Video Transcript for How to Install: Leer Soft Tonneau Cover on your 2021 Chevrolet Silverado 1500

Hey guys, it's Jake here with etrailer. Today we have a 2021 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 and we're gonna be taking a look at, I'm gonna show you how to install the Leer soft roll-up tonneau cover. Adding a soft roll-up tonneau cover to your truck bed. It's gonna allow you to keep the contents in the bed of your truck dry and safe from the elements. This soft roll-up tonneau cover is gonna be a lot like a lot of others on the market, except it's gonna have three support bars in the center. A lot of 'em will only have two kind of at the one third and the two thirds mark.

I also like that they are flat bars. They're not arched. A lot of those covers will have arch for more support for hauling or for being able to hold snow and heavy stuff like that when it's weighing out on it. But in reality, I'd rather have more bars than to have the arch bars that are a little bit stronger. A few of the benefits of a soft roll-up tonneau cover over a hard is first off gonna be the expense.

Typically these are going to be quite a bit on the more affordable side than the hard roll-up tonneau covers. Some of those can get up into the, somewhere in the $2,000 range, whereas this one you can get into for a few hundred bucks just to be able to get the contents protected on the inside of your bed. Now a big question we get anytime we shoot a tonneau cover is whether or not it's going to be waterproof. I will confidently say that there are no tonneau covers out there that are waterproof, they're not gonna be watertight. There are so many nooks and crannies on the inside of your bed that it's almost impossible for it to be waterproof.

The seals on the side are gonna do a great job. There's a seal on all four sides of this tonneau cover. A really thick one up here at the front, which is good for any of the water that's coming off the roof of your truck. And then there's gonna be some smaller seals all along the side. So it should keep most of the water out.

But what I like to tell people, it's definitely gonna keep your stuff drier than not having a tonneau cover at all. Now in order to open up the tonneau cover, you just simply pop your tailgate. Now different seasons of the year, you may have to pull the tailgate out with that automatic unlatching mechanism, but you just have to, you'll have this little tether here in the middle. You just pull that, lift up on the back and just roll it up to the cab of your truck. When you're rolling it I like to put pressure against like this when you're rolling it so that it makes it roll nice and tight. And here in a second you'll see another benefit of a soft roll-up tonneau cover. When the roll is at the cab of our truck, it is gonna be almost as if you don't have a tonneau cover at all. These rails will stick up about an inch on the side of your bed rail. So if you have trouble reaching in the bed of your truck, it's only gonna be one inch difference. But you can see how tight this rolls up. It'll have straps to keep that roll up there if you wanna haul taller loads in the bed of your truck. I've had several different types of tonneau covers. If you get the hard fold back that has three panels that fold back. If you want full access to your bed, you have to fold it up and then you can't see out your back window. If you get the drum style that is a retractable, you have a drum that's taking up space on the inside of your truck bed. With this truck, it is a five and three quarters bed, five and three quarters foot bed. We don't have much room to sacrifice by putting one on the inside. That's why this is so handy. It only takes up maybe three or four inches up here at the front. So you're pretty much gonna have all the space back in your bed that you had originally. Now the whole kit is going to be an aluminum construction other than the vinyl top. That's gonna be great because brackets will be aluminum. The side brackets, your side rails will be aluminum so you don't have to worry about rust or corrosion later on. I will say that it will, the finish on it will last longer if you drive with the cover open a lot, the hook and loop fastener on the outside here can get kind of gunked up. So if you, if you don't normally wash your car at home or your truck at home, you may want to hit this with the hose to get some of that dirt and grime out of there so that the felt here sticks to it well, that's the only thing I've really seen with issues with that. But other than that, it's just a really, really good operating cover. Again, those support bars will help to provide a little bit of rigidity and when it comes to getting it latched into place, all you have to do is put it into its little tracks here at the end and then rotate it down. You do not want that hook and loop fastened when you do this 'cause you want it to tighten from front to back. And then we'll go back and do the sides, snap it down, locks into place. And when your tailgate's locked, everything in the bed of your truck is out of sight, out of mind, hopefully deterring theft. Now when it comes to getting this cover installed, I've installed a lot of tonneau covers here and this one has gotta be one of the easiest I've ever done. It comes with the tools necessary to get it installed except for a Phillips head screwdriver, which I'm sure you have at home. I would say maybe 20 to 30 minutes. You should have it installed in no time. But hopefully with our help we'll go ahead and pull it in the shop and get yours done. To begin our installation, we're going to take our side rails and set 'em up onto the sides of our truck bed. You'll know you have the right side if you have the one side of the hook and loop fastener on the outside of the truck towards the wheel well. And then this mechanism, it's our latching mechanism for the back of our tonneau cover. So we'll just set those in place. You wanna make sure that this rail here is flush with the inside of our bed and then that your, the end here is flush with this little notch right here. So let's get it squared up. Just line it up all the way down. Now we're gonna take our clamps and you're gonna have three for each side. We'll put one towards either end towards the front and the back of the vehicle. And then we're gonna have one right in the middle. The measurements do not matter, it just, you want 'em in the general vicinity. It does look a lot nicer if they're perfectly spaced, but if you look on the inside here, you kind of wanna stay away from these tow loops because people can use those to strap stuff down. So we'll go right in this area. You're gonna have a bolt, just unthread that and this little notch. You're gonna wanna put that in this top groove up here and that's what's what it's gonna bite into to hold it in place. Now we're gonna take our corner braces, which are these metal pieces. They're designed to span the corner between our rails and then the front bar that'll be up here. You're gonna have these little blocks. They should be pre-thread in your kit. They may not be though, so you just wanna take one of your Allen head bolts, thread it in with a lock washer, a flat washer, and then thread it through into the block. And then the block is going to slide into the end of our rails that go on top of our bed. Just like that and leave them loose until we get the front bar in place. Now we're gonna set our tonneau cover in place. These little plastic blocks, the same ones we just put in the ends of the rails. We wanna make sure those are, just have one at each end so that they're there and we need to attach to 'em. We'll set it up here. We need the end of our rail to go down. Just like so. So now at the front you'll see this little block. It's very similar to these plastic blocks we have in here, but it's on the the bulkhead piece. You'll wanna slide that into that same rail. This gonna be a little tricky. There we go, slide it in. Then you wanna look at the outside, make sure it's flush. And then this is just a set screw to hold that in place. So we'll take a Phillips head screwdriver and thread that down. Now we'll take our corner brace, make sure your block is close by, slide it up, get those holes lined up and then we'll thread in our other set of hardware. We're gonna come back to the back of the truck and we're gonna line this corner up with this corner here. And then we can start tightening down our brackets up and down the sides. Now when you're tightening these clamps down, you wanna make sure that they're snug enough to where the side plates are not gonna move, but not so tight that you're damaging the truck itself. We have seen people use power tools with these and it will put a slight crease in the outside of the bed. Do not do that. If you use the Allen key that comes with a kit or if you have one at home, just make sure it's snug by hand and then do that to all six of them. And then we'll just roll out our cover and make sure it's properly fit. The nice part about those corner brackets up front is they're gonna keep everything in front square. So as long as you get the back of our rails to where they're supposed to be by the tailgate, everything should be set. Now, depending on the shape of the bed, a lot of these beds are not perfectly square. You may have to make some adjustments. And the best way to make those is going to be with the rails themselves to move side to side. And you're gonna have to make it fit these brackets 'cause these do not move. So this part right here. So it's to slide in and then it locks into place. So we've got our other side in. So we pulled it tight. It's all fitting now. So what I'll do is I'm gonna release it. I pull in the string, pop it up, and then I'm just gonna make up the difference on both sides to square it up with our bed. Now this time, if you had to make any adjustments when you loosen up the brackets, this is just part of the process of installing a tonneau cover. You may have to tighten 'em, loosen 'em, make sure it fits properly. 'cause you should only have to do it once. Install the tonneau cover once that is, if you're rolling this out and this like for us, these brackets we're hitting right where this crossbar is, just move your bracket forward or backwards a little bit. Again, it matters more so that there are six of them installed, not necessarily the placement of them. Once you get everything tightened down, again, you wanna do one final fit check, get it slid into your brackets there, and then pull down the latching in place. And you'll want to close your tailgate. Make sure you get a good seal there. That is a very good seal. You want the tailgate to start to engage. Like right there is when it's starting to hit our cover, you can see it popping up. That's good, you want a little bit of pressure on the bottom of that. Close it. See if our tailgate release still works. So that's good. If your tailgate does not release, it might be too tight on here, so you may have to make some adjustments. Now the last thing you need to do, and in my personal opinion, this is the most important step, whether your cover's brand new like ours is now and in the future when you're using yours is when you go along the edge, you want to pull and tuck this vinyl so that you get all these waves out. 'cause if you start getting them on your cover, you'll never get rid of 'em. It can, the cover can only tighten up in the sun so much. So you wanna do that on both sides of the vehicle. After you get everything tightened down, that's gonna do it for installation. Well guys, hopefully this video helped you decide whether or not the Leer soft roll-up tonneau cover is right for you and your 2021 Chevrolet Silverado 1500.