Cargo Cover - Sort of

[wb1dby]

I saw this when I was in my research stage for trucks last fall. It's called a tarpeez (www.tarpeez.com). It's a nylon cover with bungee style cord around it with hooks. It is also water repellent (to my surprise)....The Ridge was packed up and my wife and I left for vaca. we had one night to ourselves before picking up my son and his body size duffle bag and more at camp. My wife was perplexed as to how I was going to secure the stuff for the trip to Bar Harbor (from the Plymouth, MA area)...I hooked the Tarpeez to the lower tie downs, stretched it over his stuff and hooked it again to the lower tie downs near the tailgate. Then strecthed out the ends to the Ridge's (RTX) tow area...I couldn't see out the back, but everything was under cover and secure....We also went thru a very heavy downpour and I figured his clothes were soaked, but they were dry as the Tarpeez kept them dry....It's a great product that I keep in my truck all the time. It's packed in it's small stuff sack and kept under the back seat. Best of all it's just $49. Cheap enough and handy. It beats playing with tiedowns or rope or nets. (I'm not employed by them or anything but love the simplicity of the product)...Sorry so long, I'm wordy. I'll add pics soon when I download my vaca pics. - Larry

[bigdave269]

Wow, this looks good, and I might order one. Couple Q's, though. Do you have the bed extender? And if so, have you tried it with it on? Next, what do you do with the front bed clips? Just leave them hang?

[wb1dby]

I've let them hang or clip them also to the left and right tie downs...The ad on the web site shows it being tied down over the tailgate. I actually clipped it to the back tie downs and the ends to the trailer hitch. Then I closed the tailgate onto the bungee cords.

[wb1dby]

Oops forgot. No I don't have the bed extender - yet. I am thinking about it tho or something similar. But it should come pretty close to covering the extender too. Or order a long bed version (may be too long). I have the short bed version.

[bigdave269]

Sounds good. It looks like exactly what I'm looking for for my road trip to Seattle next year. I was looking for a cheap way to protect my luggage in the bed of the truck. This looks like it will fit the bill. Thanks for the tip!

[bigdave269]

As promised, I am putting this back on the top for some of our members to see.

A couple questions, Larry. You said you got the short bed (5 ft.) version and it stretched to cover the entire load. Did it go down the sides of the load since you used the lower tie-down hooks? Also, I noticed that Amazon sells additional tie-down hooks. Did you need to buy any exrtras?

[wb1dby]

I did not buy any extra hooks. (I have a bar going across the top tie downs with antennas attached to it, here I put two handle grips to use as alternate tie downs since the antenna bar uses my top two - a ham Radio thing) Altho, you can replace the front big C hooks with regular hooks and attach them to the right front tie downs too.
Depending upon how tall the items are that you are carrying, will depend on how far down the sides the cover goes. For my few times of use, it went about half way down the inside of the truck.
When I packed the truck, I attached the front hooks first and kind of tossed it over the cab of the truck. Then I packed the bed putting items that should remain dry in the center and items that could get wet, on the sides. But as I found out during a very hard rainstorm, nothing got wet at all. But just the same.
Once the truck is packed, pull the Tarpeez over everything, hook the back corner hooks to the back tie downs and then pull the bottom hooks, tightening the lengths and hook them somewhere low. For me, it was the tow hitch. By doing this the Tarpeez wording is on the back bottom inside the truck. Or outside it you leave the tailgate open (I haven't needed to dot his yet).
But it works surprisingly well and I'm a very happy customer. I keep mine stored under the rear seat where it is accessible if my tonneau cover (Access Roll Up) needs to be kept open. It works MUCH better than a tarp too.