When it comes to storage, few vehicles are as useful as a truck or a van. That doesn’t mean you can’t improve the space in these vehicles with a good storage solution modification. While there are many cool options for storage mods, sometimes the best option may be a stationary storage box, and here’s why.

Consistent Organization

A stationary storage box doesn’t move from its spot and will always have the same space, which means you can rely on it for consistency. This is important for the gear you need to access quickly and frequently, as you always know where it is and how to retrieve it.

Specialty Boxes

One of the best benefits of these truck storage organizers is the ability to store specific gear in special boxes that perfectly fit the equipment. This is extremely useful for delicate gear that can’t shift while driving for fear of breaking or damage. A stationary storage box is also great at improving your organization by keeping things from moving around.

More Protection for Gear

Stationary boxes offer a lot of protection for your gear, as they hold everything in place and take the hit from anything falling on the boxes. Additionally, you can get locks on your stationary boxes to stop unauthorized access to whatever you store within, which is important for stopping theft.

Fits With Other Options

While stationary storage boxes may be the best option for your storage, they don’t need to be the only option. You can get these stationary boxes in your van or truck while investing in other storage modifications. This way, you can benefit from these boxes while using other modifications that may best fit your needs.

It’s impossible to say which storage modification is the best, as they all fulfill their own separate roles, but that’s why a stationary box can be such a great option for your vehicle. As they fulfill their purpose better than any other option out there, you’ll never find another option that fits all the same needs.

Installing a truck bed slide can be a difficult task if you aren’t familiar with the process. Since every bed is unique to the make and model of the vehicle, you can’t just memorize the steps. Instead, you can learn these universal tips that make installing a truck bed slide easier.

Clean Your Space

Your truck bed should be clear of any items before you start installing so they don’t get in the way. Additionally, you should wipe clean the bed to prevent dirt and grime from dirtying the slide and complicating the installation.

Follow the Manufacturer’s Instructions

The best thing you can do when installing your bed slide is to follow the manufacturer’s instructions. As the creator and developer of your bed slide, they’ll know the best method to install the tray without causing issues.

Be Careful of the Vehicle’s Internal Systems

Every vehicle has internal systems and vulnerable parts that you can damage during installation. Before you drill through any part of your vehicle, ensure you’re not damaging these systems, like the fuel line or wires.

Leave Some Room

Since you’ll need to tighten the nuts and bolts when installing your truck bed slide-out platform, you’ll need to leave enough room on both sides to get a wrench in. Before you anchor anything down, make sure you have the space to get your tools in so you can complete the job.

Professional Installation

While you can install a truck bed slide yourself, it’s sometimes easier to leave it to a professional. One of the best tips for installing a bed slide is to hire a professional who works with vehicles for a living and has experience installing different car parts.

These tips should help you install your bed slides so you can benefit from all the space organization and utility these modifications provide. A good bed slide will provide storage space and speed up loading and offloading items.

People praise trucks as the best vehicle for hauling and carrying large loads, and it’s easy to see why. They offer great capacity for carrying things, and their beds are perfect for storing items. However, sometimes you need more space, and the best way to do that is with a space organizer like a bed slide. Here are the four best styles for a truck bed slide that you can put in any truck.

Full-Extension Tray

A lot of sliding trays don’t fully extend outside the truck bed, even those that claim 100% extension. A tray that boasts 100% extension will only be able to extend to where the frame is mounted inside the truck bed, leaving 8” – 12” still inside the truck/van bed. Unless a slide extends over 110% – past the taillights – it will inhibit access to items stored on the sliding deck, especially at the back or cab end, and it can also limit how much you can carry in your truck bed. Full-extension trays, those that extend over 110%, on the other hand, make storage easy, accessible, and plentiful. For this reason, full-extension trays are a great truck bed slide for any truck.

Sliding Drawers

One great modification you can utilize in your truck bed is sliding drawers. Sliding drawers can fit right on the tray and make storing smaller items and gear very easy. Additionally, they provide extra protection for the gear by preventing items from shifting while you drive. Again, unless you have a tray that extends over 110% you will not be able to access drawers on the side of the tray at the back/cab end.

Uneven Weight Distribution

A lot of people don’t think about weight distribution when they get a bed slide, and they regret it. Even if your tray states it can handle thousands of pounds, most trays require that you distribute the weight evenly. This means it’s difficult to store large, heavy items, as you can’t distribute the weight. However, Extendobed is one slide that does not require weight to be evenly distributed. Their stated weight capacity can be point loaded anywhere on the deck. This is the only truck bed slide out tray style that lets you distribute weight as you need.

Custom Truck Slide

Speaking of which, the best style of truck bed slide you can get in your truck is a custom truck bed slide. Most slides aren’t custom and come fully designed, which means you can’t get all the features to match your needs. Your best bet is to invest in a company like ours that can work with you to build the perfect storage solution for your truck. Extendobed® has everything you need, so contact us today!

Many truck owners can benefit from the extra storage and ease of use a high-quality truck bed slide adds to a vehicle. Whether for personal use or for extra storage on a work vehicle, bed slides are useful for all the extra storage they provide. However, these sliding trays need proper care and maintenance, just like any other part of your truck. Here’s a deeper look at how you should tackle the maintenance of your truck bed slide.

Why Slide Maintenance Matters

Slide maintenance is crucial for keeping your slide tray functioning. Without regular maintenance, your slide will quickly wear down and could eventually become useless to you. Improper care can even lead to dangerous situations where normally safe features rust and become hazards on the road or at the worksite.

Where To Start

When it comes to maintenance of your bed slide, there are many things you should do that’ll prevent issues. However, it’s up to you to prioritize repairing the most damaged parts of your truck bed and prevent further damage. But if there isn’t one part that needs your immediate attention, you should start with an overall cleaning of your slide.

Empty Your Bed Slide

When you start trying to clean and perform maintenance on your slide, the first step is to empty the bed slide of all the equipment and items you have on it. It’s difficult to fully clean your tray if there are items or gear still inside while you clean it. Take the time to fully unload everything from your truck bed so that you can freely access all parts of your slide.

Sweep Away Debris

When you can fully access the slide, the easiest thing to start with is sweeping away all the debris on your slide and in your truck bed. A simple brush or broom will help you sweep away any large debris on your sliding tray. Normally, it’s easier to clean away the debris if you fully extend the tray, as this step provides easy access to every part.

Clean Away Grime

Once you clear away the bigger debris, you might find small patches of dirt or grime stuck to your slide. Leaving this mess will cause damage over time, as the grime will eventually weaken the metal of the slide. Take your time to wipe away any dirt or grime to clean your slide and prevent future damage.

Use a Wet Towel

You should utilize a wet rag or towel to clean any part of your slide. Simply using water and a rag should clean up almost any mess and won’t damage your slide with abrasive chemicals. Be gentle when cleaning to avoid scratching the metal as you clean off the dust or grime, as the debris can leave marks on the metal.

Dry Quickly

Whether the moisture is from your cleaning process or recent rain, you should dry your truck bed slide whenever it gets wet. While air drying can work, it can also cause damage over time and slowly affect the performance of your tray. Using a cloth or towel to clean and dry your tray will help you maintain the condition of the part.

Check the Moving Parts

The moving parts of the slide can accrue the most damage and wear. Inspecting these areas for damage is a major part of maintenance, as you can often spot the causes of issues right away. You should also check the rails that help guide the slide for any chips or debris that might affect the part’s operation.

Ensure Stability

You should also test your slide for stabilityto ensure the mounting system hasn’t loosened over time. Check all the bolts and latches of the bed slide to ensure that they’re still tight and keep your slide stable. Inspect the stability of the slide on a monthly basis to protect your truck bed and slide from any avoidable issues relating to the mounting system.

Manufacturer’s Instructions

When it comes to the specific care of your bed slide, it’s best to follow whatever instructions you receive from the manufacturer. Every sliding tray is different and will need specific care according to the materials and build. Use these instructions to create a maintenance schedule you can follow.

Preventative Maintenance

A huge part of maintenance isn’t repairing damage but preventing it in the first place. This preventative maintenance is essential, especially if you have something like custom truck storage boxes, as normal cleaning methods can be less effective with custom modifications. Preventing damage is more effective for maintaining your vehicle and modifications than any other form of maintenance.

Frequent Inspections

The most important preventative maintenance tip for a truck bed slide is to inspect your sliding tray regularly and frequently. These inspections are a major part of identifying damage so that you can deal with it before the damage spreads and becomes problematic. Run these inspections every few weeks to catch any damage early.

Caution During Use

When you utilize the bed slide, it’s vital that you’re gentle and don’t rely on its durability. While these trays can be very durable, you shouldn’t actively cause more wear and tear than necessary.

Prevent Sliding Items

You should tie items down when you store things on your truck bed tray. Sliding items are a common occurrence, but they’re safety hazards to people, and they can cause damage to the truck and tray. Whether you invest in custom storage options and slide out trays or utilize nets and ropes to tie things down, preventing item shifting will help maintain your truck bed.

Invest in a Cover

If you have an open bed with a slide out, you may want a cover to go along with it. Debris can damage your truck bed and slide when you drive. A cover helps prevent that damage and protects your slide while you transport items and goods.

Follow Slide Restrictions

Every slide out tray is different, which allows you to pick the one that best fits your needs. However, that means they each have different restrictions regarding capacity and weight. Always avoid going over those set restrictions on your specific slide out tray.

These maintenance tips are important for the continuous use of your bed slide and will make your investment worthwhile, ensuring you enjoy better returns on your investment over time.

Police units need a high-efficiency storage setup and design. Quick access to important gear and equipment is key when responding to an emergency. One of the best methods to organize and structure a vehicle’s storage area is to use a truck slide-out as they provide easy access and improve storage organization. Here are some great options for truck slide-outs for police units.

Writing Boards

A command center needs to organize and manage a lot of information quickly. Dry-erase writing boards give police officers a place to write and track information quickly while still accessing gear in their vehicles.

Sliding Drawers

When it comes to storing gear and equipment, a sliding drawer on your slide-out unit will optimize space and help you organize your gear. Proper organization is key for police response, and drawers allow you to quickly get all the small pieces of gear you need. You can even include lockable munitions drawers or ATF Type III Slide Out Day Boxes into your unit.

Open Shelving

Sometimes, you have no time to waste, and you just need to grab something on the run. Open shelves keep items in place but still give you access to the contents without a hassle. This is perfect for larger gear like body armor, traffic cones, or even a med kit—anything you’ll need quick access to in the case of an emergency.

Custom Slide-out Trays

The best police slide-out truck bed storage you can get is one get that matches your specific needs. A custom slide-out tray can have whatever features you need in your vehicle and carry whatever gear you have. This is the best way to optimize your police unit, and it’s the best option when it comes to truck slide-outs that fit your needs.

These slide-out trays are a great way to improve response times and maximize the storage space inside police vehicles. With a good custom slide-out tray for your vehicles, you’ll see better performance and fewer injuries from accessing storage.

Truck bed slides are amazing tools for storing items in the back of your truck as you drive around. A good bed slide will make storage much easier as you can slide everything out for easy access to every section of the trunk. Additionally, these trays can improve safety as loading won’t strain your body because you no longer need to stretch to navigate around your truck. But many people worry about the efficiency and usefulness of truck bed slides in their cargo vans. Here’s what you should know.

Made to Your Model

Sliding trays aren’t one size fits all, and each tray is only meant for one specific vehicle model. This means that each tray will fit your vehicle’s exact needs as long as it’s the correct tray for your model. So, your cargo van will work perfectly with a good sliding trunk tray.

Is It Efficient?

While the tray might fit inside your vehicle, there’s still the question of the benefits of using these bed slides for your cargo van. However, these trays are very beneficial for anyone who uses their van to store items. By pulling out the contents of your van, you can easily load and unload items without hurting yourself by overstretching. Additionally, it’s very efficient as you can load your van up quickly and fit more inside the space simultaneously.

Is It Cost-Effective?

A custom truck bed slide will more than double the usable storage volume in your van because it doesn’t leave any dead space for getting in and out like traditional shelving storage systems. This means you can purchase a standard-length van with a standard roof height instead of upgrading to a longer, taller, and more expensive van. Finally, because you can carry more, it eliminates inefficient and costly trips back to the warehouse to pick up supplies or items to deliver like you would with a standard cargo van.

Custom Truck Bed Slides

The most significant reason to utilize these truck slides in your van is that you can customize them with us to create the tray that’ll fit your needs. Not only do you have a tray that fits your van, but you can also add whatever storage solutions you need to make the most of your space. That includes things like mounted shelving or heavy-duty drawer slides for trucks. We can help you add anything you need to make your van as useful as possible.

These are the reasons why your cargo van will benefit from utilizing a good truck bed slide. The extra safety for you and anyone using the vehicle should be a huge draw, and you’ll save money because of it. Additionally, you can fit a lot more into your vehicle because of the slide out tray, so you get a lot more use out of your cargo van.

Getting the most out of a truck bed is important for many workers and pickup truck owners. Even though a bed already provides a lot of additional space, properly utilizing it is difficult, and you’ll often need even more space than you have. But if you push your organization to the extreme using these tips, you can get even more from your pickup truck bed.

Focus on Space Utilization

The first step is to maximize the space you already have in your truck bed. Every upgrade and decision you make for your truck should enhance the space you have. This means investing in upgrades that make storage easy and learning the tricks that help you avoid wasted space.

Follow Packing Rules

Before you even look at upgrades, you should first learn how to pack things into your truck bed so you don’t waste any space. Just putting things in the back of your truck will waste a lot of space and can even be dangerous. So learn these best practices for packing things away.

Stack Heavy and Large Items on the Bottom

Place anything heavy on the truck bed with nothing underneath it. You can stack items on top of each other, but the bottom item on any stack should be the biggest and heaviest. This will prevent sliding and tipping and make organization easier, as you can maneuver items around easily.

Aftermarket Modifications

If, after implementing the basic packing rules, you still need more space in your truck bed, you can look for aftermarket modifications. These modifications change your vehicle in different ways. This section will focus on mods to help you make the most of your truck’s storage space.

Slide-Out Trays

These bed modifications sit on top of your truck’s bed, acting as a new type of floor. You can slide these trays out of the vehicle to easily load and unload all your items. These tools are great for efficiently storing anything you want, as you can easily reach every part of your storage. You can even get custom sliding trunk trays capable of holding thousands of pounds, even welders, air compressors and generators, while sliding fully out of your truck for easy access.

Mounted Boxes

Another great tool for storing items is mounted boxes that attach to your truck bed. These boxes are useful for storing anything small or fragile, as they don’t move and can protect their contents while you drive. You can even get lockbox versions to add another layer of protection to your valuable gear and items.

Mounted Drawers

If you’re looking for ways to maximize storage while protecting your items, mounted drawers are a great option. These drawers help you utilize all the space available and give you the perfect place to put small and important items. It’s also much easier to stay organized when you efficiently store items in a drawer.

Add More Storage Space

Another modification you can get is extra storage space for your vehicle. While the other mods focus on utilizing the space you already have, these mods seek to create more usable space by converting areas of your vehicle. Here are a few examples and how they can benefit you.

Undercarriage Drawers

Under the bed of your truck, there is a bit of room between the frame, tires, and ground. You can add a series of drawers to your truck’s undercarriage to utilize that space for storage. This won’t work for every vehicle, and it may work better if you also buy a lift kit for your truck.

Under-Seat Storage Options

You can also convert the space under the front seats to offer more storage. There’s a lot of space under your seats, but it takes the right type of modifications to make it usable for storage. Under-seat storage is a great place for your most common tools, as you’ll always have easy access to them.

Utilize the Sides

While there isn’t much space on the sides of your truck bed, you can still utilize it to carry items without taking up space in your truck bed. You can add drawers or a tool rack, which will be perfect for efficiently storing your gear in one space.

Dedicated Spots

When it comes to some of the best hacks for organizing your truck bed, dedicating spots in your vehicle to specific items is one of the best tricks. If you’re just putting things away as they come to you, items won’t always fit as they should. Dedicating space to each piece of gear means you’ll always have the room you think you do and know where each item is when you need it.

Bundle Things Together

Whenever you store items in your truck, you should look for ways to combine them into one pile. For example, find tools that you can tie together or stack papers to create one solid pile of paper. These are much easier to store when they’re one solid object, as you can easily find them again later and dedicate space to these items.

Tie Things Down

You should always tie down items in your truck bed so they don’t shift around as you drive. This movement can be dangerous for anyone operating the vehicle and can damage the items. You should tie down any piles or stacks you create, which also means you can stack the items higher.

Use Boxes

A great hack to organize your pickup truck bed easily and efficiently is to use boxes to keep all your gear and items in one place. Boxes are simple ways of bundling items and easily organizing a space. It’s easy to stack boxes and organize your space around the square boxes rather than fight with the odd shapes of the items within.

Start at the Back

When loading your truck bed, you should always start at the sides and back of the bed. This will help you organize your bed and maximize the space you can use. It’s best practice to create a space that’s easy to navigate and unload while wasting as little space as possible.

These are the methods you should use when you load and organize your truck. These methods will help you utilize all your space and keep you safe from shifting objects during travel. That’s why it’s so important to follow these rules and tips.

Many truck fleets use trucks with diesel engines to carry items and workers around. Nowadays, however, there’s a competitor for these trucks: the electric truck. But are electric trucks good replacements for normal work trucks?

Worries About Electric Trucks

Some people worry that electric trucks don’t have the same storage space as other work trucks, but that’s not true if the truck is well-designed. Furthermore, you can utilize vehicle trunk organizers and other modifications to really make the most of the space in your vehicle.

Another common worry about electric trucks is that they don’t have as high of a towing capacity. However, this is only true for certain models of electric trucks, as many can tow upwards of 12,000 pounds.

Lastly, while electric trucks may have a more limited driving range compared to diesel trucks, the introduction of more charging stations around the country has helped address this worry.

Why Make the Switch?

So, what’s the benefit of switching your fleet over to electric? Electric trucks are more fuel efficient, saving you money in the long run. Additionally, they need fewer repairs, reducing downtime and costs associated with owning and operating work trucks. And while the pricing is currently similar, as technology improves, the cost difference will eventually favor electric trucks and make them a more economical option.

The Trucking Future

While electric trucks are still not popular choices for many fleets, they may eventually overtake the current standard because of their total cost-of-ownership savings. Even if you don’t want to make the change yet, many experts predict that electric trucks will be more-than-viable options for work vehicles by the 2030s. For the future, you should consider keeping your eye out to make this change.

Making the switch to electric trucks may seem costly, but you’ll make your money back over time and help the environment by lowering your carbon footprint. That’s why so many industries are making the switch over to electric systems and equipment.