I've been going through the "Truckin'" magazine and there is a ton of advertisements in this area so I thought I would ask the board about the best source and pricing for hard or soft covers, or if I choose to go the cap route which direction is best there. And, are either of these products good as far as water leakage. I see alot of A.R.E. covers around. I would like to stay somewhere below $800 if possible.

Thanks again.

Jeff

 

I have an A R E on my Supercrew that I like. Covers the black plastic on the bed, weathertight against rain, lockable, and can be removed by 2 people when necessary. I paid less than $800. for mine installed and painted to match the truck. Central Texas.

 

I have had 3 f-150's with are lids. They are great. My first one in 1999 cost 600, and my newest one 2002 cost 730 with a 20 coupon off are's website. It is a really great product.

 

After reading a previous positive post about the “Advance Cover” tonnau cover, and doing a little research, I opted to purchase one myself.
It’s relatively inexpensive (~$500), lightweight(one person can easily handle it), durable (I failed to latch it properly once and the front half flapped back onto the rear at highway speed without any damage, other than to my heart, as it was a bit startling) and can be quickly removed by one person should the need arise to haul a refrigerator at a moments notice. It’s also been water tight to this point.
I like the look of the truck without a cap, the only thing that took some getting used to was the "“wrinkle" texture of this cover, so it’s maybe not as trick looking as some of the A.R.E. covers and others. But it’s a low pro-file cover so it’s not that noticeable and from a distance looks kind of carbon-fiberish.
The hinged in the middle feature has come in handy also, my friend has a P.U. with a one piece shell type cover and it’s a P.I.T.A. to get to the stuff up front in his truck not to mention that you can’t see a small trailer behind the truck which makes backing up an adventure, like backing an empty boat trailer up to a boat launch. My cover allows me to fold up the back half and lower the tail gate so that I can see where I’m going.

 

Think carefully before you buy a hard cover. Read the 18 plus replys on this web site. I had the missfortune to buy a Leer700 hard cover for my 202 f150 screw, the first cover gave me all kinds of trouble, the dealer got me an exchange cover, this one has been better. I've lived with it for over 6 months and not had any complaints with this one.But they look difficult to remove & reattach, they also limit items you carry, and with out using the bed extender as a basket to stop items rolling about, it hard to remove items from the front of the truck bed. If I had to do this again, I would have spent the $700 on something else.
Jake