Access Original Soft, Roll-Up Tonneau Cover

Video Transcript for In-Depth Review of the Access Original Soft, Roll-Up Tonneau Cover

Hi there truck owners. Today, we're going to be taking a look at Access's line of their original soft roll up tonneau cover. You'll want to use our fit guide to determine the appropriate tonneau cover for your truck as they come in various sizes with different mounting kits to ensure that they're custom fit for your vehicle. This cover's not only going to look great on your truck, but it's also going to help protect it from the elements by keeping any moisture out and keeping your items dry, as well as help protect those things from theft, because you're going to be keeping it out of sight. And if you have a locking tailgate, your tailgate's still fully functional while it's closed. And if you lock it, it keeps everything secure inside.

If you're tailgate's not locking, we have tailgate locks available here at etrailer.com so you can get the most security out of your truck.And your new sleek look. It's also going to be more aerodynamic, which is going to help reduce wind noise inside the vehicle. And it can also help improve fuel economy because you're not getting as much wind drag. And to ensure the look of your tonneau cover is going to last a long time, Access has provided it with a UV resistant coating, and it's a vinyl compound that your cover is constructed of. That's going to ensure that it doesn't fade over time out in the sun, as well as get dry and cracked like other materials can.Your tonneau cover is going to sit about an inch and a half above your bed rails on your truck.

But what I like about this tonneau cover is that it installs on the inside of your truck's side rails. That's nice because it keeps everything confined on the inside, but still leaves you to have full access of any accessories you want to use on your truck's side rails, such as your stake pockets. So you could even potentially put a ladder rack on this and use it with this tonneau cover. And we've got some stake pocket mounted ladder racks here at etrailer.com, so you can pick out the best one to match your truck.And compared to some of the other soft roll up tonneau covers out there, one of my favorite features on this one is how well it latches and stays secure to the back of the truck. Some of the other competitors only latch on one side.

So it might be nice and stiff on this side, but over on the other side, it's going to flop around a little bit. Ours latches on each side, thanks to Access's Auto-Latch II patented design. And down here on the bottom, we have cords located on each side and we can open our tonneau cover with just one hand. From either side, you can pull down on the cord and then you just simply push up and then we can just roll it up. And what's nice about these is we have support beams going across to provide support to ensure our tonneau cover stays nice and taut.

And if we've got some smaller, lighter items, we can set those on top while we're getting access to the back.All of our metal components are going to be made of aluminum. That includes our side rails as well as our crossbars. And they'll be protected with a black powder coat finish. And what I like about this design too, with the hook and loop, it keeps it nice and sealed and in place when it's closed, but when you're opening it, you can open it to just a specific amount. And with that, we can roll it back to however much we need to gain access to our truck and we can leave it there. And we can even drive with it like this. Now it can potentially unroll, but if you have some items you want to protect from the elements here in the front, and maybe you've got a large box or something that's just a little too tall to fit in the back, we can just put that in here and this is going to hit the box, so it's not going to be able to unroll. And the hook and loops keep it nice and taut and in place from the rolled up spot forward.We can also roll our cover all the way up to gain full truck bed access. Located inside, we have clips that we can bring around to hold our cover in this position. And there's one located on each side. And unlike some of your hard tonneau covers out there, with this particular design, we get full truck bed access while also having full rear window access. Many of those hard covers to gain full truck bed access, they have to fold up here at the rear, so it's hard to see when backing up.Now, when you first install your cover, one of the things you're going to notice it is very tight and it may seem a little bit difficult to close. Well, you do have the option to adjust the amount of tension on your cover using the tensioners here at the front. The knobs just simply turn. They're very easy and smooth and there's no tools required. We've got one on each side. So when you adjust those, you want to try to adjust those evenly. But if you are just putting one on and it is tight and you can close it, even though it might be a little difficult, I recommend leaving it because over time the fabric will stretch a little bit. The best thing to do usually is to just park it out in the sun and let it sit on a nice warm day and that'll help it form to your truck and it'll be much easier to operate. And if over time it stretches even further and gets a little bit loose, we have these tensioners here to ensure that we can always keep the proper tension on them. \This is just going to help extend the life of our cover, because we're going to keep out any slack and flapping around and things to ensure that it keeps its shape.And now with our tonneau cover rolled up, you can see some of the seals that we've got that keeps our truck bed completely sealed off all the way around. We've got them here at the back where our tailgate shuts to ensure that it prevents any moisture from entering here. And our tailgate also fits underneath the tonneau cover when it's rolled up, so all the water's just going to roll off the back. We've got similar seals underneath the bulkhead here in the front. Once you've got it installed, they're very difficult to see, but they're going to prevent any moisture from entering in here at the front. You can get a little bit better look at the seal that runs across the bulkhead if we come in from the bottom here. Kind of poke the little soft rubber seal.Our side rails are held in place using Access's tight bite clamps. And these have grooved surfaces running along the rails. And we've also got teeth on the tight bite clamps that interlock into those grooves to ensure that it holds it in place, so it can't move up or down or slide back and forth.When it comes to the installation of this cover, it's actually pretty quick and easy and I really like that it's a no drill installation. Depending on your truck, your side rails may be slightly different. On this older truck here, we don't actually have a way to wrap around. Whereas many of your modern trucks wrap around the side rails for them to clamp. The hardware that comes included with our cover is going to be matched for your truck to ensure that your cover is the right size for your truck and that your hardware is going to install without having to perform any modifications.Now, there are a few different styles of tonneau covers out there. This is a soft roll-up cover, which provides a great look and a lot of ease of use. And you also get full truck bed access because you can roll it completely up and still be able to see out the back. But some of the competitors that we have offer hard covers, and that's going to be better if you need more security. With this one here, you could easily break into this cover if they have a knife or you could even just try to take a key and stab through this cover. Now having a cover on it is definitely going to help deter theft because it takes time to break in and to steal some items. And there's evidence left behind that somebody was there. So it's definitely going to help deter it, but having a hard cover is going to further make those thieves have a difficult time accessing your gear.Now, if you like the look of this cover and the way that it rolls up and having full truck bed access, then I would recommend Retrax's hard roll up tonneau cover. Those ones offer mostly full truck bed access. They have a canister that's located at the top, but it's fairly small and it rolls up almost kind of like a roll up windup garage door. It just kind of slides in and it rolls around a cylinder inside the canister and keeps it nice and concealed. These are nice because you can set them in multiple spots, just like this cover, but you have a stiff top that you could set more weight on and it's much more difficult to break into.And there are also tri fold hard tonneau covers, such as BAKFlip's MX, which has three separate panels that are hard panels and you get three different positionings. You have a small truck bed access, two thirds, and then full truck bed access. The only problem with those is that when you are in the full truck bed access, the covers are folded up and they are going to block your rear windshield. So if that's a big concern of yours, especially if you are maybe hiding a fifth wheel trailer or something, that's not really a good option for you because while it may hide your fifth wheel, when you go to take the tonneau cover and roll it up, you're not going to be able to just look out the back and easily see your fifth wheel to hook up. And that completes our look at Access's line of their original soft roll up tonneau cover.