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When you dive into the world of pickup trucks, you often hear about two main types of truck bed protection: drop-in bedliners and spray-on coatings. While both of these solutions serve the purpose of protecting your truck bed, they’re very different in how they’re installed, their benefits, and the quality of protection they provide. Finding the right facts to compare the differences between the two can be a headache. There is a lot of information circulating around the internet that is incorrect and based on unproven claims.

In an effort to help you sift through all of that information, we’re here to support you with this guide comparing our drop-in bedliners to spray-on coatings. No matter what type of protection you decide to purchase, we hope this article helps dismiss the different myths that exist in the bed protection industry.

Comparing the Drop-In and Spray-On Bedliner Installation

Drop-in Bedliner Installation Process

Drop-in bedliners are designed to be easily installed in the bed of your truck. The do-it-yourself process makes it quick and straightforward once you receive your bedliner. And if you ever decide to sell your truck, or you just want to remove the bedliner, the process is as effortless as installation. The only roadblocks that occur while installing a drop-in bedliner come from not purchasing the correct one to fit your truck. Some manufacturers even produce bedliners that require little-to-no tools as part of the installation process.

Our Duraliner truck bedliners are a great example of how simple it is to install a drop-in bedliner. Check out our quick 3-minute video below to see just how easy it is.

Spray-on Coating Application

If you choose to go with the spray-on route, you’ll find that the process of adding protection is much different.

With spray-on coatings, application must be done professionally to ensure that the truck bed receives an even coating of paint. This professional application not only adds to the cost, but it also means that the quality of the application can vary depending on who you choose to perform it.

Once it’s in the shop, spray-on coatings require the truck bed to be damaged before application. This is done by grinding or sanding the bed of your truck to reveal an unprotected metal layer. Stripping the surface down to this layer allows the spray-on coating to adequately adhere to the truck bed. By doing this, you void the corrosion warranty for any parts of your truck that receive the spray-on coating. Plus, removing the coating after it is applied is nearly impossible to do without further damage to your truck.

Comparing the Quality of Protection of a Drop-In and Spray On Truck Bedliner

Next, we’ll go on to discuss the level of protection and benefits that our drop-in bedliners provide compared to the spray-on coating alternative.

Dent and Scratch Protection

One of the most important parts of your truck bed protection is how it much it will prevent dents and scratches. Both drop-in bedliners and spray-on coatings provide protection against dents and scratches, but the level at which they do so is different.

Our drop-in bedliners offer superior protection from dents and scratches with their unique rib design. Since the drop-in bedliner acts as durable buffer between the bed of your truck and the cargo in it, dents and scrapes are a thing of the past. With the amount of protection that our drop-in bedliners provide, the useful life and value of your truck is increased significantly.

The level of protection against dents and scratches that spray-on coatings provide is much less. Because the spray-on coating paint is directly adhered to your truck bed, any dents that occur will most certainly get through to the bed of your truck. Scratches in the coating can occur and will reveal an unprotected truck bed surface. In addition to this, spray-on coatings are typically much more abrasive and can cause scratches to cargo that sits in your truck.

Slip Resistance

Slip resistance is another important thing to consider when deciding on what type of truck bed protection you want to go with. With our brand of drop-in truck bedliners, you will experience twice the slip resistance compared to other drop-ins or spray-on coatings. This is thanks to our unique TruGrip™ technology which utilizes a unique plastic formulation to increase surface friction in the bed. More surface friction leads to less cargo sliding around which decreases the amount of dents that occur to the bed.

Spray-on coatings also offer some level of slip resistance for cargo, but it is much less than drop-in bedliners. Once it is applied, the finished coating dries into a hard and abrasive-like material. While the abrasion acts as a sort of slip resistance for cargo, the hardness of the material makes it easier for things to slide around in your truck.

Other Benefits of a Drop-In Bedliner

There are many other benefits that come with selecting one of our brands of drop-in bedliners which include: spill-cleanup, shock absorption, and a cost-advantage.

When it comes to spill clean-up, our patented bedliner surface allows you to easily rinse off the liner without water getting trapped under the bedliner. Our truck bedliners are designed to always drain away from the bed which makes it easy to clean gasoline, oils, chemicals, and other spills that can occur.

Another added benefit of our drop-in bedliners is the shock absorption they provide. Our bedliner shock absorbing technology is 7X better than any spray-on coatings available. This is because of the thick and durable plastic material that is used to create them. Meanwhile, spray-on coatings are directly adhered to your truck bed and therefore cannot provide shock absorption.

The final benefit that our bedliners provide is a cost-advantage that makes them one of the most affordable solutions for truck bed protection. Since drop-in bedliners can be installed at home, there isn’t the added labor costs that comes with the professional installation required for spray-on coatings. The ability to remove a drop-in bedliner also helps with costs, as they can easily be resold when they’re no longer needed or added to future trucks you may purchase.

If you own a truck, it’s important that you protect it with truck bed protection that works as hard as you do. To learn more about our different drop-in bedliners and how they can protect your vehicle, browse our website to see which option is right for you!