Ali Mansour
Brand Manager, 4WD & Sport Utility
One of the best parts about owning a truck is being able to toss just about anything we want in the bed. From old axles and drivetrain parts to camping gear and the occasional groceries, we use our pickup’s bed almost daily. While a bedliner can keep your trucks bed from getting too beat up, sometimes you need a little more protection for the items sitting within. This is where a bedcover comes in handy.
While camper shells and fiberglass tonneau covers are both great ways to secure your cargo, they are expensive and can be a nuisance when attempting to haul oversized parts and tires. To find a happy medium, we tend to look for easily removable bedcovers. Such covers, like the EZ Roll tonneau from Bestop, are designed to be user friendly and effective ways to have your bed covered when you need it, and open when you don’t.
Bestop’s EZ Roll tonneau cover is part of a line of fullsize and mini-truck tonneau covers, which includes the EZ Fold and Zip Rail. We recently picked up an EZ Roll tonneau for our ¾-ton ’12 Chevy’s 6½-foot bed. The no-drill, bolt-on install took around 30 minutes to complete and only required a couple of basic handtools. Overall, we found the EZ Roll tonneau to be very user friendly and are pleased with the protection and style it added to our tow rig.
A pair of anodized aluminum bedrails provides tracking for the EZ Roll tonneau cover. Each rail is fitted with a padded bottom and a Velcro center to help secure the cover.
Securing the bedrails are three bolt-on clamps per side. Bestop suggests loosely affixing the clamps at first to ensure proper alignment of the cover and rails.
The EZ Roll tonneau cover comes preassembled and bundled with its hook-and-loop fastening system. To install the cover, simply slide the assembly between the bedrails until it sits tightly against the forward holds. A second person will make this easier, but a single person can set the lightweight cover in from inside of the bed.
To secure the front portion of the cover, loosen the twist knobs on each side and slide them into the rail. After you feel the insert push in, tighten the knobs by hand.
Unlatching the EZ Roll tonneau cover just takes a pull of the single quick-release handle. To adjust the overall tension of the cover, Bestop uses Allen-head adjusters at the forward portion of the rails.
The built-in aluminum bows provide tension and structure support. This framework also makes rolling the cover a bit easier and works well to keep water from forming puddles.
When rolling the cover, be sure to keep the assembly tight and inline. This is easier with two people, but can be done solo once you get the hang of it. While the cover rolls in small sections, you’ll need to have it completely open or closed before driving as there are no adjustable or abbreviated section holds.
The leather-grain textured vinyl has a quality look and feel. It also works great to keep our gear out of sight and away from the elements. Although we wouldn’t consider the material especially thin, you will need to be mindful to keep sharp or jagged objects away from it. This is partly common sense, but we had some old parts come loose and just about bust through the rear cover on a recent haul. Fortunately, there was enough give in the material and no damage was done.
