Bed Mat Theft Prevention?

OP, welcome to Tacoma World and thank you for the laughs of a Friday morning

 

Use velcro!

 

I love Fridays on TacomaWorld!!

 

Keep looking on Craigslist. Somebody will sell their Tacoma to get a full size truck. This forum convinces many people to leave their taco for a bigger/stronger vehicle. They will sell you their bed mat dirt cheap. I got mine for $40 basically brand new this way. It was a local pick up.

 

Also I love the idea of buying a $1800-2000 diamondback to protect a $80 bed mat. Lolol

 

Holy crap, you'd need to be pretty desperate to steal a bed mat. I could think of a thousand better things i'd want to swipe.

 

It is not necessarily where you live. Mine was stolen within 2 months of having my truck. Could not have been where I live since my truck is garaged 100% of the time... it is where you park for work, shopping, sporting event, etc. Thieves are everywhere.

$20 to install a bed mat? LOL! They must have thought you were stupid.

 

I’ve found the best way to price shop is go to the Toyota parts/accessories website and look at the prices for dealerships within a certain radius of you. It’s amazing in the the Bay Are,CA how big a difference in prices there are between dealerships. Shipping big items like side steps and bed mats can be expensive. Just ship directly to the dealership for free and pick up from there.

 

Stealing this bed mat and trying to resell it is literally a waste of effort. It's heavy and clumsy to try and fold up to take and the resale price isn't even worth going to jail over. What, $60?

 

Any time I see a bed mat for sale in the BST section I’m going to to immediately be suspicious that it’s stolen from @tractorfarmer123

 

I definitely wouldn't worry about it. I live in a nice low-crime area but have traveled in some VERY rough neighborhoods over the last 25 years the bed mat has been in my '96 Tacoma without incident.
Considering the weight and what a pain in the ass they are to remove and transport I don't believe a thief would make the effort/take the risk.

Besides by the minuscule chance it's stolen it's only a $80>$90 loss.
Or if it's keeping you up at nights, get a bed cover.
Life is much too short to worry about things like this.

 

Get a tonneau cover if you don't have one. They're not very "secure" unless you get like a diamondback or something, but it mitigates opportunity. What's out of sight is usually out of mind. The mat itself is obviously very vehicle specific too, not that it would stop a petty thief as they usually grab whatever isn't bolted down, but I wouldn't worry too much about it.

 

Remove one of the front bed bolts (they are quite long enough) drill a hole in the mat reinstall the bolt extremely unlikely any one will have a torx bit with them that size.

 

This is peculiar. It is obvious, by his post, he IS worried about it. All these posts telling him not to worry about it seem to be just trying to place your personal views into his mind and do nothing to answer his specific question. Personally, I would be pretty upset if all these people told me to do nothing and don't worry... and then it got stolen LOL.

But.. that is just me

 

It would be a shame to put effort into securing your mat only to come out one morning and find you have not cat. Seems to me there are more important things to worry about.

 

OP,

I personally would not worry about the bed mat being stolen. But, then again, you didn't ask if people worried about it being stolen. You asked if people had ideas for how to secure the bed mat. Since I favor being helpful over being snarky, here is one idea to consider. You could drill two holes in the bed mat and run one of these kinds of cables to secure it to the bed tie downs. Not exactly elegant ... but throwing that out there as food for thought:

https://www.rei.com/product/130377/...VgfOzCh0dRgeyEAkYAyABEgKGA_D_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

 

Or tailgate. I feel like someone stealing stuff off the truck, the tailgate is the prime target since its so easy to take.

 

Personally I tend to worry more about the things I carry in the bed of my truck then I do things like bed mats. If the OP is worried about it he could always just keep the mat secured in a garage when he’s not using it.

Now if we’re talking about how to secure a MTB while using the restroom at a roadside gas station while on a road trip that’s a topic worthy of some serious discussion

 

I used a horse stall mat from Tractor Supply as a bed mat. Damn thing weighs about 80 pounds. If they are man enough to carry it off, they can have it.