ROCKCRAWLER.com - Pendaliner SR Skid Resistor

The bed on our Dodge was pretty beat up.

The wheel wells had a number of dents in them

The progression of the sport of four-wheeling or rockcrawling for many of us has instituted the necessity of tow rigs. Some of our trail rigs are becoming more like buggies and are uncomfortable to pack up the whole family in for a weekend. Some of our rigs or the trails have also gotten to the point where they make the question of being able to get back in one piece a reality.

For me, it's a little of both, but I can't really afford a dedicated trail rig and a dedicated tow rig, so my tow rig has to support double duty of hauling my family around during the week and tow support on the weekends.

Being my family vehicle, I also want it to look nice and perform all the functions I would ask of a pickup truck such as towing, hauling, shopping, mall crawling, kid drop off; date night etc.

One of the worst-looking places on a truck is the bed - especially if you don't have some type of bedliner. Today there are myriad choices and choosing one can be pretty confusing. Many of the companies have resorted to telling stories about how horrible the other company's liners are and how much they can damage your truck. From roll-on do-it-yourself liners to spray-on liners of every name and composition under the sun to the updates on the classic drop-in style liner, there seem to be a hundred different companies touting their wares. I typed in "bedliner" in a popular search engine and got 21,000 hits!

I started to call around and looked at a number of the different options and the most common theme I heard from the installers of spray-in liners was that a drop-in would cause my bed to rust or the liner would simply blow out. The most common thing I heard from the drop-in liner companies was that the spray-in liners ruined the finish on your bed, no different than the drop-in liners but that it was simply hidden. Their solution - leave your bedliner in place and don't worry about what's under it. So my understanding is that they both have their advantages and disadvantages and you really need to get what makes you happy.

After talking to a number of shops I decided on the Pendaliner SR, the SR stands for "Skid Resistor" and the liner has a rubbery feel to it, unlike the older style bedliners. In my past experience with older style drop-in liners, equipment and tools slid all over the place on the slick plastic surface. I had hopes that the new SR surface would resolve this problem, as well.

The Penda liner before install

After arriving at Johnson GT to have the liner installed, I asked several more questions about which type of liner was better and got one of the more definitive answers I had heard.

"We usually recommend that contractors and people carrying heavy loads of metal and steel use a drop-in liner and that those with more recreational interests use a spary-in liner. The spray-in liners are nice but they don't protect from large object dents and dings as well as the drop in's do."

Later on I called around to a number of other installers and with some slight variances, I got pretty much the same comments.

The installation of the Pendaliner is simple. After all, that's one of the benefits of the drop-in liner. Even so, I chose to have the experts at Johnson GT install my liner.

Follow along with the photos and see what they do to install one. They start with the tailgate piece and move along from there.

Sliding the tailgate piece into place.	Using an electric drill to install the Scrivets.
Dropping the liner into place.	Snapping the sides under the bed rail.
Inserting the tie-down covers in the rear.	Inserting the tie-down covers in the front.

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