Best of luck, Hope it works out for you.
Not happy with mine. I would like to know if yours was cut to fit. Mine was cut on all four corners. There are other issues as well.Howdy folks. newbie here. we bought a new ARE topper and had dealer install today. now that its home im looking around and im a little surprised about a couple things. wanted the experienced folks' advice here.
1) is this seated correctly? from a glance, i would have guessed it should have sat about a centimeter further forward. the leading edge seems to sit just a tad to the rear of where i would have expected it to produce a clean line. not sure that matters much.
the rear seems to sit a tad further back than what would make a clean line. that one matters to me because at the corners it leaves more of a gap than i would like. it will be cludgy to seal these corners with rubber trim etc and while the rear center of the topper liftgate meets the top center of the tailgate, i suspect the topper liftgate would likely flex a little and allow a better fit across the entire top if the entire topper was a little forward, and would avoid those gaps at either side.
2) i guess i was a little taken aback at the workmanship. we splurged on ARE because of almost universal reviews that it was a 'higher quality' topper. but this one looks like it was put together by a teenager that didnt care about his work. almost 50% of the screws holding the aluminum track that lines the side windows have bent the tracks (like they couldnt afford a driver with a clutch) and some are stripped, there are lots of scratches in the aluminum track on the inside where the black paint has been chipped or scratched off the track. and the C-clamps are bulky and are each about 4 inches away from another clamp site with a hole in the rail that makes it look like it was previously mounted on a different truck for a while.
this was new. to our specifications. is this normal? from what i can tell, none of these will ultimately affect the function of the topper, but its disappointing in a new pricey item, and i dont know if less than perfectionist workmanship suggests we are going to be struggling with leaks and failures further down the line.
im interested in folks' experience here. especially as it will take me some time to seal the many gaps and holes, and doing that will make shifting it around a pain in the butt.
Or maybe it does. If ya get a chance can you post pix of the corners?
which corners, what angle?
My pix show where it looks like it may have been modified to fit, all four corners. If you look at mine, you can see in the back by the lift gate, the corners are not even cut symmetrical, side to side. In the back, they look to be cut in an arc to compensate for the center rail height difference. I'm wondering if they did they same to yours. I don't know if this is poor build or install. If you can, include a picture with the lift open and tailgate down.
pictures attached. let me know if that’s not what you need.
I didn't even think about paint getting rubbed off anywhere else on the bed. The Century cap on my last Ranger seemed better.
The cuts on the corners are disappointing. My thought was they may just have went by dimensions and then had to modify. I had a Century on my last Ranger and it didn't have them. It is possible that they will continue to improve the fit.
update: ARE dealer installed new windows today. no charge. i watched the whole thing to learn how it all goes together and learned a lot.
