look with Bed liner sprayed on them. Not sure you can even do this. Just a thought.

LineX says the product can be applied to plastic but if you check the various offroad forums you'll see everyone reports it'll eventually peel off. Since the rail caps aren't pieces that would flex (hopefully!), I suppose it might be longer-lasting but I wouldn't try it. You have to seriously scuff the surface, so if it did peel they'd probably look even worse than the gouges they pick up from normal usage.

I've pondered welding the mounting holes closed then getting it LineX'd ... once the truck gets older, of course (I've moved into the "keep vehicles for 10 years" phase of my life). Shouldn't be too difficult.

 

[Fourstringer57]

Cheapo plastic

I have musical equipment that i load and unload and the first time i used it it was scraped up. The bed liner plastic is much tougher. Has anyone figured an alternative?