Sounds like a plan

 

Thanks for the welcome weedahoe.
le Dauphin, please let us know what you find out.

 

Well I got the lock fixed. It was the actuator that was out on it. Apparently, the thing works similar to the way the door locks work. When locked, the bolt slides out to prevent the tailgate from being lowered. Also I found out some useful info on how to prevent/delay it from happening again. There is a switch inside the cab that disables the lock. I always assumed that turning it off meant the tailgate could be opened anytime regardless of whether the doors were unlocked. But apparently if I lock the doors/tailgate and then turn off the switch, the tailgate lock becomes disabled but in the lock position. Basically, the actuator doesn't have to do its thing every time i get in or out of the truck, but it still stays locked until I flip that switch again. Since I don't use the tailgate every day, this works out pretty well.

Also, the guy at the shop told me that the local Dodge dealership where I bought my truck was having them install these locks on all of its trucks for the past several years but that the new models come with this features preinstalled at the factory. Anybody with a brand new Ram know if this is true?

-Matt