Opening power tailgate if truck has dead battery?

[emerica243]

Is there a way to get into the bed of a power powered tailgate configuration if the trucks battery is completely dead?

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[The Dude]

Pull the neg. battery terminal and try it?

 

[TacoFreak]

When my tailgate gets out of spec by hitting something the manual says to manually move it to closed, so I assume that you can just pull it open, even with a dead battery.

 

[emerica243]

When my tailgate gets out of spec by hitting something the manual says to manually move it to closed, so I assume that you can just pull it open, even with a dead battery.

How are you actually delatching it with a dead battery? There's no key hole, theres no manual handle mechanism to delatch. It's all electronic button operated.

So if there's no power to the tailgate and you need to get to something in the bed of the truck(cover on) how are you "manually opening it" as you state?

Your idea of just being able to "pull it open" even with a dead battery makes no sense to me. Or else theives would just be "pulling them open" stealing everything when the trucks all locked up? What am I missing here.

 

[TacoFreak]

Good question - I assumed that you could open it with the tailgate handle. My tonneau needs to be opened slightly or the tailgate stops and warns me. I have to manually move it to closed before it starts powering the tailgate. So I know you can move the tailgate, but I have never tried to unlatch it without power. There might be something in the manual, but good luck finding it. You might also check with your dealer, although they might not know either.

You might try disconnecting the neg terminal and seeing if you can unlatch the tailgate. That piece of knowledge would be a help to a lot of us IMO.

 

[emerica243]

Yea. Id think more people would be worried about a situation like this, or atleast want to be prepared. For example....my battery booster pack is in the small cubby box in the truck bed.....could be useless.

 

[TacoFreak]

I'm having a flashback. My wife's BEV's 12 volt went flat and her booster pack was in the hatch, which would not open without power. It is also a Toyota product so your are smart to be looking into this. The tailgate latch is probably the same way in our trucks.

I figured out how to open her doors without power, opened the hood, and put a charger on her battery so we could open hatch, but we would have had a problem if we had been away from home.

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