Video Transcript for Comprehensive Review: TruXedo Sentry Hard Tonneau Cover

Hey everybody, how's it going Today, we're gonna be going over the Truxedo Century tonneau cover. So this is what our cover is going to look like installed. Now on first glance, what you're gonna notice is it has a pretty low profile design. Meaning it doesn't really stick up much above the bed rails there. Therefore we're not going to be taking away from the overall look of our vehicle. So the Century is a pretty unique tonneau cover.

It's actually gonna be a hybrid cover. Meaning that it has both properties of a soft cover with the vinyl top, as well as the hard cover because we have the aluminum slats underneath. So the benefits of our hybrid cover. Number one, we're gonna get the aesthetics of a soft tonneau cover here. Meaning we have this nice vinyl top to look at.

It's gonna blend in well with our vehicle. And number two, is going to be ease of use. So soft tonneau covers are definitely easier to roll up, get in the truck bed as opposed to a hard tonneau cover. A lot of these are the folding type. You have to deal with the three big panels and it can sometimes weigh quite a bit.

We're gonna be folding those, stacking them onto one another, and then tilting them up towards the cab. We're not gonna have that issue here, because it's actually going to roll just like a soft tonneau cover. Another thing that's nice. So a lot of soft tonneau covers when we're rolling them, we kind of got to jump back and forth to each side cause they don't necessarily roll up evenly, due to the aluminum panels underneath. Everything is gonna roll up into one nice tight and compact roll.

So you may be wondering why you wouldn't just go with a soft tonneau cover. We know they're easier to use, easier to manipulate and they sometimes look a little bit nicer. But the one drawback and the soft tonneau cover is, a lot of them, they don't really offer any security. You may, granted, need to get into the tailgate to be able to access the contents inside. In theory, that is. If a thief really wanted to get inside your truck bed here. And all you had was just a standard soft tonneau cover. They could easily come up with a knife, rip right through that vinyl and get what they needed out. But because we have the aluminum panels underneath our cover here, we're not gonna have that issue. So in summary, we get all the convenience of a soft tonneau cover with the security of a hard tonneau cover. So one last advantage we have, being the hybrid construction. So we touched on it briefly. So our hard covers most likely a folding cover. We have to fold the panels back. And when we need to install or we need to store or carry larger items in out bed, let's say we need to throw a refrigerator back there or a couch. We can't have our tonneau cover installed, but we may not want to completely remove it each time. Let's face it, that's kind of a hassle. We're really not gonna have that issue here with our hybrid cover. Because not only can it be stored against the cab, we're not gonna restricting any of our visibility. So when we have our larger items in the truck bed and we need to roll up the tonneau cover, again we don't have to remove it completely. We can store it in this position here. Now with hard fold tonneau covers, more than likely you're gonna be resting them against the back of the cab. Blocking any third brake lights if they're present. You're also completely restricting your visibility. As you can see here, we're only sitting up a couple of inches from the bed rails. So it does take up a little bit of our visibility, but not much at all. In fact, I can see through the window now. We're pretty much level with our seats here. So we're really not losing any visibility at all. So another nice feature of our cover here. Again, the best of both worlds with a soft cover and the hard cover is that when we're unloading our truck, we need to get things out of the tailgate. We can actually use the top of our cover to support some of those items. Because it can bear weight. Up to 400 pounds evenly distributed. So let's take our cooler out of here throw it up on the cover there. Say we've got some duffel bags. Just need to get things out of our way. Maybe we put something in the truck bed a little bit further back that we need to get to. We can easily throw everything on top of the cover. We don't have to worry about any damage and then we can get what we need out of the truck bed. So let's talk about security. We've mentioned that because of the dual construction, vinyl and aluminum, You're not gonna be able to just cut right through the vinyl like you would for a normal soft cover. So we're gonna be covered there. We're also covered, in that someone being able to actually open up the tonneau cover when they're outside the truck. That's obviously not going to be a great feature if we're worried about security You actually cannot open the tonneau cover here unless we have access inside the truck bed. Now, the great thing about most newer trucks is, they actually have locking tailgates. So if you do have a locking tailgate, you're not gonna be able to open the cover and get in the truck bed. If you don't have a locking tailgate, we do sell a lot of aftermarket locking tailgates for most common trucks on the market. As you can see with our tailgate unlocked, we can actually get in. And the release handles, we're gonna have one on either side. It's just gonna be this nice little easy to use pull cord. So here's what our pull cord looks like. We'll simply just pull this down. Not much force at all. We should hear the locks release, and then we can begin to roll it up. I'd also like to point out, we can open the cover from either sides. The driver or the passenger side. We have this pull cord on each, so we can get into our truck bed from either side. So the Century is made right here in the USA. So we know we're getting a quality product. It also comes with a three-year warranty. So we're gonna be covered from any manufacturer's defects. I will say, after handling this cover, working with it a little bit, I really like it. That aluminum underbody, it really adds a whole other dimension to a tonneau cover. It makes it that much more durable. It's really gonna increase its longevity. You can see now we can really beat on this thing. We're really not gonna have any issues. It should hold up for time to come. So let's talk about maybe a more controversial topic. More of a general adding a tonneau cover to your truck. So there's been tons of studies, tons of research. A lot of people are either one way or the other on it. As to whether or not a tonneau cover is actually going to improve your fuel economy. The theory behind this is the wind coming off the cab of the truck coming down. It's not going to go swooping into the bed, hit our tailgate creating more drag. Because we have the cover installed, we're gonna be completely bypassing sort of the wind turbine in the bed here. It's gonna flow right off the top of the cover here. Making our truck more aerodynamic. But what do we know about aerodynamics The less drag we have, the greater fuel economy we're gonna have. So although not major, we are definitely going to see some improvements to our fuel economy by adding a tonneau cover. So in regards to installation, this one's pretty simple. We don't need to make any modifications to the vehicle whatsoever. We're gonna have a few brackets, one for the front, one for the rear. It's gonna use some existing holes and existing weld nuts in the truck bed here. So again, no modifications whatsoever. Definitely something you guys can do at home by yourself without any special tools required. So if we have some delicate cargo here in our truck bed, things we're really trying to keep dry and away from the elements. We shouldn't have any concerns at all because we're actually gonna have built-in weather stripping on both of our rails as well as the header. So there really should be minimal water getting in this thing. The weather seals, they form a nice tight fit between the top of the bed and the bottom of the rails. So there's very minimal chance that we're gonna get water debris in our truck bed, keeping our items safe. So that's what the manufacturer has to say about the weather stripping and weather sealing here, of this tonneau cover. Why don't we go ahead and test it out for you guys. I think the best way to do this would be to take a big bucket of water, throw it on this cover, and see if we get any water on the underside. So now that we've got her wet, let's go ahead, take a look inside, see how we did. So now we're looking inside our truck bed here. We did get a few small drops over there on the right side, but for the most part, it's pretty dry. I will however say that these covers take a little bit of time to settle to truly flatten. They've been rolled up in the box for so long. I'm sure once it does settle out, and really conforms to the top of the truck bed, it should get rid of all potential leaks. So now we have a couple of accessories here. We'd like to go over with you real quick. Something you may be interested in purchasing with your cover. We do sell these here at etrailer. Number one, we have a light. So if your truck doesn't have any deadlights, you may consider adding this. It's just a nice little bright LEd light strip. We can put it underneath the cover here, to help light things up for getting in items in and out at night. I would like to point out it's actually battery powered. Therefore we don't have to worry about running any power wires. Next thing you have, you may be interested in, is we have a little luggage hook. Some of us may be getting up there in age. We don't necessarily want to crawl into our truck bed here. We may not want to deal with opening the cover. That's pretty much what this luggage hook is designed for. We have a nice little durable handle here, with a hook on the end. It's pretty long too. I can reach the back of our truck bed. No problem. We can use it to help pull things closer to us so we can get out of the bed. And then finally, we have a little organizer here. So this is going to be specific for the Truxedo tonneau covers. It's gonna install in the rails here. And it's gonna give us a little bit more storage here. We can put some smaller, more delicate items in there. So we don't have to worry about them shifting around in our bed. And that's going to do it today, for our look and installation of the Truxedo Century tonneau cover..