Undercover Brother: Truxedo Pro X-15 Tonneau Cover

Back in the fall of 2014 and about a week after I first brought my Frontier home, I made my first major truck accessory purchase – a Truxedo Lo-Pro QT roll-up tonneau cover. Almost a decade later (to be more specific, last week) there I was rolling through an automated car wash and all of a sudden I heard this loud thunk on the roof. I looked back at my rear window and all I was black – as in, the tonneau cover finally let go and was literally flipped forward over the roof of my truck during the high-speed air dryer stage of the car wash! Luckily there was no visible damage (also lucky for me it didn’t hit the rear glass!) but I took that event as a signal that it was time to get a new bed cover. Looking at the current cover, it served me well throughout the years, but it also has seen better days, The leather-like surface was faded and no longer glossy, the velcro fasteners at the sides barely held on, and the latching mechanism at the rear would randomly release (thus causing the car wash incident above!):

After debating on a tri-fold, soft-roll up, or hard roll-up cover, I decided to stay with the soft roll-up style and selected Truxedo’s Pro X-15. One of the main reasons why I chose the Pro X-15 was the matte black woven fabric. My old Lo-Pro QT had a shiny leather-like top that needed a lot of maintenance after each wash, and it would collect dust on the surface so easily. Another reason why I chose the Pro X-15 was because they claimed it had a much lower-profile look, sitting flatter than the previous Lo-Pro QT. Aside from the fabric and the angle of the side rails, the rest of the features of the Pro X-15 were the same as the outgoing Lo-Pro QT, from the one-handed release lever to the self-adjusting cover tension, and easy-to-remove top roll when needed.

Removing the old Lo-Pro QT cover and side rails was quick and required only a 3/8″ socket. With the old cover and side rails removed, I opened the box for the Pro X-15, saw the thick foam sealing strip, and remembered that I needed to remove the old strip first from the inside of the front bad wall.

So here’s where the installation went from “pretty easy” to “this is so annoying and it’s hot outside” because the old foam strip would not come off in one piece! Because of the “gooeyness” of the adhesive, I enlisted the aid of my trusty heat gun and a slip scrapper to slowly remove the old foam strip without tearing it into a million pieces. This actually took about 30 minutes to remove the foam strip, remove the main adhesive layer, and then remove the leftover adhesive that was still stuck to the truck bed.

About 1/2 an hour later, I could finally install the new tonneau cover. I noticed that the rail clamps that came with the Pro X-15 were similar to the LoPro- QT, but with a revised, slightly curved contour to them:

Truxedo looked to improve the weather sealing feature of the Pro X-15 by not only including a thicker main foam seal (that went exactly where I removed the older one), but a second “bulkhead seal” that had a lip similar to the bottom seal on the outside of the windows. This bulkhead seal would butt up against the main tonneau bracket to help keep rain and dust from creeping underneath the cover from the forward edge of the bed:

Also a welcome upgrade/addition was the design of the side rails. For the Lo-Pro QT, the side rails sat flush with the bedside cap, with a thin foam seal that was squished between the rail and the bed wall. With the newer Pro X-15, not only did they add an upper lip (that would sit on top of the bed rail, as opposed to just next to it) but there was also a thin rubber seal underneath to keep moisture and dust from entering the bed from the side area. This to me is an excellent upgrade, plus having that upper lip made it so much easier to get the side rails installed perfectly flush and level with the bed walls:

Going back to the improvements once more, the Pro X-15 features “lower 15-degree side rails) and when compared to the Lo-Pro QT, one could definitely see the difference. The lower side rails meant that the Pro X-15 tonneau would sit even lower, and closer to the top of the bed edge for a sleek, flush appearance:

And here is the new Pro X-15 tonneau cover, installed and closed. The little creases in the fabric disappeared after one day sitting under the sun for a few hours, and the end result is great! I like how low the cover sits; I thought that the old Lo-Pro QT sat pretty low, but the Pro X-15 is even lower! Considering the price for the Pro X-15 and the Lo-Pro QT are about the same (maybe even less if you get it on sale like I did), after having both on my truck I can confidently say that the Pro X-15 is the better choice!