4x4Review Off Road Magazine
It wasn’t planned this way, we promise. It just seems that we’ve now tested just about every soft tonneau cover on the market now. There are just so many to choose from, so many rigs in our stable, and so little time – okay, the last part isn’t true.
In the past five years or so, there has been an industry-wide proliferation and a huge increase in the innovation of quality tonneau covers, with each one offering something just a bit different or unique. The premise of what they are supposed to do have remained unchanged though – to keep your belongings in the back of your pickup truck dry, clean and away from the eyes of would-be thieves. The big difference in the past few years though, is that most new soft tonneau covers require little to no assembly, and I can’t think of any that require any drilling or special tools. And, most can be installed in just a few minutes.
Extang’s Trifecta tonneau is no different from that aspect; it does all of those things very well. Their spin on the product is an easy 1-2-3 opening sequence, which goes like this…
| 1) Unlatch the tonneau 2) Fold and tumble the tonneau 3) Secure it with the plastic clips Yeah, it’s pretty simple – and it’s darned effective. |
||||||
|
Installation is also an easy 1-2-3 process, which also goes like this…
|
||||||
| Yeah, it’s pretty simple – and it’s darned effective. |
The Verdict
To do things a little differently, we decided to do a long-term test on this tonneau cover to see how well it would stand up to the elements, long trips, and standard usage. We installed this tonneau 2 years ago and it has now seen just over 30,000 miles of use, and a fair amount of neglect. We have purposely NOT kept the cover clean nor have we put any special preservative cleaners on it (e.g. 303 Protectant, Armorall, etc.).
The Extang Trifecta has been flipped open and closed hundreds of time, we have shoved lumber and engines underneath it (causing it to bow in unnatural shapes), and it has been completely removed and re-installed from the vehicle about twenty times. The sun has thrown a UV-stricken beat-down on it, it’s been hailed on, it’s been through a rather nasty Midwest winter with 9” of snow piled on it, and it’s been driven from Indiana to Utah and back, and from Indiana to Texas and back as well.
To date, the top is still in absolute perfect working order. The nylon straps and plastic handles and clips show no sign of wear. The top still folds perfectly every time, and after a good cleaning (finally), it still looks almost new. There is one small rip (about ½” long) in the nylon cover, where I dropped a large wrench on it, but the rip-stop material has kept it from growing over the past 8 months.
So, what’s not to like about it? I would have like to have seen a 4 or 5-fold concept in this near-perfectly designed tonneau so that access to the last 1/3rd of the bed of the truck isn’t wasted – as compared to a rolling tonneau cover, which makes use of nearly every available inch of the truck’s bed when open. If you find yourself hauling a lot of tall loads in your truck (e.g. refrigerators, stacks of lumber, etc.), then you will have to remove the tonneau completely from your truck, which isn’t difficult, but can be a bit annoying.
However, in comparison to some other tonneaus that haven’t stood the test of time like this, I’d gladly give up that small inconvenience – especially considering that most quality tonneau covers will set you back $400 to $500 (ours rang in at about $375).
Overall – the build quality, engineering, and durability of this tonneau ranks superior in our minds, and it’s a tonneau cover that I would buy again when I replace my truck.
| Extang Corporation |
| 1901 E. Ellsworth Ann Arbor, MI 48108 Phone: 800-877-2588 Fax: 734-677-8409 Email: info@extang.com Web: www.extang.com |
