Well, I believe I am going to purchase some diamond plate bed rail caps in addition to the full tailgate protector. My truck is a laramie w/ a fair amount of chrome on it (see picture). Truck is metallic black (not plain black). Should I go w/ black caps and tailgate protector or stainless. I am leaning towards black but I don't know how it will look w/ the metallic paint. Please help.



BTW: Truck now has stainless factory step bars. Please help me decide.

 

The wife says the shiny stuff.....

 

I had a blue 2000 Dodge Cummins that I put stainless rockers, nerf bars, bed rails, and tailgate protector, as well as a chromed grill guard. It looked sharp. Right after I had the bed rail caps installed, I stopped at a convenience store to get a cold drink and on pulling in, two guys came over and looked at my truck. When I came out a few minutes later, they commented to me how sharp the truck looked.
Put some more stainless bling on that truck! Just use plain stainless bed caps, not the diamond plate, You can polish out any scratches on the plain stainless and it's not so easy on the diamond plate.

 

i think black would be good because with tone, it would be seperated top black, bottom chrome/silver. but with that new black color i dont know. jsut sit some on top and see if it stands out much

 

bigredBCS: I like your thinking on chrome on the bottom and black up top. Question still remains - how would the powdercoated black look on the black metallic? Also, if I install the full tailgate protector, I just can't see that being stainless and looking right. It seems that would have to be black. Look in rearview mirror on a sunny day and get blinded from stainless?

Keep the comments rolling.
Thanks guys.

 

Rearview mirror????? Come on now everyone knows that is a makeup mirror for the better half. Real men use the ones outside.

As for your question with everything else being smooth I think the diamond plate would be out of place. I think the stainless would look best. I believe DeeZee makes a black stainless. That might look okay.

 

Polished aluminum would look good.

MikeyB

 

I didn't realize it until seeing your truck, but I do not like the two-tone with silver on the bottom on a Sport package because there is nothing to carry the silver around the truck. With color-matched bumpers, the silver only being wheel-to-wheel looks like an after thought. It needs the chrome bumpers IMO.

EDIT: Oops, maybe that's not a sport package. I guess all 06 and newer have color-matched front bumper corners. In that case NO MORE SILVER ON THE BOTTOM!

That being said, I would keep the top black. I'm a sucker for stainless and chrome, but not in this application. Definitely don't get aluminum diamond plate rails, they would have to be smooth stainless to match the rest.

 

that truck will look real nice with bushwaker fender flares painted the lower grey color! just my .02

 

I don't like the caps because they don't seal the rail they just rust and scrap the truck, I say use bedliner over the rails and maybe think about havin the bedliner coler matched to the silver on your truck and puttin that over the rails.

 

I think you are very correct! I think I will wait to put bushwacker pocket style flares painted silver after my stock tires wear out (I will then be replacing w/ some 315's). I think flares on this truck w/ tiny tires would look odd.

To answer another earlier post: the truck is indeed a Laramie, not a sport. Color matched corners on the front bumper.

To address spray in bedliner: I have seen many bedliners and after some short time, it fades terribly - I don't want faded black bedliner on the top of bed rails. Plus, I am not sure I will do spray in yet.

Once again, I am leaning towards black. I appreciate everyone's feedback. I am generally a dull flat black type of guy, but this truck had so much chrome on it that I thought maybe stainless would be an option.

Keep it coming if anyone else has some input.

Thanks again in advance.

BTW: The diamond plate caps and tailgate protector I have been looking at are at Summit.

 

If you keep armorall type stuff on bed liner it won't fade and if it already has it will come back out.

 

what jd said......good bedliners dont fade like the others....and if you take car of em it wont either......heck i got a crappy dealer job on mine and it hasn't started to fade. and like someone else said earlier the caps do scratch, my 99 looked horrible when i took em off to put new ones on

 

My vote is for the black....btw, nice truck.

 

Well, I opted to go w/ black diamond plate bed rail caps in addition to tailgate cap and full tailgate cover. Let me know what you guys think.













Please stay tuned to another thread I am going to start - what to do next!