Spray in Review and comparison of Line-x Bed Liner vs. Rhino Bed Liner “Tastes Great!”
“Less Filling!”

Is kind of like…

“Line-X!”
“Rhino!”

If you have just bought a new truck, there’s a good chance that someone (a friend, a relative, or a salesperson) has told you to buy a certain brand of spray-in bed liner “because they’re the best”. If you’re like us, you don’t like making this decision without doing a little research first (Not sure you want a spray-in? See a full list of Bed Liner Options). Here’s our analysis of the two biggest names in spray-in truck bed liners.

Here are some things you should know about both brands:

  1. INSTALLATION IS EVERYTHING. If you have a good installer, you’ll get a good liner. Find a good installer by asking your local Toyota dealer, RV dealer, off-road club, or by asking for references.
  2. All spray-in liners fade when exposed to a few years of sunlight.
  3. Be careful with color-matching. Unless you pay extra to protect the liner from UV, it will fade much faster than the factory paint and your liner and your truck won’t color-match after a couple of years. At least if you stick with black it will only fade to dark charcoal.
  4. The mix used for either a Rhino or a Line-X is basically the same. There are some differences, but one isn’t substantially better than the other.
  5. Both companies now offer nation-wide lifetime warranties on their products.
  6. Expect your installation to cost somewhere between $300 and $400 dollars. Anything more should include extras like color matching, additional surface spraying, or special UV protectants. Anything less than that could indicate the installer you’re using is making a shortcut somewhere.
  7. If you have any doubts about your installer, inspect their spray booth or spray area. If it’s dirty or messy, you should find someone else.
  8. Add-on coatings should be considered appearance-enhancing only. Before paying your installer for extra UV protection, etc., consider do-it-yourself options like Armor All, Just Once, and 303 Protectant.

Now, in no particular order, the individual products:

Line-X

Line-x is applied “hot” using a high pressure system. Because Line-X is applied at high pressure, it tends to be thinner (about 1/4″ thick). Thinner is better when it comes to looks — a thin coating tends to follow every contour of your truck’s bed and preserves the factory appearance. One other aspect of the thin coating is that Line-X liners usually have a very rough surface that sparkles when new. Some people dislike the rough Line-x surface — it can be hard on the knees and it can damage your cargo (finished wood surfaces and Line-x liners don’t mix, for instance). While you can request that the installer reduce the roughness of the finish, this will also result in a surface that’s less glossy. Finally, because Line-X uses more polyurea, it is stronger and more tear resistant than Rhino.

Rhino

Rhino is applied cold with a low-pressure system. Because of the lower temperature and pressure, Rhino liners are thicker (3/8″ of an inch) than Line-X. The increased thickness of a Rhino gives it a softer “rubbery” feel, and the liner’s surface isn’t as rough as Line-X so it’s more gentle on knees and cargo. Rhino’s thicker coating also aids in sound deadening, and the surface seems to “grab” objects better than Line-X. But all of these benefits don’t come without sacrifice. Thicker material also means a poorer finish — Rhino material doesn’t follow the contours of a truck bed nearly as well as Line-X. The cold application also means longer curing times and a greater possibility of “runs” in the liner surface. Finally, it’s not uncommon to see inconsistencies in Rhino liner thickness, meaning some parts of your truck bed are more protected than others.

Informal Polls

While informal polls are far from scientific, they do give a good sense of what the online truck enthusiast community thinks about these two products.

Readers at TundraSolutions were asked to vote on the best spray-in bed liner, and Line-X won 252 votes to 60.

Readers at GMFullSize voted in a similar poll, and the tally is 65 in favor of the Line-X over 11 in favor of the the Rhino.

Finally, readers at FullSizeChevy.com also favored the Line-X over the Rhino, 255 to 79.

The Winner Is…

Line-X comes out ahead for a few reasons — Line-X liners are usually better looking than Rhino, are stronger, and Line-x installation quality tends to be higher (after all, Line-x offered a national warranty on their product years before Rhino). But that’s not to say that Rhino doesn’t have some compelling features. We really like the rubbery feel of the Rhino liner, and we think it is a better finished surface (at least as far as feel goes). In fact, if Rhino had the same reputation for quality as Line-X, this would have been a much more difficult decision.

Recently, in an effort to match Line-X, some Rhino installers have begun using high-pressure systems that will produce a better looking “Line-X” type surface. Rhino is also moving to match Line-X in other areas, from color matching to UV protectants. Rhino is also working on improving installer quality. We expect that the differences between these two will become smaller as time goes by.

As we’ve said before, the most important aspect of any spray-in bed liner is the person installing it. Make sure you find a reputable Line-X or Rhino dealer, and you should be happy with either.

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