Where did you hear those figures?

 

The spare tire I could see because it is a real easy part to get off the truck with very little work, but the tailgate? I dont by that for a second! It takes to much time and effort for someone to rip off a tailgate. If it were the old old models (aka 60s-70s) I could see because they were very simple to remove but the ones on our newer rams are quite a bit more difficult to remove not to mention they weigh a ton so you;d have to have at least 2 people to carry the damn thing plus its one of the most noticable things to rip off a vehicle. It be like someone trying to steal a hood or a spoiler. Could it happen yeah but it be more likely that they'd steal the whole truck and then part the thing though if they were gonna do anything.

 

I have a lockable retrax bedcover and bought a Bully tailgate locking replacement handle. Its an exact match for the original and works great.

 

Ryan, I can yank the tail gate off my truck in under 20 seconds and tote it myself no problem.

yes it does have some weight to it, but not heavy enough that you realy need two people.

 

I agree, I use to take my 98 tailgat off all of the time. Now I have a retrax cover as well and an elctric lock for the tail gate. But it doesn't take about 20 to 30 seconds to take one off, but I never thought of them as being a highly stolen item.

 

Im having a hard time believing that you can rip it off in under 20sec. in fact Id bet money that you couldnt in under 20 seconds. An average pair of wire cutters wont cut that cable and without the right screw drivers you wouldn't be able to get the screws holding in pace on both sides in both areas undone. And after you get the cables off and align the slot just so so it'll slide off and pull it straight off while keeping it up so it doesn't fall on the bumper on the otherside and then trying to carry it away from the car which I can almost garentee that you wont be moving to fast and put it into another car it would be much much longer than 20sec. Also add in the area that your doing this in cause in a highly populated area something like that is hard to notice specially when most of the rams now days have alarm system that would be going off the entire time it which for most would be making them very nervouse which would also tack on some time. So now your simple little task of removing a tailgate in under 20 seconds has now become more of a hassle than any theif would want to deal with on a normal day. Which prooves my point on it would be easier to rip off the truck and then strip it rather than attempting to just rip off the tailgate.

 

The factory alarm would not be activated by removing the tailgate.
No tools are required to remove the tailgate.
I don't think time is the issue.
The biggest thing is that they are heavy, awkward, and you would draw attention to yourself doing it in the middle of the night.

I just don't see it being a big concern.
A few years ago we had someone come to our lot in the middle of the night. Strip 2 pickups down..
2 hoods, 5 doors, and some electrical control modules were stolen. No tailgates were not even opened.

 

ooops my bad I totally missed those little clip things on the connections to the truck, I feel like idiot now. I guess you could do it quicker but not in 20sec. though. Also Dodgedlr the factory alarm will go off when your doing this. You gotta remeber that unless someone is a pro at doing it and can slide it off perfectly everytime without bumping anything your not gonna be able to not trip the alarm. The alarms are designed to go off with any sharp hit to it and in that location if you have to give it a bit of a tug to get it it will go off and it would depend on how sensative the alarm was set for. The factory alarm on my 05' would go off everytime I would open my tailgate all the way or close it, at one point it got set to some ungodly high setting that when i would park it in front of my house and shut my front door the alarm would be tripped, my neighbor across the street from me could close his front door and set my alarm off.

But bottm line I wouldn't want to waste my time and money in buying a lock for the tailgate. In my opinion they are useless.

 

i honestly have never seen a truck at a dealership with a factory locking tailgate and i just bought a truck like a couple months ago. If you want it to lock that bad, spend $25 bucks, get a pop lock that fits any tailgate, takes like 10 minutes to install it, personally someone who doesnt wanan spend the $25 bucks and whines that the truck never came with a locking tailgate is the cheap one.

 

Dodge has never had tailgate locks. Get a poplock like I did for the last 3 Rams. It instaled so easy on 2006 HD Ram. Took less than 10 seconds. (I'm not exaggerating). Works great.