Tips for Measuring Truck Covers
More than any other type of vehicle, trucks are designed to withstand a lot of wear and tear. Commonplace on building sites or on farms, a pickup truck can handle heavy-duty use, but that doesn’t mean you want your truck unnecessarily dented or scratched. Car covers are the best way to prolong the life of your pickup when it’s parked or stored away. But, to protect your investment with a high-quality truck cover, you need to know how to measure your truck to choose the right option.
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Covers Protect Your Truck from Harm
Many truck drivers opt for covers, either a bed cover or full truck cover, to keep kids, pets, other vehicles, and environmental factors away from the pristine exterior. Here are how some of these threats endanger your truck’s exterior and longevity.
- Environmental Harm
Unless you keep it in a garage, trucks are usually exposed to the weather all the time. Dust, debris, and conditions like wind, sleet, or snow can all mess up your paint job, cause scratches, and damage your windows.
Many people who own trucks park them in areas full of heavy equipment like construction sites or farms, which raises the chance that something collides with your vehicle. Not only that, but simply by sitting outside, UV light can damage your pickup, fading the paint and overheating the internal electrical components. An aftermarket truck cover made specifically for your truck’s dimensions can keep the worst of this damage at bay.
- Kids and Pets
Although your kids and your pets don’t mean to cause damage, accidents happen. Whether it’s testing out a new slingshot near the driveway or chasing after a resident mouse, sometimes your young or furry companions can cause serious damage to your truck. Neighborhood cats delight in sashaying across your hood: They don’t call it catwalk for nothing. With an aftermarket truck cover, your kids and all the pets in the area can play without you worrying that they will scratch, spill, leave pawprints, or collide with your truck.
- Storage Areas
If you park your pickup in a garage, you may think that you’re protecting it enough, but your garage has some hidden threats as well. Most people use garages for maintenance and storage. If you leave your truck uncovered, there’s a chance that someone can spray, spill, or smash into your truck. A custom car cover protects your pickup truck from the worst of these unseen hazards by acting as a shield and catching any dust or paint spills before they touch your paint job.
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Measuring Your Truck for a Cover
A properly fitted truck cover offers the best protection. If it is too big, you risk the wind getting under your cover and blowing it away, while a too-small car cover may leave some areas unprotected. At CarCovers.com, we have several truck covers available, from our basic shield truck cover to our platinum shield truck cover, which provide maximum all-weather protection and peace of mind. However, to ensure your truck cover fits, you need to know your vehicle’s exact measurements. Follow these steps to measure your truck and make sure your new cover fits perfectly.
- Find the Length
Measure your truck from bumper to bumper and include any spare tires or headlight guards. Since you want to measure in a straight line, it’s easier to make marks on the ground, either with a stick or with some chalk, where the truck begins and ends, and then measure that distance, rather than measuring against the body of the truck. If you always have a hitch on the back, include that in your measurements.
- Measure the Height
Next, measure the tallest part of your truck, which is usually the cab. Ensure you start at the bottom of your tire and measure to the very top of the cab, including roof racks. You may need to use a step stool or ask a friend to stand in the bed for a more accurate measurement.
- Record the Width
Finally, you need to measure the width of your truck. You can either measure against the body of your truck or use the chalk marking technique again. While you should measure from the outside of your tires, don’t include your side mirrors.
Once you have these three figures, round each up to the nearest inch. When you submit the make, model, and year of your truck into CarCover.com’s truck cover calculator, you will get a recommendation for a car cover size. Compare the measurements you took to the recommendation. It’s also important to factor in the cab type variations and bed length, which is measured by the interior bed length and not the exterior length.
For assistance in finding the correct measurements of your cab, customers are free to send us a picture of their truck and our team of Car Cover experts will happily ensure that they receive the proper fitting cover for their vehicle. We also carry a Hail Protector truck cover for many types of pickup trucks. If you keep your truck outside all winter, this truck cover reduces damage from winter weather, including hail and snow.
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Keep Your Truck Safe with a Car Cover
Even though trucks can withstand harder wear, including carting 2x4s and cement blocks around worksites or hauling equipment to and from fields, it’s vital to protect your pickup truck and extend your paint job’s longevity when it’s not in use.
By taking exact measurements of your pickup’s height, width, and length and rounding up to the next inch, you can easily find the perfect truck cover to help protect your investment so it will last decades. Keep your truck safe with a car cover from CarCovers.com.
