BUYERS GUIDE: Pickup Truck Bed Slide-Outs
A Contractor’s Guide To Slide-Out Cargo Management
By Larry Walton & Bruce Smith
Many of us have vehicles dedicated to work only, but our personal pickups get used for work and play.
For work you may need to quickly find something as small as a socket wrench or safely secure big items like sledgehammers, chains, pipes, lumber and ladders. And as the seasons change so do our recreational pursuits and equipment.
ATVs, hockey gear, golf clubs, camping equipment and hunting gear all take their rotations in my truck.
A place for everything and everything in its place–easy to say, harder to achieve.
Bed slide-out storage systems like this A.R.E. Pickup Vault help keep tools organized and secure.But a little bit of homework and the right cargo management products can turn your pickup’s tool and/or recreational gear storage setup from chaos into a system that’s organized, safe and secure—regardless of the job or season.
Fitting stuff in your truck is much like organizing a garden shed or a closet: Add some shelving and consolidate individual items in boxes and you can greatly increase the efficiency of the space.
Accessibility is also a big concern in gear management. Just because your truck can carry something doesn’t mean you can get to it quickly.
Unloading and unpacking everything every time you need something is not the desirable way to get the specific piece of equipment you need. This is where bed slide storage systems come into play.
You also want your gear to be safe and secure. This means it should be secured against sliding around and banging into other stuff as well as secured against theft.
Many of the cargo management products we found can be used in conjunction with others so it may take some mixing and matching to get your truck equipped the way you want it.
Below is our pick of some of the best sliding cargo management systems on the market.
