Case and point, in the Ohio Valley and the northeastern states like Pennsylvania, New York or New Jersey, one of the most popular truck accessories on the market would be the truck tonneau cover. This is truck accessory purchase is totally weather related because people in the northeast have to put up with a lot of cold, wet and snowy weather in the winter and want to try to keep their truck beds dry if they can, and keep the snow out as well. Yes, a tonneau cover looks nice, and yes it might help you save a few gallons of gas on a nice long trip, but the main reason that customers ask for the tonneau cover would be to keep out the weather.

In the southern states like Florida, Texas or Arizona they have different problems to deal with. The sun! Can you imagine having too much sun? I know its hard to do, but when thinking about what auto accessories you want to add to your car or truck it has a lot to do with it. The sun can really beat / burn things up if left outside every day.

In the southern states the most popular accessories that people add to their trucks are the stainless steel accessories including nerf bars, rocker panel moldings, billet grilles and truck bed rails. Why? Stainless steel wont burn, deteriorate, shrink, crack, fade or anything else like that. Thats one of the reasons that the southern folks like to dress up their trucks with chrome accessories.

Most of the time the influence starts at the dealer level, being maybe your local Chevy, Dodge or Ford dealerships in your area. They seem to be the guys that would initially test aftermarket accessories like these on your truck, and after they dress up and sell a lot of them in town, the potential new customers see these vehicles driving down the road and actually start calling the dealers asking for the parts they see.

Sometimes customers dont know what to ask for, for example a stainless steel nerf bar is sometimes referred to as a chrome nerf bar, a chrome tube rail, side bars or side steps, but many suppliers of aftermarket truck accessories such as those at Custom Auto Trim are well versed in synonyms in the business. They will know what you are looking for.

About the Author

Mike Briglia is the owner of Custom Auto Trim, a car accessories company based out of San Diego CA. Find more information on nerf bars at http://www.customautotrim.com/

Some wonder why such a rigid shiny tube on the side of a truck is called a nerf bar. Sometimes people refer to them side steps or chrome tubes because they cant grasp the concept of “Nerf Bar” as being a hard shiny stainless steel object. “Nerf” material, like the material used to make soft footballs, baseballs & frisbees you may have thrown around as a kid, doesn’t really relate to some hard chrome tube you would use to step on to help you step into your truck.

So here it is. The nerf bar was a tubular device that was originally intended to be fitted to the side of a racecar – often single seaters like a midget race car that competes on a race track.

“Nerf” is also a racing term that refers to a small bump (rub) between two vehicles. When one driver bumps the other car in order to pass it, they call it nerfing.  Nerf bars protect the sides of the vehicles and keeps their tires from rubbing. Without them, the fast spinning tires can come in contact with each other causing the cars to lose control, or flip. Sometimes having nerf bars on your truck is a good way to help protect your wheels and body kits, however rub a stainless steel nerf bar up against a concrete barrier and you can expect to need to replace it. I’ll have to say sometimes I wish I had the old style nerf bars, because I’d occasionally like to bump into a few people myself on the freeway, but I guess you just cant win.