Monday, February 13, 2012

Truck Canopies or Tonneau Covers?

Truck canopies were once the king of truck bed accessories until Tonneau covers made it onto the field.  Yes, Tonneaus are affordable, provide good coverage, and also improve resale.  We carry a lot of them in our showroom for this reason.  Let me make an argument for truck canopies for a moment.  The Arrow brand cab high SUV look truck canopy not only enables you to shield items from the elements, secure them from theft, but also it gives you the appearance of owning a very different type of vehicle: the SUV.

These items are highly attractive on the back of your truck, but they also don’t muck up a perfectly good hauling truck with back seats that you have to worry about getting dirty.  I LOVE this about the Arrow brand truck canopy.  That whole SUV craze happened because people wanted four wheel drive vehicles that can haul stuff like a truck with a canopy, but also haul children, pets, etc.  Then it went downhill as they started building them on chassis that were made for cars instead of trucks and it turned into basically a minivan in a sport utility body.  Suddenly people didn’t want to put dirty old items in the back of their carpeted Lexus SUV—that would get them dirty! SUVs lost all utilitarian purpose and now…people want truck canopies again.

If you have a dual cab truck with a truck canopy you can do everything you could do with a so-called SUV, but also have a serious vehicle for hauling.  If you need an attractive alternative to Tonneau covers (and SUVs) come on down and check out our Arrow brand cab high truck canopies.

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Friday, February 10, 2012

Swagman Bike Racks - XTC2

If you are a biking enthusiast or just love the idea of taking your bicycle with you easily and quickly, then Swagman bike racks provide a simple and effective way to bring your bicycle with you anywhere your car goes.  XTC2 Swagman bike racks are able to carry one or two bikes with a tire size between 20 to 29 inches.  They include a center arm that folds down to allow access to the rear of the vehicle without having to remove the rack, so being able to bring your bike anywhere does not have to impede your ability to access your car's trunk.  Assembly is simple and only takes about 15 minutes and requires one hex wrench.  Racking your bike is even easier and the rack can be adjusted to fit your bike.

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Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Tonneau Cover Installation: Do it Yourself or Pay Someone Else

English: Tonneau on pickup truckImage via WikipediaTonneau cover installation is one of those areas we field a lot of questions on.  Certainly there are Tonneau covers that you can install yourself.  Retrax is one off the top of my head that I would recommend.  Extang Solid Fold is a product that I would find “borderline”.  What I mean by this is that, no, it is not impossible to self-install, but it will take awhile and you can easily find yourself frustrated with the various clips that need to be secured if you’re not used to doing this every day (and who is besides mechanics?)

Now, is the fact that it can be a little tedious to install an Extang a reason not to purchase this Tonneau cover?  Not at all.  It’s a good-looking cover and the folding capability makes a lot of our female customers pretty happy.  In other words, it aesthetically pleasing, as well as, functional.

I always ask people, what do you have more of: money or time?  Many of our customers are pressed for time and don’t want to spend hours of their rare weekend time putting the cover on by themselves.  They’d rather sit for twenty minutes in our waiting area drinking coffee and playing Farmville on Facebook while we perform the Tonnaeu cover installation.  That’s fair enough.  Can I install a new washer and dryer in my home?  Absolutely!  Do I want to?  Heck no.  I’d rather call the guys at Sears.  So if you’re like me and really don’t want to waste a few hours of your precious weekend time doing it yourself let us perform your Tonneau cover installation.
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