Bed stiffeners...yay or nay??

do you know how these rate in thickness to the caliraised stiffeners?

 

I considered them all and decided to go with Victory4x4. I wanted something that worked with the bed mat without cutting it (this eliminated Rago and CaliRaised), that was already coated (this eliminated ATH), and that had decent reviews and use already by other members (that eliminated R4T for me). So that left me with either TC or Victory. For me personally the ~$50 in extra cost for TC wasn't worth the little bit of extra height; I'm happy with the height of the Victory4x4s.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...-3rd-gen-today.399305/page-8155#post-23550029

 

Only because Total Chaos threatened lawsuits on anyone who supposedly copied their design.

 

I do not. But the big thing for me was how high the total chaos reached onto the bed. I figured if I wanted to prevent flex, have the contact point as high as possible. They seemed plenty thick to me for what its purpose is.

 

Very interesting. Never heard of that before. However, that would explain whey every other stiffener stops where it does. My own curiosity is going to force me to dig into that deeper.

 

They did get their patent approved soo.... Id believe it!

 

I liked the At The Helms bed stiffeners because of the low profile for the bed mat to go over it.

 

Is it possible to install the TC bed stiffeners backwards (or any stiffener for that matter) so that they are more like Bentrodders where the part that sticks out is closer to the tailgate? Is there some engineering reason why they are all pictured that way? I would prefer to keep the stock D ring in the same location but it looks like the range of motion would be hindered by the stiffener when facing in toward the bed.

 

I’m looking forward to your findings.

 

Yay, I went with rago, it was black Friday sale

 

Total chaos. They are taller and support the entire bedside and are low profile. Don’t get wrapped up in thickness, these aren’t holding a huge load, the one few cases where extra metal is just wasted.

 

Thanks for this. I went with total chaos!!

 

Good choice

 

Too bad bed Stiffeners doesn't block wind from making the vehicle feel like shit lol

 

You OK? I thought manual Pros are superior.

 

Welp, had my crack legal team look into this. Turns out they have a design patent for their stiffeners. See the following link.

https://patents.google.com/patent/USD820180S1/en?oq=d820180

There are two different types of patents. A utility patent and a design patent. A utility patent protects the way something works. In the case of a bed stiffener, it stiffens the bed sides to protect against deflection and potential failure. A design patent protects the way something looks. In this case, it's a stiffener that has a certain height, a certain contour, a certain number of eyelets.

Utility patents are much harder to get vs a design patent. For a design patent, the patent office looks at the design, determines nothing else looks like it, and offers you the right to the patent.

It seems like an easy way to work around this, would be to offer a different shape at the top. It could still follow the contour of the bed, but it would need enough significant changes in other shapes and eyelets to be regarded as significantly different.

All in all, it's up to lawyers and courtrooms to determine if there's a significant deviation. While TC can threaten to sue people all day long, it's a completely different action to actually take someone to court. Do they want to spend the money to battle some guys in their garage, making parts... I'd hope not. But even if they do, they'd spend stupid money doing it, to regain negligible profits.

Regardless, I have TC stiffeners and am very happy with them. I'm not a lawyer, so don't take any of the non-sense above as legal advice. If you're interested in battling "The Man" and need legal services, I highly recommend TW's own McRibb, Creed and Stock (@McRib @six5creed @StayinStock)

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/unofficial-unlicensed-lawlyers-mcrib-creed-stock-of-tw.668843/

Good luck!

 

Could have swore I saw photos of bed damage even with some stiffeners

 

Bed stifferners work, here is proof.

 

Thank you!
And as always: the first visit is free only $500!