Rough Country Soft Roll-Up Bed Cover Install: An Honest First Look on a 2014 F-150
Every guy I asked told me the same thing. Buy a hard cover. Buy a fold-up. Don't waste your money on soft vinyl.
I bought the soft roll-up anyway, and I had a reason. I had just picked up a used 2014 F-150 with the 5'7" short bed, and that bed was about to become family storage. Groceries. Luggage. Whatever three daughters need on a road trip. What I did not have was a lot of bed to give away. A short bed is short enough already, and a lot of the fold-up covers eat into how much of it you can actually use once they are stacked at the front. The roll-up gets out of the way completely.
So I went looking for something that gave me the whole bed, kept the weather off our stuff, and did not cost more than the truck was worth. That search landed on Rough Country. This is the install, start to finish, and my honest read on where this cover is the right call and where it is absolutely not.
Watch the full install here: https://youtu.be/g8DYvOEPdv0
Why I Tested This
The truck is not a work truck. It is a family vehicle that happens to have a bed, and that changes what a cover has to do. I am not hauling job site tools that live in the back overnight. I am hauling suitcases from Byron to wherever we are driving that week, and I want them dry and out of sight.
There was also a road trip on the calendar a couple of weeks out when I filmed this, and the cab of an F-150 with five people in it does not leave much room for luggage. The bed was going to carry it or nothing was. That gave me a hard deadline and a simple test: get it on, and see whether I trusted it enough to load the family's stuff under it.
What You Actually Get
Marine-grade vinyl in matte black. This is the part everybody judges a soft cover on, and it is heavier in the hand than I expected. Matte finish, so it does not glare in the sun the way a glossy cover does.
A black powder-coated aluminum frame. Corrosion resistant, which matters a lot more in northern Illinois than it does in Arizona. Salt eats everything here.
Six clamps that tighten by hand. They slide into a groove on the side rail and screw down with a knob. No tool required for any of them.
One Allen wrench, and that is the whole toolbox. Rough Country says this is the only tool you need, and they are right. It is in the box. It tightens the two bolts that lock the side rails to the bulkhead, and after that everything is done by hand.
A 1-1/8" profile. It is a top-mount cover, so it sits just over an inch above the bed rail. It reads as part of the truck instead of a box strapped to the back of it.
A spring-latch closure with a single-cable release. One pull at the tailgate end and it lets go. This is the part that decides whether you will actually use a cover or leave it rolled up all summer, and it is fast.
Hook-and-loop side seals, plus front and rear barriers. The whole length of both sides is Velcro. You press it down and it holds. There is also a rubber strip that sits on the outside edge of the bed, and the instructions are quiet about how much it matters, which I will get to.
Little plastic covers for the screw heads. They snap over the clamp hardware so you do not tear up a bag or your hand sliding cargo past them. Honestly the fiddliest part of the whole install.
A five-year replacement warranty against structural and workmanship defects.
What It Was Like Out of the Box
The box is mostly cover. It comes rolled and wrapped in plastic, with the two side rails wrapped separately and clearly marked left and right, which saved me a step. The hardware is in its own bag. There is a stack of Rough Country sales material in there too, and I will admit one of those catalogs got me. The under-seat storage compartment is going on my list.
Nothing was damaged, nothing was missing, and the instructions are three steps long. That is not marketing shorthand. It really is three steps: set the rails, set the cover, set the clamps.
The Thing Nobody Puts in the Listing: Security
Here is the honest part, and it is the reason I would talk some guys out of this cover.
This is vinyl. All somebody has to do is take a razor blade and go right through it. That is not a knock on Rough Country, it is what a soft cover is, and every soft cover on the market has the same problem. What it buys you is that your stuff is out of sight and out of the weather. What it does not buy you is security. If a thief decides your bed is worth opening, the cover is a thirty second delay.
So the question is not "is this cover secure." It is "what am I putting under it." Suitcases on a road trip, groceries on the way home, a cooler, camp chairs, a bag of mulch. That is the job, and for that job the cover is exactly right. Tools that live in the bed overnight, a generator, anything you would be sick about losing, that is a hard cover conversation and I would not pretend otherwise.
Rough Country's own line makes the tradeoff easy to see. These were the prices when I checked on September 10, 2026, and Rough Country moves them, so treat the shape of it as the point and not the exact dollars.
Soft Roll-Up (this one): $200
Soft Tri-Fold: $220
Hard Low Profile: $700
Hard Tri-Fold Flip Up: $850
Powered Retractable: $1,900
The jump from soft to hard is not incremental. It is three and a half times the money. That is the real decision, and it is worth making on purpose instead of by default.
The Install, and Where It Actually Slowed Down
Rough Country says this installs in about twenty minutes with no drilling. I did not run a stopwatch, so I am not going to tell you a number. What I can tell you is every place my first install got slower than it needed to be, which is more useful anyway.
Back the bolt all the way out before you slide the rail in. This was my first hang-up. I was trying to slide the side rail into the bulkhead slot with the bolt only loosened, and it would not seat. Once I backed it out completely, the rail slid straight into the groove and I tightened it down. Took me a minute to figure out. It will take you none, now.
Do not skip the rubber seal. There is a rubber strip that sits on the outside of the bed. It is easy to blow past because the instructions mention it in passing. It is what keeps water out. Get it positioned before you start tightening clamps.
Check your clamp alignment before you unroll. This one was entirely my fault. I had a clamp sitting a little too far in, and I did not notice until I went to roll the cover out and it snagged. Had to loosen it, pull it back, and reset it. The tell is simple: the middle clamp on each side should line up with the bed's crossbar. Once mine did, everything sat right.
Expect to adjust the tension. First unroll, the cover was lifting just slightly at the back. There are adjusters inside that slide forward and back to tighten or loosen it. A small nudge tighter and it pulled down flat against the tailgate. This is a normal part of the install, not a defect, and nobody tells you that going in.
The plastic screw covers are the worst part. Not hard, just fussy. They are more annoying than the entire rest of the install, and if you skipped them nothing bad would happen. I put them on because I am going to be sliding luggage past those clamps for years.
Real-World Use
Rolled out, it looks better than I expected it to. Flat, tight, matte black, and it follows the line of the bed instead of sitting on top of it like an afterthought.
The spring latch snaps it down hard, and the Velcro sides take about three seconds a side. Rolling it back up is faster than I thought. One cable pull, roll, two clips, done. That is the number that actually decides whether a cover gets used, because a cover you dread opening is a cover you leave closed when you need the bed.
One thing that surprised me, and it is worth knowing before you touch it: black vinyl in direct sun gets hot fast. Not warm. Hot. If you are loading in July, put gloves on or move quick.
Pros and Cons, Real Talk
Pros
Full bed access. Rolls completely out of the way, which is the whole reason I picked it over a tri-fold on a short bed.
One tool, and it is in the box. No drilling, no trips to the garage.
Fast to open and close, which means you will actually use it.
Low profile and genuinely good looking on the truck.
Aluminum frame and marine-grade vinyl, with a five-year warranty behind it.
The bottom rung of the price ladder by a wide margin.
Cons
Zero real security. A blade goes through it. Know that going in.
The rails will not seat unless you back the bolts all the way out, and the instructions do not say so.
Clamp alignment is easy to get slightly wrong and you will not know until the cover snags.
Tension needs adjusting on the first install.
The plastic screw covers are fussy.
The vinyl gets very hot in the sun.
→ Grab the Rough Country Soft Roll-Up here
How It Compares to What It Replaces
For most guys buying this, the honest alternative is not a $1,900 retractable. It is a tarp and a couple of bungee cords, or nothing at all. That is what I was replacing. Against that, this is not close. It is weatherproof, it locks down flat, it does not flap on the highway, and it looks like it belongs on the truck.
Against a soft tri-fold, which is the nearest real cross-shop and about twenty dollars more from Rough Country, the roll-up wins on bed access and the tri-fold wins on how fast you can get to the front of the bed without rolling anything. On a 5'7" bed I would take the roll-up every time. On an 8 foot bed I would think harder.
Against a hard cover, you are trading security for about five hundred dollars. That is the entire conversation. If the answer is groceries and luggage, take the five hundred dollars.
Who This Is For
You have a family truck and the bed is storage, not a job site.
You want the full length of a short bed back.
You are covering things that would be annoying to lose, not devastating.
You want it on the truck this afternoon with one tool.
Who Should Skip It
You keep tools or equipment in the bed overnight.
You park in places where you would not leave a window down.
You want a cover you can stand on or set weight on.
You want it locked, not just closed.
FAQ
Does the Rough Country soft roll-up cover fit a 2014 F-150?
Yes, with the right part. The 5'7" bed version for the 2004-2014 F-150 is SKU 42509550 and it is sold on roughcountry.com. Amazon carries the same cover in the 2015-2026 fitment, not this one, so check the year range before you order.
Do you need to drill to install it?
No. It clamps to the factory bed rails with six hand-tightened clamps and two bolts, and the only tool you need is the Allen wrench included in the box.
Is a soft roll-up tonneau cover waterproof?
Rough Country builds it with hook-and-loop side seals plus front and rear barriers, and there is a rubber strip that sits on the outer edge of the bed. Get that strip positioned correctly during the install. I have not run it through a full season of weather yet, so I am not going to make a durability claim I have not earned.
How long does it take to install?
Rough Country says about twenty minutes. I did not time mine, and I hit two snags a first-timer will hit, so plan for longer than the box says and be pleasantly surprised.
Can you lock a soft roll-up bed cover?
Not in any meaningful sense. It closes, it does not lock. If security is the requirement, you want a hard cover.
The Verdict
This cover does exactly what I bought it to do, and it did not take a bite out of anything else. The bed is covered, the luggage stays dry and out of sight, and the whole thing went on in an afternoon with one wrench.
It is an entry-level cover and I am not going to dress it up as more than that. It is not secure, it will not hold weight, and a determined person gets through it in seconds. But most of us are not protecting a job site. We are protecting groceries and suitcases and a cooler, and we are doing it on a budget that has three kids' worth of other line items on it.
Part of leading a home well is knowing the difference between what your family actually needs and what a catalog can talk you into. Buy the cover that matches the job. "The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and pay the penalty." Proverbs 27:12. Knowing exactly what this cover will and will not stop is how you buy it with your eyes open.
→ Grab the Rough Country Soft Roll-Up here
→ 2015 or newer F-150? This is the same cover in your fitment
→ Start the 7-Day Dad Reset, free download
Big Mike Behrens personally tests every product before recommending it. No paid promotions, no sponsored opinions.
