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5 Ways to Protect Your Tow Vehicle

By Boating Staff

Updated: October 3, 2013

5 Ways to Protect Your Tow Vehicle

Your boat may be your prized possession, but the vehicle you tow it with needs TLC too. The best way to take care of your truck is with a little preventive maintenance to survive the wear and tear of towing. For help, we turned to WeatherTech (weathertech.com), makers of truck accessories. Here are some products to protect your truck.

5 Ways to Protect Your Tow Vehicle

Mud flaps help keep mud, sand, pebbles and water out of the wheel wells and also help protect your bumper, and the boat on the trailer. WeatherTech makes a no-drill mud flap set (boatingmag.com/weathertech-mudflap) that attaches with stainless-steel fasteners. Another Option: DuraFlap (duraflap.com) makes a set specifically designed for trailering.

5 Ways to Protect Your Tow Vehicle

Bed Liner
Pickup truck trailer boaters throw all of their gear in the truck bed for the ride to the ramp. Stuff that can damage a truck bed. WeatherTech has a thermoplastic liner called TechLiner (boatingmag.com/weathertech-bedliner) that can be custom-fit. Another Option: Rhino Linings (rhinolinings.com) and Line-X (linex.com) offer spray-on liners.

5 Ways to Protect Your Tow Vehicle

Floor Mats
When you’re launching, you’re going to bring mud or water back inside with you. Beef up your interior protection with all-weather floor mats (boatingmag.com/weathertech-floormat) or an interior floor liner (boatingmag.com/weathertech-floorliner). Another Option: Husky Liners (huskyliners.com) offers interior (and exterior) liners for floors.

5 Ways to Protect Your Tow Vehicle

Shields
Husky can protect your rig’s paint job with urethane shields (boatingmag.com/huskyliner-shield). The company claims they will not alter the look of the paint. They won’t protect the whole vehicle — just certain vulnerable spots: hood, grille, bumper and doors. Another Option: Husky and WeatherTech also offer urethane shields that protect headlights.

5 Ways to Protect Your Tow Vehicle

Detailing
One of the most inexpensive, but effective, ways to protect your tow vehicle is to wax it. Applying a coating of carnauba wax will help your vehicle’s paint job repel water as well as resist corrosion and ultraviolet wear. WeatherTech offers a carnauba gel wax for $25. You can find various waxes online for as little as $14 as well as complete kits — including applicators — starting at around $50.