bed mat and liners

[south_florida]

Hello, first I want to thank this site for the repair library - was finally able to fix my "phantom wipers" on a 99 ranger.

As stated my truck is a 99 and the bed is extremely scratched up. I don't want to put the money into a pro spray (rhino, etc) and thought I would make a mess with the roll on home kits.

Any thoughts on the mats? I'm worried water will get trapped underneath and rot the bed. Also not sure how safe the adhesive would be for highway driving.

Are there any mats that conform and come custom fit to the bed ridges? I'm thinking this might form a tight seal.

 

[Junkyardexpress]

I had a 94 with a rubber bed mat and it had little bumps on the bottom that allowed air to circulate i never noticed moisture under it.

 

[adsm08]

It's called an "over the rail drop in bed liner".

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

It's called an "over the rail drop in bed liner".

I have mixed love for the hard plastic drop-in liners (both over-the-rail and under-the-rail). They work great for protecting the bed from dings and scrapes, but things slide really easily on them and realistically you need to pull them up from time to time to clean under them and fix any rust that starts to grow.

The rubber mats keep things from sliding but even with the bumps on the bottom, water can lay there for a long time - at least where I'm at - the rusty steel buckle of the rust belt.

I've seen some DIY bedliner roll-on kits and some "pro" bedliners that had problems with chipping under hard use and I've seen some that held up well. I've toyed with the idea of doing one of the roll-on kits then dropping a plastic liner on top to protect the bed, but for the expense I'm not sure if it would be worth it.

My Ranger I have a hard plastic liner and a rubber bed mat on top. That way things stayed put on the mat but if I needed to haul something like say a roll of wire mesh, I'd just roll the rubber mat up to the front of the bed and slide the wire in on the plastic liner.

 

[scotts90ranger]

I've had one of the bed mats for a LONG time in my truck, no adhesives or screws are required to keep it down on the highway, they move around a bit but I've been up to around 80mph and never had it fly out... I've had it for about 10 years and it's starting to crack a lot, been looking for a replacement but they have gotten expensive. The one I got was a long bed version, I left it full length to have some padding up front and cover the tailgate gap. It hasn't hurt the paint underneath at all, but if you have scratches down to metal on yours I would suggest getting some spray paint and touching it up.