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Rough Country Tri-Fold Tonneau Cover (2015-2020): For 5′-7″ Bed / For 6′-7″ Bed
For the first few years of owning my 2020 Ford F-150, I never thought that I would want to have a tonneau cover for the bed of my truck. I did a lot of landscaping work at our old house and was always hauling landscape materials and large items that would stick out of the bed so there wasn’t really much need to have the bed enclosed. Eventually, I got done with all that landscaping and nowadays it is mostly used for packing stuff for family trips. Stopping somewhere during the trip and leaving the truck alone with items in the bed wouldn’t be possible.
Recently, I needed to take a bunch of stuff in the truck for camping. When we drove out to the campsite, it rained and poured all over our stuff, soaking all of our gear making it difficult to set up camp when we got to the campsite. Later in the year when I brought all of our ski equipment with us to the mountains, it was just out in the open in the bed. It wasn’t possible for us to stop anywhere along the way and leave the truck without worrying that our stuff would get stolen.
There are different kinds of tonneau covers out there. There are soft bed covers that are on the more affordable range of bed covers (around $200), but they don’t offer a whole lot of security since anyone can take a knife to it and cut it open. Then there are the hard covers that are more expensive ($1000+). Most of the more expensive ones will either lift up at the end, or they will fold up. Probably the most popular folding tonneau cover out there is the Bakflip MX4 Folding Tonneau Cover costing at least $1,100 at the time of this post.
I was set on a folding hard tonneau cover as I felt that it was the best looking of the bunch, while offering good security of your items in the bed. There are a few options available for the folding tonneau covers. Of those, there is a low cost option that is sold under a number of different brands, costing around $500. This option seems to work just fine, although it sits above the bed of the truck about an inch or two. It does not look as good as other low profile ones.
The Bakflip MX4 looks great and has rave reviews, but there’s just one issue: the price. It sells new for at least $1,100, and honestly I just can’t see myself paying the full amount. I tried shopping for a used one but I wasn’t comfortable with getting one that was installed for an unknown amount of time and uninstalled previously. So finally, I looked for other options that could be comparable to the Bakflip MX4 and arrived at two brands: Worksport and Rough Country. The Worksport tonneau covers look good, but they are fairly new to the game and I saw some reviews about their covers leaking. So, I went with the Rough Country brand.
Rough Country sells two different folding tonneau covers that costs between $650-$700, and they both seem comparable to the Bakflip MX4. One of them is called the Low Profile Tonneau Cover, which costs $650 at the this time, which folds over twice and stays in that position. Because of this, if you’re putting something in the bed that needs to stick up above the height of the bed, then you can only use 2/3 of the bed.
There is another tonneau cover called the Rough Country Tri-fold Tonneau Cover, which folds like the Low Profile Tonneau Cover, except it folds once more out of the way and almost against the back of the cab. This is similar to the Bakflip cover in that it folds out of the way for full use of the bed. I opted for this option and paid $700 (at time of this post) for the bed cover.
The Rough Country Trifold Tonneau Cover ships in a large box shown above. Prior to installing the tonneau cover, I cleaned out the bed of the truck. Once the bed is covered with the bed cover, it won’t get nearly as dirty as when it is fully exposed. So, it’s best to do a good cleaning now before the installation.
The first part of the install requires you to take the foam weatherstripping that is included and apply it to top of the bed right behind the cab. Part of the reason why washing your bed prior to installing the bed cover is so that you can get a good seal with this weatherstripping. Ensure that the weatherstripping is centered. I don’t know why they don’t just provide a full length of this seal longer than you need, but the one that is included ends up being slightly shorter than the width of my bed, which is odd. It’s also kind of a thin piece, which I think a better option would be to include a thicker piece of weatherstripping instead.
The tonneau cover connects to rails that you will install on both sides of the bed. The way that the rails are secured to the bed of the truck are with 6 of these clamps that you must assemble.
There are 4 parts to each clamp. You take one clamp with the twist screw installed; hold the second opposing clamp and install one of the screws through both clamps. For each clamp assembly, you’ll have the two parts of the clamp, held together with the screw (through the middle) and the twist handle (at the bottom). Just thread the screw in enough so that the clamp stays together for now.
Hold one of the rails to the edge of the bed. It should sit flush against the bed.
Install the first assembled clamp: press the clamp into the slot opening in the rail as shown and slide it over. This one clamp alone should hold the whole rail up. With the rail being supported up on its own, you can then have your hands free to go and install the remaining clamps.
Assemble and install the remaining clamps on the rails on both sides of the bed. There will be three clamps per rail. For each clamp, you will tighten it to fully secure the rail to the bed of the truck by using the included allen wrench key to simultaneously tighten the clamp screw while tightening the hand screw until both tighten up snug. Evenly space out the three clamps on the rail.
After both rails are tightened up securely to each side of the bed, you’ll use the included drain hose and attach it to the rail drains. The hose that is included with the cover is really thin and bends easily when installed to the drains. I wish they’d include a more substantial/thicker hose for the drain so that it doesn’t kink up when it’s installed as you can see below.
Now, it’s time to install the tonneau cover onto the rails. Bring the bed cover over and rest it on the bed to get it ready for the install.
You will first rest the cover on the bed rails in position of how it will be installed. Fold down the tonneau cover to get a feel for how it fit and lock in place. Remove all the packing material and ensure it folds down so that tailgate can raise up and close properly.
On the front end of the tonneau cover that is closest to the cabin, take the attached drip guard (the rubber flap) and uncurl it so that it can curl over the front of the truck bed to prevent water from getting in. Use the supplied bolts to go into the front of the cover and then into the rail opening so that you can install a wing nut.
Don’t tighten the wing nut all the way yet. Shift the entire tonneau cover back and forth (while the front bolts for the cover sit inside of the rail hole) to get the correct fitment. This requires you to unfold the cover and open/close the tailgate so that you get just the perfect fit. Once you’ve confirmed that the tailgate closes properly, unfold the cover and tighten up the wing nut underneath.
The instructions show to install this acorn nut to protect the ends of the thread after you have secured the wing nut, but the wings of the wing nut get in the way. I just left the acorn nut off.
Take your anchor hooks from the tonneau cover and hook them through the bed rails on both sides.
And that completes the install of the Rough Country Tri-Fold Tonneau Bed Cover. You may want to go back and tighten up all the clamps in case they have come loose during the install. Test out the operation of your newly installed tonneau cover.
I don’t think the fitment is 100% on my 2020 F-150 Supercrew as I found one of the hooks would not clip in place when you close down the middle part of the tonneau cover. Usually when you flip one panel of the cover down, the hooks are in the right position to slide over the bed rail and lock back in to hold. All of my hooks do that except for this one hook, which I have to manually open to get it to slide through and hook. Not a deal breaker, but it’s a bit annoying to not have it work as it’s supposed to.
The cover folds completely out of the way of the bed and is supported with these support bars. The ends of the bars press onto the ball ends of the cover. You don’t have to worry about it coming off as you have to pull the release before the bar end will come off the ball joint. This is a nice secure way of allowing you full use of the bed, without the tonneau cover damaging the back of your cab.
Aside from the one hook that I mentioned earlier not grabbing onto the rail automatically when unfolding the cover, most everything else works as it’s supposed to. It unfolds easily and folds up with the release clamp on either side of cover.
I love the low profile look of these types of tonneau covers. It’s also a very nice design that allows you to keep things inside the bed securely without the need to have a separate lock and key. When you need to gain access, you open the tailgate (which is already locked/unlocked with your truck) and then open the tonneau cover as needed. Then when you lock up, you close the tonneau cover, and then close and lock the tailgate. Everything is secure inside of the bed of your truck.
After the tonneau cover is folded down and you close the tailgate, it does push the tonneau cover up just slightly, but this provides a good snug fit. Overall I am very happy with the Rough Country Tri-Fold Tonneau Cover as it gives me that low-profile look that I’ve been looking for, secures my cargo inside of a covered bed, and is very easy to use. For the $700 that I spent, I am extremely happy with the outcome and am glad that I didn’t have to shell out an extra few hundred dollars for the Bakflip.
Rough Country Tri-Fold Tonneau Cover (2015-2020): For 5′-7″ Bed / For 6′-7″ Bed
