I have bought a Holts DIY Roll On Bedliner Kit. Has anyone got any tips or experience on using this kit? I am prepping the bed at the moment applying a anti rust coating prior to application as I want to make sure that there is a good base underneath.

 

Answering your question honestly requires that I eat a decent portion of crow, but if it'll save you some trouble, I'm willing to do so.

If you are still in the prep stage, STOP NOW! Go get your money back on the DIY kit and get something sprayed in.

I went the DIY route. I prepped my bed wonderfully. I even did a great write-up on how wonderful the product seemed to be, and for the first short while it was wonderful. The problem is that the stuff just ain't gonna hold up. There is simply no way that the DIY stuff can perform to the level of a spray-in, and since you've already prepped, you have relatively few options. It's gonna peel, and you can either keep purchasing more of the coating medium for CONSTANT touch-ups, which will soon add up to the same cost of a spray-in, or just go ahead and bite the bullet and have it done right.

Hell, even if you had to go with something a little less than Line-X, it would be better than the DIY crap.

I haul shopping bags and cases of beer in my bed, and the DIY stuff won't even hold up to that. I soon tired of touching up and purchased a rubber bed mat.

So, what do I do now? Well, the side walls are fine, overall, and the bed mat protects the bed. At some point I'll have to opt to have something sprayed in, which limits my choices because honestly I'd opt for a Bed Rug or something like that over a spray-in.

I got in to this bed liner thing because the factory drop-in had really done a lot of damage to my bed, so I had to do something. My mistake was in thinking that the cheap way out would suffice since I don't really haul much in my bed, and one would think that the roll-on crap would do in that situation.

IT WON'T.

So now I may come across as a fool for having gone the route I did, but if it will help you out, then so be it. Don't get me wrong. My bed isn't a disaster or anything. I'm just not happy with what I did and I will have to do something else later. I truly could not afford to do anything other than the DIY crap when I did it, and felt compelled to do something right away. I only wish I had taken things a bit slower, saved the pennies, and I could have ended up with a much better result.

Hope this helps.

 

Thanks for the advice, just caught me in time! Luckily/sadly the weather/time has been against me otherwise I might just have done the project already I have found out it will cost $375 to have a bedliner sprayed in by a dealer near me! I was given a rubber bedliner today from the dealer that I bought the truck from, its been used but I will try to clean it up. I am kinda in a quandry as to what to do now as its a big chunk of change. I have bought a aluminium truckbox to go in the back & I do not want to install that until the bedliner issue is sorted

 

Were you given a rubber bed mat or an actual drop-in bedliner by this dealer? If it's simply a mat, that's fine. If it's a drop-in liner, do not put that in your bed. It will wear down the paint and initiate rusting.
You can still put in the truckbox. They are normally held in place by a simple j-hook and come out easily when you do get the bed sprayed.
I realize that a professional spray-in is costly as compared to a DIY, at least initially, but believe me all the touch-up adds up in a hurry. Not to mention that there is simply a point at which the cheap solution will ultimately fail, necessitating a proper fix. It's a case of pay now or pay later.

 

I was given a big rubber mat to put down in the bed, but have not installed it as yet that way I do not have to keep taking it out to do work on the bed. I have just come in from giving it a bit of a wash down & a polish, looking nice!