Good, Bad or Ugly? What is your opinion. What do you think when you see an Elky sprayed? Do spray-in bed liners hurt or help resale.

I have never sprayed one in my bed... But I got my Elky with a sprayed in liner in it... I love it... You really don't have to care what you put in your bed, you can kinda just toss little things in there... Like my skateboard, I can just toss it in there and not even worry about scratching my bed... Well that's just my opinion... The only thing I am not sure of is companies... I have no idea what brand of bedliner I got....

This was my post in "bed liners" a short while ago.


While I agree with Kansascamino about the look of a great painted no dings bed I use my El Camino way to much as a daily driver and do use my bed alot. Not real heavy stuff but do use it. My El Camino is not for just looks and hauls more than ass.

If I spent all that money in body work and paint I would die at the first ding, scrape, scratch in it. Plus that is an a lot of wax on wax off in the bed. I want some protection and I think the spray in liner does look good while giving you some piece of mind. While the bed spray in liner might hide bed flaws and others might have question of the condition of the bed before it was sprayed on I think the over all condition of the truck says a lot.

I'm not worried about a future buyer saying I won't buy it because I don't know what is hiding under there. There is more than one buyer out there. If that is a big concern to someone wanting to have a spray in liner, take some before and after dated pictures to show a future buyer.

So the question might be is how you use your El Camino and how picky you are. If you just drive it on weekends or just to shows, or it's a show car...paint it! If it's a daily driver like mine...maybe the bed liner is the way to go.

I'm not selling mine anyway. I have 2 boys that would love to have it. I think it should stay in the family always!

Dave

I still like the smooth and shiny painted factory look that GM put there.

Id never put one in a elky unless my bed was in real bad condition. and if i was buying a elky and it had a sprayed in liner id be i offering the person a lot less money because you never no how rusty or beat up that the bed was before it was covered up .

I have a plastic one..I even like the way it looks..if I don't like it I can take it out :P

I love my spray on liner, because I use my truck for what gm designed it for. a truck.

For "Truck Usage" they are great, for looks I agree that they don't look as good as a nice painted bed. I was planning on doing mine and just couldn't go through with it. My bed was to nice not to paint. I think it came out looking much better painted.

I did something that I recommend weather you paint or spray your bed. I took a Dremel Tool and a small carbide tip and routed every inch of the original caulking out of the joints. It was 25 years old and it looked perfect, it wasn't and I was not going to paint or spray and take a chance on it leaking into my interior. I found many spots that were either leaking or about to leak in the seams and it would have been a waste to paint over that old caulking.

I filled the seams with urethane and I feel that they will never leak in my lifetime. If the caulking lasted 25 years ( it was protected by a camper shell all of it's life) that the urethane should last another 25 at least. Jim

I just went thru this with mine i had the drop in liner (junk in my opinion). I had the Elky repainted and was debating the spray in liner but decided on just the paint. Got it back yesterday from the paint shop and DAMN it looks good.. No spay in liner for me now. But if you are going to haul things use it as a truck i still think the spay in is the way to go.. Just looks i like the paint. .02

When I repainted my Caballero, I wanted a durable finish in the bed so I did the floor with a chip guard paint like that used on rocker panels and sprayed the sides with paint. The entire bed matches the car in color and the floor of the bed has a durable finish. The chip guard does have a texture to it but no more than one sees on the lower doors and rocker panels of newer vehicles.

Just got mine basck from the painter yesterday ( only took 14 weeks, but that is another story!)

Had the tintable bed liner spraied in, and I think it looks good with the color match. Cost me $150 for the kit ( www.eastwoodcompany.com) , and the paint shop charged me $75 to spray it along with the paint job.

Don't know yet about the durability, but I think long term it will work out. Just didn't want to have to deal with all the little chips and scratches over time, and I think this will be easy to take care of.

I'll have pictures in a week or so, and I'll post them to the member's cars section here.

One hint. The painter had dealt with the tintable type before, and he said that a common problem is too much paint added to tint causes the stuff not to dry completly. Something about the hardener additive in the bed liner kit just not having enough power to harden the paint as well. Keep it light, and it comes out well.

Good luck