Thor Forums

[JBurg]

This thread started off as a means to give review of the factory Ram tonneau cover. In the midst of explaining the background of how I ended up with one, I realized that perhaps there was information that could be important to potential DRV owners when considering bed length of their tow vehicle. If you're not much for reading, skip to the very end.

We had been trying to decide which truck (Ram truck, I should say) we wanted since around February. The biggest thing holding us back was trying to decide if we wanted the factory air bags or not, as I really liked the idea of having a better ride when unloaded. The hard part is trying to find a dealer with a truck equipped with this option, so it wasn't until recently that I finally found a Dually with the air bags. Noticing no difference in ride quality whatsoever, we decided it wasn't an option we needed and moved on.

It just so happens that the day we decided the air bags weren't needed, our local dealer (Fremont Motors in Rock Springs, WY. Major props to those guys) took delivery of a red/gold megacab dually. Just so happened to be optioned almost perfectly for how I would've configured it. We ended up buying the truck and ordered a pullrite 24k slider. That weekend I was perusing the SOITC and came across some interesting information regarding the walk in closets on the 2012 and up DRV trailers that might prevent pulling one of these guys with a shortbed truck, even with a slider hitch. I called the dealer the following Monday to give them a heads up, and we drove a few hours to our DRV dealer to measure everything out. Sure enough, the trailer comes about two feet (based on wife's calibrated eyeball) past the kingpin, and with rough measurements that left roughly six-eight inches between the cab and the closet. This was much too close for my comfort, and the dealer was notified that we would need a long-bed pickup. They were completely understanding about the situation, and gave me zero hassles returning the truck.

We got back to Rock Springs and did a dealer search for Longhorn CC dually trucks, and we found one in Riverside, Californee. This truck was actually optioned EXACTLY how I wanted it. High output alternator, auxiliary switches, fifth wheel prep, 4.10 gears, and NO sunroof! (The last three trucks I've had all had sunroofs, and I can count on both hands how many times I used the darn things.) The only thing I would've changed is that it was black, which isn't bad, but it's not nearly as pretty as the red/gold. It also came equipped with the Ram tri-fold, but I was originally wanting to get a Bakflip cover. "No biggie, I'll just sell it and put the proceeds towards the Bakflip" I enthusiastically thought to myself. And hey, not having seen them in person I might even like the thing!

A few days later the truck was delivered, and I wasn't exactly impressed with the engineering that went into the cover. It appears that those that designed this particular cover had no intentions of putting a toolbox below the thing, as the only way to access a toolbox is to completely remove the cover and lean it against the cab. I decided I did not like it, and decided to sell it.

After receiving ZERO responses on the cover, I decided that I would just keep it. After all, hopefully I wouldn't need to access the items in the toolbox all that often, so I wouldn't need to deal with it being such a pain that often.

I later bought a nice Weatherguard under-the-rail toolbox. To install the toolbox, I decided it would be best to remove the cover from the bed entirely, rather than leaning it against the cab. The toolbox went in nicely (who doesn't enjoy drilling holes into their brand new pickup?) and it was time to slide the cover back into place. The cover is pretty awkward for one person; it's obviously wide but being a tri-fold it is wide in both directions, and being a soft cover that makes things even more awkward. In the process of trying to slide this thing into place, I found one of the disadvantages of the cam-levers that Ram uses to keep this cover fixed to the bed-they easily become unfolded while handling. Well, it turns out I wasn't careful enough while lining up the passenger side, as the driver side handle flipped over the bed and put some excellent scratches in the fender of the dual. DOH! Oh well, it was bound to happen at some point. Might as well happen at 374 miles and get it over with.

A couple days ago, I had to move a bunch of stuff from the storage unit and back to the camper. The cover was fine in the folded position all day, up until I hit the highway. At about 55 mph I heard a loud noise, and the cover had come off and was being held in place by our mountain bikes. Not ideal. In the process of trying to fly off the truck, it broke a couple of the folding hinges. I limped it back to the campground, unloaded the truck, and tried putting it back down fully covering the bed. It worked, so I carried on.

Later I needed to haul some items in the bed, and folded the cover back up. Turns out the broken hinges were dangerously close to the cab, and the levers had been bent from the earlier experience. At this point I took the cover and simply threw it away.

To summarize-I wouldn't recommend trying to tow a 2012 and up DRV behind a mega-cab unless you have the means for a long-bed conversion, and I wouldn't recommend the Ram tri-fold tonneau cover.