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For what it's worth, I had Line-X installed two weeks ago. Paid $525 for my long bed, under the rails. The real test was last week, I had about a 3000# pallet of bluestone loaded and, even though it was slid in by the forktruck, no noticable marks were left on the Line-X.
Have you and your buddy ever compared the two, Line-X and Rhino? I'm thinking of getting the Line-X but have never seem the Rhino. Thanks.
Phil
Side by side looking closely at the bed liners? Not really. We have taken a 'snap-shot' look and as was said my rhino seems to be softer, things do not slide as easy as in his Line-X. It may be why mine nicked using the shovel. But I used a lot of shovels in the bed, never paid attn to the liner, he has a 5th wheel and rarely needs to shovel stuff out. Hard to compare the durabilty since we have two diff uses. As I said, both are good products, you'll be happy with either one
Just so everyone knows...all spray-on bedliiners are made of the same 2 chemicals. It is the ratio of one to the other that makes the difference. For example the "softer" ones like Rhino, PermaTech, Reflex, etc are a 2:1 ratio whereas the "harder" ones like LineX, ArmaCoat, etc are a 1:1 ratio. The chemical reaction that occurs when these two chemicals are mixed determines the hardness/softness. In the harder ones the chemicals mix at a 1:1 ratio right at the tip of the gun. The reaction only takes 5-10 seconds to complete so they form a more crystal-like structure and you get the harder texture. The softer ones typically have a mix tube on the gun and the chemicals mix at a 2:1 ratio, which takes 30-60 seconds to complete the reaction. So you get a "softer" rubber-like texture. Low pressure vs high pressure makes no difference except to the guy applying it. You can not make a blanket statement like all soft liners are low pressure or all hard liners are high pressure. As far as texture is concerned, the "hard" liners can only offer one style of texture whereas the "soft" liners can offer the raindrop (i.e. original Rhino look), the "gritty" (i.e. LineX look), or anything in between. It just depends on the skill of the applicator and whether or not they are even willing to offer it. For colors, ALL will fade. Some will fade faster than others. Rhino is the worst, hence their add-on product to rejuvinate the color. Reflex is the best since they actually use automotive paint tints in thier mix...meaning it will fade at the same rate as your trucks paint. As far as color matching, it goes back to the skill and experience of the applicator. Reflex makes it easy since they use automotive tints. You just find the paint code and mix that tint into their mix. PermaTech has 12-14 color pigments and a mix chart that references paint codes (i.e. it tells you how much of each color to add to match the paint codes). Rhino has 4 (?) stock colors but can have custom colors mixed up but it takes 2 weeks for that to be done. I am not sure how the colors, if they can be done at all, with LineX. All the spray-on liners can be repaired if damaged but they will not look the same as the original due to fade, different applicator, etc.
It comes down to which product is close to you and which one you feel the most comfortable with.
My background: I owned a truck accessory shop. We sprayed PermaTech liners for over 2 years. We were in the process of switching over to Reflex liners when we decided to retire. I looked at 98% of the systems out there, meaning I met with companies, toured thier facilities, met with several of their dealers (for each company), etc. I loved the PermaTech product but the equipment was not very user freindly (i.e. very complicated with a lot of small parts...if one little piece went bad you had to basically tear the system down and rebuild it) and we got tired of all the down time. I chose Reflex due to thier ability to colormatch and the tried and true equipment they use. We did ALOT of this in my area. I would say 4 out of 10 were color matched so this was important to me. We did alot of repairs due to accidents where some of the bed panels had been replaced. In order to make them look good we would spray the new area to build up the same thickness as the old area and then do a flash coat over the entire bed. This was if the owner wanted it to look the same. We never had anyone come back with a repair due to damage or color mismatch. The red and grey Fords looked awesome, by the way.
I have had Rhino, PermaTech, Reflex, and LineX liners in my trucks and farm equipment. All have held up to the abuse I put them thru. I have 2 of my snowplow blades sprayed in red and they show no signs of wear after 3 winters of use. My mower decks on my tractors are sprayed New Holland Blue and Kubota Orange both top and bottom, again no signs of wear after 3 years of use. I have a welding company that we sprayed on top of the diamond plate bed he made for his 6 trucks. After 3 years of throwing steel and aluminum stock into and out of the bed, there are only a few slight nicks in them. We sprayed the inside of the hoppers on 20 street sweepers. The debris these things pick up gets blown into the hopper at 1700 psi. We sprayed the liner in two layers, each a different color. This way the service crews could glance into the hopper and see if they needed to be recoated. These were all done in PermaTech. I have had rocker panels and bumpers done in LineX for my hunting truck and no wear after 6 years of use.
Just find the one you like and go with it.
Last edited by Elburn Bill; May 18, 2005 at 09:49 AM.