What are the best slide out ute drawers for your 4WD?

Whether you use your vehicle for work or pleasure, there’s no denying the fact that slide out ute drawers are one of those essentials that makes life so much easier on the road. Installed under the load space or inside the canopy, having a set of lockable drawers that stores all your equipment is the ideal situation for everyone, camper or tradie.

For tradies, these slide out drawers are easy to use and keep everything organised, so that you don’t have to rummage around the back of your Ute to find what you need. They also protect all your tools and equipment from damage and keep them safe from prying eyes. As they are lockable as well, they provide another layer of security inside your lockable canopy. For campers, these drawer systems are an essential piece of gear that stores all your first aid equipment, food, water, clothes, rescue gear, and everything else that needs to be stowed away safely. 

Selecting the right slide out ute drawers for your needs

With so many different types of drawer systems available on the market, it’s difficult to know which ones are going to be the best for your situation. There are shallow and segmented drawers, and single and double drawers, all of which are available in standard sizes or custom-made options. Generally however, regardless of the configuration you need for your vehicle, all of these drawer systems will be manufactured from aluminium to make them strong and lightweight (top, body and runners) with stainless steel latches. These slide out ute drawers come with a heavy duty marine-grade carpet lining the interior, but there are also marine-grade plywood and rubber options available as well.

As a minimum, you want your drawer systems to glide easily on the runners and be easy to access. You also want them to be lockable, so that they don’t slide open when you are driving uphill or parked on a steep slope. A full length extension makes access much easier than struggling to find things at the back of the drawer, and you want at last a 100kg weight limit for each drawer.

As far as costs are concerned, for a second-hand system you might get away with $200 or $300, but you can pay upwards of a couple of thousand dollars for a customised system. There are also branded aftermarket options available that often cost less than $2000, depending on the size, configuration and brand.

At Dunn and Watson, we have a wide range of slide out ute drawers, in all configurations and sizes, for both inside canopies and under the tray. We also have sliders, extended sliders, and tilt and drop sliders for fridges. With an in-house fabricator, we offer a customised service to our customers, so if one of our standard sizes doesn’t suit your needs, we can manufacture a custom-made option to your exact specifications.

So if you are a tradie who is fed up of searching for equipment and tools in the back of your truck or a camper who can’t find anything they need, when they need it, installing a drawer system is a sensible idea. Why not check out our slide out ute drawers first, and if you have any questions, give us a call on 1300 210 549 or shoot us an email.