Bed Protectors - Montana Owners Club

Jdrobone · 03-30-2010, 01:16 PM

For what it's worth . . . I have a 16K Husky hitch in the bed of my 2010 F350. I e-mailed blue-ox about my concerns about the fit of their bed-saver. I saw several posts somewhere where people had to re-drill, ream out, or whatever to make the device work.
So . . . I e-mailed customer service (twice) and questioned whether they had a correct fit one could order or not.

No reply, either time.

Anyone have a suggestion on another brand? It's been my experience that companies give their best efforts BEFORE the sale. If I can't get an answer now, what am I in for if I have problems.

stiles watson · 03-30-2010, 01:50 PM

Good logic!

Tom S. · 03-31-2010, 06:58 AM

I don't know about the Husky hitch and Blue-Ox set up, but my Blue-ox bolted directly to the Reese Signature hitch, not to the bed of the truck, so it didn't matter if there was a liner or not.

But on the topic of liners, our truck has a Line-X spray in and I love it. Years ago, I bought a brand new 1978 pick up and put a drop in liner in it. Many years later when I got ready to trade the truck in, I pulled the liner out to clean up the truck and discovered the bed of my truck was rotted out with rust. So when I bought my new 1985 truck, I had the bed sprayed with a clear rust proofing and put in another liner. Same results - the liner rubbed through the coating and the bed was rusted. So nothing but spray in liners for me! Like John, I had the hitch installed and then had the bed sprayed.

Art-n-Marge · 03-31-2010, 07:33 AM

Hold on folks.... the double meanings are running rampant...

Jdrbone is referring to the bedsaver which attaches to the 5er hitch to catch the hitch pin of the trailer in case it becomes disconnected.

Some of you (including me when I first read this) thought the post was about a sprayon or drop-in bedliner which is also known as a bedsaver, or bed protector. The actual Blue Ox bedsaver more likely should have been called a bed rail protector because if the trailer becomes disconnected the bed rails are what gets damaged and maybe some of the truck bed sides. But the sprayon bedsaver/bedliner/bedprotector works great all the time. My hitch rails were placed on top of the liner to enable me to remove the hitch rails if I wanted to.

Jdrbone, there have been other forum posts recently about improper fit of the bedsaver to its hitch. IIRC Blue Ox and other vendors were included. You might want to do a search to find member posts for improper holes, redrilling, etc. but I do hope you get a response from Blue Ox. I would try calling them if the emails didn't work.

Jdrobone · 03-31-2010, 03:56 PM

Thanks guys,
In my second request to Blue-Ox I made reference to the fact that I intended to post their response/non-response on this and other forums and "guess what?" suddenly they were apologizing for not replying and asking for "particulars". I sent them copies of the other problems members has encountered trying to fit the blue ox bed-saver to the identical(?) Husky 16K pin box(thanks Art for reminding me) - will keep you posted as the situation develops.
Jerry

On edit I see I should have labeled this post as "bed-saver" and not "bed-protector". I called it one thing and then started talking about the other. Sorry for the confusion.

randye · 04-01-2010, 12:48 PM

Hi Jdrobone I bought a Blue Ox bed Saver for my Husky 16K. doesn't fit it is 5" to wide to even touch the sides of the Husky. I would have to get 2 and 1/2 inch Steel Tubing to make spacers. I am not in an area were that would be easy no steel shops here in Leeds Ut. Maybe if I wanted to go to the trouble I could find a shop in St George. I was in contact with a gal name of Linda at Blue Ox and at first they tried to help, together we measured the unit and it was in fact the one they sell for the Husky 16K. Still didn't work on mine. One of the Members wrote me that his fit just fine, so their must be a couple of differant variations of the same hitch? I just put mine up for sale, since they would not help and I bought my from Carparts.com if you have it more than 30 days no returns. I left word with them that I was working when it came in and didn't have time to check it for three weeks and then it took Blue Ox two weeks to find out they didn't know how to correct the problem. So beware. It may be you have the one that will fit, don't know. I'm confused.randye

golfer1 · 04-01-2010, 02:15 PM

anybody know the best place to order the blue ox bed-saver?

Tom S. · 04-02-2010, 01:48 AM

Quote:

quote:Originally posted by golfer1

anybody know the best place to order the blue ox bed-saver?

When I bought ours, the best price I found was at Adventure RV: www.adventurerv.net

Jay Bird · 04-03-2010, 03:01 PM

randye mentioned a member that had no problems. That was me. My Bed saver mounted on my Huskey 16k hitch perfectly.

Jdrobone · 04-17-2010, 03:25 AM

I continue with my struggles with Blue-Ox. "Mandy Johnson" answered my second request for info, and after we talked she offered to have Blue Ox send a truck to pick up my hitch and have a bed-saver custom fit to it. What more could you ask you say?
Well, after purchasing plywood, 2x4's, etc and crating it up last Monday (she told me someone would pick it up Tuesday) it still sits in my garage. I have left numerous voice-mails and e-mails. They proudly say on their web-site that they will answer the phone and reply to e-mails in 3 hours. Been 4 days now - not a word. I even left a voice-mail to Ellen Kietzman, her boss, and cc from Mandy on the correspondence, to no avail.
So . . . here I sit with my hitch in a crate and no way to move my RV. From where I sit I would recommend great care in dealing with Blue-Ox. Surely there are other firms who sell similiar products.
Will keep you posted.
Jerry

**Rondo** · 04-17-2010, 10:16 AM

Had no problem with Blue Ox at all! I even went up to the factory and picked my bedsaver up in person! I do have a Reese slider but know of several others that have the Husky hitch and they had no problem mounting theirs at all. Jerry have you got the bedsaver already or are you just concerned that it will not fit your hitch? I don't understand why there are some that are having problems and others even with the same Husky 16K hitch have had no problems at all.

Delaine and Lindy · 04-17-2010, 10:29 AM

In 2005 I mounted the Blue Ox bedsaver on a 16,000 lb Huskey 4 pivot slider and no issues at all. GBY...

Art-n-Marge · 04-17-2010, 10:43 AM

jdrobone, are you sure you have the husky 16K. The reason I ask is that I was told I had a Husky 16K, but when I read the stampings and the fine print I found I have a Valley hitch and for whatever reason Husky and Valley are used interchangeably but I just don't know if it's that easy. My apologies for seeming to second guess you because I am certainly not trying to make your frustrating situation even worse, but you are having an unusually hard time with what has been very successful for many others. But I am echoing Rondo's sentiments that you are having some ugly problems with what should have been an easy and enjoyable product.

Being retired from the service industry it always bothers me when anyone gets less service than what they deserved. I know my bosses always liked those reports that we were always 98% to 99% successful but I was always more concerned about the 1-2% that weren't happy. Getting the answers of those issues are the ones that make your business more successful. When you finally figure out what this is, Blue Ox may find that if they were just a little smarter about the possibilities of their customer's environment, they would be at 100% customer satisfaction, but now I'm being assuming. Blue Ox must be more proactive about this because they could be missing out on other customers because of this. Oh well, time to go back to being retired.

We do appreciate you keeping us posted because we are certainly very curious what you find out. Best of luck to you.

Delaine and Lindy · 04-17-2010, 11:55 AM

I could be wrong but I believe that Huskey/Valley are one in the same now. GBY...

Jdrobone · 04-17-2010, 02:58 PM

Well, Ron - I guess one of the reasons might be that mine is actually a 16K "S" hitch. Husky shows it on their web site as their newest model. Blue Ox people admitted they didn't have a fit and promised to "fit" a bedsaver to it and ship it back to me.
That remains to be seen. I'm hoping for the best. In the mean time they are on my ahem, LIST.
Regards,
Jerry

Art-n-Marge · 04-17-2010, 05:42 PM

D & L, I was told that, too, as far as the two separate companies go. But with many "mergers" some of the similar products fall victim and a Valley 16K might have been different than a Husky 16K and they got rid of one and it's different from the one they kept, but kept the name. There can be difficulty with making product references with company mergers especially when a 3rd party comes up with a product and uses the same reference of a different product. It can be confusing but I have run into this. In fact, just two weeks ago with a satellite receiver but that's another long story.

But there you have it. The difference is that letter "S". Good luck, Jerry!!! It's great to see that Blue Ox is trying to be proactive.

just green · 04-17-2010, 05:49 PM

I think the problem with the Husky 16 is there are several manufacturers who make them and each one is slightly different. I have many products from Blue Ox and have never had trouble when there was a problem, always way more than fair.

Jdrobone · 04-17-2010, 05:52 PM

I hope they come through, I'm just not feeling the love right now.

Jdrobone · 04-19-2010, 02:21 AM

Newsflash - got a text this morning from Mandy (1 week late) claiming to have had an emergency. Funny thing is the 'ol chatty receptionist I talked to Thursday said she had been in but was tied up in the proverbial "meetings". Hmmmm . . maybe that phonecall I made to her boss got her out of the "meetings"/emergencies.
Who knows? Again I have no real standing here except that Blue Ox proposed to install the bedsaver. Only time will tell.
The saga continues . . . .
Jerry

randye · 04-19-2010, 04:22 AM

Good Luck!They promised to work out my problem for the 16k Huskey then. I sent pictures and then, they dropped my problem like a hot rock. I can't get them to respond either. The bedsaver is 5" to wide to even touch the hitch. I keep thinking I will block it up and get some 2.5" tubing and drill and bolt it on. I'm not sure that it would be strong enough to hold if the Montie drops on it. I would have to make legs from the outside frame down to the bed of the truck and bolt it through into hopefully a brace or something to hold the saver hard into place. Its a lot of work, since the steel store is very far away and I won't be able to cut the metal much after its home.

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