Video Transcript for WeatherTech Custom Fit Hood Protector Comprehensive Review and Installation

Hi, this is Scott with etrailer. Today we're taking a look at the WeatherTech Hood Protector on our 2026 Ram 1500. Our WeatherTech Hood Protector we have on our Ram today is going to give it a stylish look and also give it some protection. What this is going to do for us is help resist the bugs that build up on the front of it and some stone chips. You're going to keep that from happening. As you can see here, we get a lot of bugs that end up hitting the front.

It's going to keep that from chipping up the front of our paint on the hood of our truck. And with that, this one sits really low. You won't have any gaps in the back of this like your old style do. You're not going to have a bunch of leaves and stuff like that building up behind here. I remember when I used to have the old style on one of my trucks, it was kind of form fitting but it had a gap in there and always get little sticks and acorns and things that built up in there and that kind of drove me nuts.

But this one is going to sit right against your hood. You're not going to have to worry about a gap behind there so you won't have any buildup of debris. So when you're taking a look at these for your Ram, make sure you give a look over at our Fit Guide to make sure that you're getting the right one. There are ones for different models and different styles. So if you get the right one, order it up, it's going to look real good and make it for an easy installation.

If you have any questions or comments about this WeatherTech Hood Protector for your truck, you can always leave any questions or comments down below in the comment section, or you can get ahold of one of our experts here at etrailer. They'd be glad to help you out. As far as installation goes, this one's pretty straightforward and pretty easy to do as long as you have an extra set of hands. But if you don't have the time or the place to do this one, you can always take a look at our Installer Locator and get something done for you locally. If it's something you feel like tackling yourself, stick around, watch our video, and we'll help you get it installed.

To start our installation, one of the first things you're going to want to do is make sure that you have your hood really clean. You don't want any big chunks of dirt or debris or bugs on here. You want to make sure you have it clean enough to start our process. After we do that, we're going to want to get our hood protector and we're going to get an idea where that's going to go on our hood. What we're going to do is we're going to line it up in the middle and we're going to make sure we're even on both sides of our hood. We want to make sure we line up our seam on both sides. Now you're probably going to need an extra set of hands at this point. It's a good idea because you're going to want to go back and forth and make sure it's perfectly where you want it to be. And what we're going to do now, we're going to come back through with some painters tape and we're going to line all the way along this edge. That way, we have an idea where it's going to sit and it's also going to be where we're going to finish up our prep underneath of here. With our area masked off, in our kit, we're going to have two alcohol pads. What we want to do is we're going to use on for each half. We're going to start and we're just going to get it clean. It's running all the way in our area. That way, we get any kind of debris left over after we've had this washed. And once we get this side done, we're going to open up our other alcohol pad and then we'll run down our other side. We just want to make sure that we get it good and clean. Gives it a good place for adhesion to happen. And once we get both sides cleaned up, we just want to make sure we let it dry thoroughly. After our alcohol is dried, we're going to come back through with our pad that is labeled surface prep, and we're just going to do the same thing we did with our alcohol, but we're going to use the one pad. We're just going to get this whole area cleaned up with this. At this point, we could remove our masking tape. For our protective cover on our double stick, we want to pull back about two inches. You can see where we have separations in those. Just want to pull those out. We're going to have a few locations where we're going to need to do that. That's going to help us pull off that protective covering when we're installing our hood protector. So what we want to do now is we want to get our hood protector centered up and make sure you have all of your tabs out where you're going to be able to pull those before we set that down and with an extra set of hands, make sure you have it lined up on both edges and in the center where you want it on your hood. And we'll start in the middle and we'll start working our way out on our edges. Just pressing down and we'll just slowly work our way across. (tabs stretching) Now after we have all of our protective strips off, we just want to go back through and just get everything pressed down and make sure we have good adhesion. With it all stuck down and everything looking good, what we can do is we'll just pull off our protective film. (film peeling) With everything looking good and installed, that will do it for our look at our WeatherTech Hood Protector on our 2026 Ram 1500. I'm Scott with etrailer and thanks for watching.