I have put off writing up my review of the X4 since there is a lot to tell. Overall, I like the functionality of the cover (the fact that it rolls up is great, and the overall look is really nice), but for the price, I am frustrated with the quality problems I experienced. I have had three entire units shipped to me and I still have a cover that has what in my view is a defect. While the manufacturer has been accommodating and responsive, it’s been a major pain from a customer standpoint. If you feel like hearing all of the details, read on….

Here is the full story – I pre-ordered back in December, and my unit was one of the first to arrive. I am not the handiest of people, so the vendor recommended an installer to me (he was to install both a BedRug (which is awesome), and the X4). I made arrangements for the installer, and after putting in the BedRug and getting about 60% of the way through the X4 installation, we noticed some dings on the side rails – more than just scratches, there were two places where the black coating was gone, exposing bare metal. My installer said I should absolutely get those replaced (which would mean, however, that I would need to reinstall on my own, or else pay to have the installer back out). While I was considering what to do, we noticed that one of the rails also had some metal components that were snapped off (the brackets attaching the spring mechanism). On top of that, we discovered that the rubber seal on the cover piece had come off during shipping (it is supposed to be attached by an adhesive). So the installer removed the pieces of the X4 that he had put in, and I made plans to contact the seller the following Monday.

I contacted the seller the following Monday and they reached out to the manufacturer. The initial response from the manufacture was that all of these things could be fixed in the field and they could send new parts. That response was meant for the seller, I don’t think they meant to cc me on the email, but I responded anyway, and noted that there were three separate problems with the cover, and that for the price I was not interested in doing repairs to my new cover. They quickly agreed to ship a second cover, which made me quite happy. I asked if they would pay for an installer, since I had already had someone out and paid him, and they said that is not something they do. Fair enough.

The second cover arrived, and it was in a nice branded box (the original had been in a plan brown box), and it was wrapped and protected much better. I figured the first unit might have been an early product off the production line. I opened up the box, however, and found that the black cover had a tear (not a small one, but about 2 inches long), right at the tailgate area.

So I emailed the manufacturer again, and said if they wanted, they could just send a new cover piece, since the new rails looked good. They said they would do that, and would open the package to make SURE everything was fine before they sent it out.

The third product arrived, and they actually sent a whole complete unit (again in the plain brown box). The cover on the third unit had the same kind of tear as the second unit, in just about the same spot as the second cover.

At this point I decided to try to piece together what I could from the three units. I used rails from the second unit and I took a seal from one of the torn covers and basically glued it onto the cover from the first unit – not perfect, but at least it might work. That’s when I noticed that the cover from the first unit also had a small indentation right in the middle. But I thought maybe it would go away after a while, so I went ahead and did the install. I did it myself, since I had learned how from watching the professional do it earlier. It wasn’t too complicated, given the installer had noted a few things to look out for. However, at the end of the day, the rails do not sit perfectly flat (I tried a couple of different rails, since I had quite a few by now, but they all “puff” up a bit at the tailgate), and I the locking mechanism for the rolling piece is a bit quirky, but over all it does what I need it to do.

I emailed the manufacturer again to let them know about my issues with the third unit, but that at this point I did not want any more units shipped (as it is, I had to pay to dump the defective units at the landfill – the manufacturer didn’t want them returned and just asked for evidence that I destroyed them). They said they would report my issues to their quality group, but I have not heard anything more from them since then – that was a couple of months ago.

The indentation in the middle of the cover never did go away, and in fact over the past couple of months looks even worse. I am still trying to decide whether I want to go back to the manufacturer about this. If I could get a good unit, I might do it, but I have no interest in having multiple units shipped, installing again, hauling off the old unit to the landfill, etc.

I think it is a really cool product, but I hope that BAK has better quality control going forward. Maybe it is because this is a new product, or maybe I was just unlucky, but it was a frustrating experience, and it still bothers me that after all of that, my cover doesn’t look the way it should (but that’s on me that I haven’t further pursued the issue). I do have to say that BAK was good about sending replacements – they both arrived fast via FedEx.