Should You Get A Cap Or Tonneau Cover For Your Pickup Truck?

A naked bed on a truck invites a plethora of problems to anything that’s there – theft, weather damage or even lack of privacy.

These facts alone can make you start thinking of what can you do about it.

Cap benefits

A lot more storage capacity

Tonneau cover covers anything that goes just under the bed rails, and a topper, in other words, a cap a lot more.

Because there is more room to play with, you’ll simply be able to store more things under a cap, or in short, anything you want to protect from the outside.

A camper shell is the pure reason for purchase for those who will be sleeping in the back of a truck. It acts literally like a camper itself, I mean, you will even be able to cook some food in it, as long as you’re careful enough.

With that in mind, it’s also possible to add some additional lightning inside of a truck cap, and in general, run any sort of electricity you like.

Supports roof hauling

It’s true that a shell, or even a tonneau cover, will make it a lot harder to haul things of longer length inside the actual truck’s bed, but it is really not that problematic in this case as you will be able to do so on the roof!

A set of roof racks work exceptionally well with a cap – not only will you be able to transport really anything you wish on there, but also attach more accessories to it, like an awning.

Cover benefits

Foldable

Now this is not always true for every tonneau out there, but more often than not, many of them can be opened to some extent, freeing up a bit more space in the bed.

How compactly does the cover stow entirely depends on its type – a folding cover, once fully opened, will still take up more space than something like a roll-up.

Having the option to free up the bed in a pinch can be very important if you will want to haul bigger stuff such as motorcycles, work tools, in general, items which require more height.

The retract option can also be important if you need easy access to a gooseneck hitch.

Weighs less

A tonneau cover, quality one for that matter, can weigh up to three times less than the already hefty fiberglass topper, which can be right around 200 pounds.

In turn, this factor alone won’t impact the MPG negatively; then again, if you own a pickup truck, this shouldn’t matter that much to begin with, right?

The fact that a tonner cover weighs less also means the removal process will be a lot simpler, and you can end up doing that quite a lot actually.

Looks better

I wouldn’t be surprised that majority of onlookers would think the same.

I mean honestly, a pickup looks best without anything hiding its bed, but a tonneau cover at least contours it in a rather sleek fashion, sadly the same thing cannot be said about caps, in my mind.

Cheaper

Many times you can save more, and i mean a lot more by buying a very good quality tonneau cover instead of a custom built topper.

And the winner is

If i was to choose between the two, i would always go for a cap, simply because i think its just a more versatile piece of accessory. With that being said, as everything in life actually, the choice entirely depends on what you want to do with the thing.

I will say this, if you are the type of person who goes camping a lot, a topper is the only option you can go with, but if you’re always in need of the actual unoccupied bed space, get the tonneau.

You might even want to get a soft shell instead. What makes it great is that its easy to stow, almost like a tonneau cover, and even less expensive than a solid one.

Here’s a tip – if you will indeed go for a solid cap, try looking at your local ads for a used one. You can save more money if you buy one that doesn’t necessarily match the color of your vehicle.

Now i know that protecting your belongings inside the bed is a very important thing, and if your goal is exactly that, i don’t think any of the choices i talked about on this post match the quality of a proper tool box.