When you are looking for superior bed protection with custom fit, durability, and knee saving padding, only one company comes to mind:

BedRug.

But the quest for bed protection does not stop there. You need to figure out which mat you want. Really when it comes to mats you have two options--the same two options you have now with BedRug for great liners.

Bullet Point Breakdown

    No time to read this whole article? Just want the quick and dirty dets? “Too long; didn’t read” you’re fav acronym? Don’t worry. We hear ya. Here’s our Midwest Aftermarket Bullet Point Breakdown of the BedTred Impact Bed Mat:

• Chemical resistant
• Constructed of super durable TPO Material
• Mat extends onto tailgate via integrated gap guard
• UV and Stain resistant
• Life Jacket like material will not absorb water
• Anti-skid surface, keeps your cargo secure
• ¾” foam pad protects against impact damage
• Custom fit to your year, make, model of truck
• Made right here in the States -- Support USA Workers
• Backed by BedRug’s Limited Liftetime warranty

The XLT & the Impact Bed Mats

What’s the difference between the XLT & the Impact Bed Mat material?

Both bed mats from BedRug offer custom fits to your truck’s bed. The material of each is the main difference. Both mats are very durable, water, chemical, and weather resistant. Both have a ¾” thick padded floor to protect against impacts and be easy on your knees. The Impact is constructed of TPO composite, while the XLT is made using BedRug Fiber which is similar to marine grade carpet.

While both materials are extremely durable and easy on the knees, the Impact material feels a little more rigid. We love the traditional BedRug Fiber, but not everyone is into the idea of lining their truck bed with marine grade carpet. Then BedRug introduces the Impact mat.

TPO Material

The BedTred Impact bed mat is made of TPO material. And in case you are like me and don’t know what the heck that stands for, let’s break it down. TPO stands for ThermoPlastic Olefin. So what’s that, right? This is a plastic material that can be molded at extreme heat. Once it is properly formed and set, TPO resembles synthetic rubber in many ways. It has a little bit of a give but can also be compressed some to absorb an impact.

The TPO material is stain, chemical, and UV resistant. So this material becomes a great option for constructing a bed mat. The Impact mat is thus durable against just about everything you can throw at it.

While the BedRug original Bed Fibers are extremely durable too, many users enjoy the quality of the Impact mat, especially those who don’t like the carpet like material of the original BedRug. However, if you really enjoy the carpeted BedRug style, the XLT is a very high quality bed mat as well, with that carpet like feel.

How can a bed mat protect my truck bed?

While traditional spray-in liners and drop in liners can also protect your truck bed, a custom fit mat, like the BedTred Impact mat, does a great job of preventing your bed from getting dents, dings, and scratches. The primary ways that a bed mat protects your truck bed finish involve both impact resistant and anti-skid finishes. The cushion of the mat prevents dropped objects or equipment from denting your truck’s bed, while the anti-skid top surface of the BedTred prevents sliding objects from scratching the surface and side walls of your truck bed.

Will the BedTred Impact Mat work with a spray-in liner already installed?

Both the BedTred Impact Mat and the BedRug XLT can be installed over pre-existing spray-in liners. However, we do recommend using a spray adhesive promoter when available if installing in a truck bed that already has a spray-in liner. This will help the glue to stick to the rough surface of the spray-in liner.

Spray-In Liners Vs. Bed Mats

Now at this point you might be thinking, why might I want a bed mat, like the BedTred Impact mat, if I already have a spray-in bed liner installed.

Great question.

I’ll assume you don’t already have a spray-in, cause you’d likely already know some of the drawbacks of that particular product otherwise. Or maybe you just haven’t run into any of these issues yet. Either way, let me explain.

First off, there’s nothing wrong with spray-in liners. For many truck owners, a spray-in liner will work just fine. But they are often substantially more expensive than a bed mat, so often times customers who are looking for something a little more economic will opt to go for a bed mat instead.

Spray-ins often cost extra to install and have the added issue of troublesome overspray. Overspray is when the professional installer misses the mark or didn’t quite tape everything off or just had a legitimate accident (act of God, as they say in the insurance industry) that caused the spray in material to end up somewhere you didn’t want it. This happens more often than you might think. In fact, I have some overspray on my bulkhead. Good times.

But I digress. The reasons one might want a bed mat over the top of a spray-in are actually quite numerous.

While spray-in liners have a texture that is designed to prevent gear and toolboxes from sliding around, not unlike the anti-skid surface of the Impact Mat, they do have one major drawback that mats don’t have. They are murder on your knees.

Since the spray-in creates friction by having little barbs and hooks and peaks, the spray-in is good at preventing sliding equipment. When something like a toolbox is placed on a spray-in liner, it makes several connection points with the material, equally distributing its weight.

This works out fine with an inanimate object, like a tool box, for instance. But when it comes to something alive, like, I don’t know, you, some issues arise.

When your knees contact the surface of most spray-in liners, the barbs and hooks dig into your skin and jeans, causing rips, tears, and sometimes even small punctures. They aren’t going to kill you, but they can be quite painful if not just a minor discomfort. Nevertheless, you don’t get this kind of experience with a bed mat, like the Impact.

Since the BedTred Impact mat produces its anti-skid surface with little bumps instead of peaks and hooks, you don’t have to worry about it hurting your knees. It also won’t scratch up your tools or equipment. So keep this in mind too.

For me, one of the worse things about my spray-in is the way water and other liquids pool strangely on it. It could just be the way mine was installed, but while the water drains really nicely out along the edges (and I have a tonneau cover to try to prevent water from getting in in the first place), when liquid gets into the middle of my truck bed, because of all the random peaks and valleys of the spray-in liner, it tends to puddle. Often times I won’t even notice the little pools of water until I put my hand in them or lay something over the top of them only to find when I get that bag out again it is soaked through.

Now this is still a minor issue, but it can become a pretty big nuisance if say you’re grocery shopping with paper bags. Not so fun.

Again, you don’t run into this kind of issue with the BedTred Impact bed mat. Water flows right off the mat and through factory drain holes. The Impact mat is water resistant, and will be dry in 20 minutes or so. You don’t have to worry about water pooling anywhere.

Again, that might not be that big of a issues, especially if you have a tonneau cover already, which I do. That is, it might not be, until something completely unexpected happens to your truck bed.

This one happened to me.

My wife borrowed my truck. She had to get some material for a bridal show. Okay, I thought. That doesn’t sound like it could mess up my truck’s bed at all.

But when she gets back home, she asks me to help unload the truck bed. I’m thinking it will be a box or bag of stuff she purchased from some store.

Nope.

Instead, my truck bed was filled with cut pieces of wood, two “reclaimed” (I use that word very loosely here) shipping pallets, several toppled over boxes filled with pine cones, and for reasons that were not initially clear to me, a substantial amount of leaves.

And again, this shouldn’t have been a big deal. I mean, it really wasn’t. Nothing was really damaged. Except, now these pallets that were loaded by two guys need to be unloaded by me--solo. Fun times.

When I go to pull the top pallet out, it comes pretty smoothly. No issue; I’m able to handle it. But you see, that top one was on top of the other pallet. Hence why I’m calling it the “top” one. And that bottom one, well, that was another story.

Turns out that my spray-in and that bottom pallet had gotten kinda close over the drive home. In fact, some of my spray-in had even come off in the wood of the pallet. Very fun.

When I tried to pull the pallet out, it wouldn’t budge. I had to unroll my tonneau, hope up in the truck bed, and try to lift the damn thing out. I half slide, half lifted the pallet out, and somewhere in there a protruding nail dug an eight inch long scratch in my spray-in liner. Good times, I say.

I managed to get all the other “bridal shower” items unloaded without much of an issue, but the leaves, which were apparently mixed up and stuck to the sticky sap of the pine cones, were a different story.

I tried sweeping them out with a broom, and that got the big chunks and pieces, but a lot of smaller ones just clung to the spray-in. And while I can’t say whether it was pine cone sap or the spray-in itself, those %^*@ers weren’t going anywhere.

No big deal, I thought. The spray-in is waterproof. I’ll get the high pressure hose and spray out the truck bed. No fuss, no muss.

Sure…

Thirty minutes later I had a truck bed still largely covered in sticky sap only now also puddled with water. I let her dry out in the sun, cause I’d been down that road before. But you can see what a pain in the butt a spray-in can be when you run into these unexpected issues--like having a wife who wants to do an art project for her friends shower involving pallets, pine cones, and actually pretty cool cross section pieces of tree trunk, one of which is on my coffee table at home now. Pretty sick actually.

Point is, these spray-ins can be a pain in the butt.

Now if I’d already had my bed mat, most of this story would have come out quite differently. I wouldn’t have scuffed my knee at all. I could have just pulled that second pallet out without major issues. The pallet wouldn’t have damaged my spray-in liner and thus possibly the paint job underneath. I wouldn’t have had to worry about that stupid sap because the TPO material is chemical resistant. And that sap that I’m still messing with today by the way, well, I could have used just about any chemical you can think of to dissolve that nonsense, and it wouldn’t have hurt my Impact mat. With the spray-in alone, I’m worried a harsh chemical might react to the spray in or just puddle up somewhere for a long time and eat through it or just get all over my equipment because I thought it had all gotten out.

The list goes on and on.

And really this is just one example of many that show how annoying a spray-in liner can be. And once something like this happens to you, you’re going to want to seriously consider some alternatives.

One of the final headaches of spray-ins is that they are really hard and often very expensive to remove. So my solution was just not to remove it. At first I thought I’d suck it up, but then I stumbled upon the XLT mat. I was a little nervous about the carpet like material, though many of my colleagues love it. When I learned about the TPO material of the BedTred Impact mat, I knew I had found my solution.

So it certainly is a big feature that the BedTred Impact mat can be installed over a pre-existing spray-in. Helped me plenty.

Made in America

Another great reason to support BedRug and all their fine products is that they are all made right here in the States. Nothing better than getting a superior product and knowing that you are also keeping your money in our economy and helping employ American workers.

Limited Lifetime Warranty

Finally, all of BedRug’s fine products are backed by an excellent warranty. The BedTred Impact mat in particular has a limited lifetime warranty. BedRug stands behind their product, and we stand with them. We only sell great products like Bedrugs, products we use on our own trucks, because we believe in them.

Our Promise of Exceptional Service and the Lowest Prices on the Interwebs

When you’re ready to order your BedTred Impact Mat, we hope you’ll get yours from us here at Midwest Aftermarket. We only promote products we believe in and sell them at the lowest prices, shipping quickly to you for free if you’re in the lower 48 states. We have an excellent return policy and strive to get you the right product in perfect condition the first time.

What are you waiting for? Give us a call or place an order directly through our website. We’ll get your product out to you ASAP so you can enjoy your vehicle and make it your own. If you have a vision of what your truck or Jeep could be, let us help you achieve that image, that goal. We put aftermarket right at the tip of your fingers on your smartphone, web browser, and even via various apps, making ordering the parts you need super easy.

Let us help make your aftermarket dream possible. Let us help you build your dream machine. We want you to drive the truck or Jeep of your dreams right now. So when you get it installed and love it, make sure you share us some pics on social media so we can live vicariously through you. Because we too are aftermarket enthusiasts, truck and Jeep owners, who love and own many of the products we sell. In other words, we don’t just work aftermarket--we are aftermarket.

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