New Silverado 1500 Crew, Tailgate Issues

[aseibel]

16 minutes ago, BillNC said:

From what I'm seeing, I do not think that this was an intentional change.  It looks like sloppy dimensional tolerance control for the bed build, the tailgate build, the locations of the cable anchor points as well as the cables themselves.

I would agree with you if EVERY truck wasn't built exactly the same. You cannot go on a dealer lot and find some with level tailgates, some with extreme tilts, etc. Each tailgate has roughly the same gap that you measured. All of those steel parts are mass produced with computer controlled machines. They punch the holes for the tailgate straps. Its not like some Mexican worker just missed the mark by 1/4" on either side, this stuff is all designed on a computer. Some moron actually designed it this way. It doesn't make any sense, but that's what they did.

 

I tried very hard to chase down an explanation, got my dealer's Service Manager to e-mail someone at GM. I got very little response, basically just stating that it is what it is. I tried to search, but I can't find those e-mails now, its been over 2 years.

[Centex14]

My dodge, ford, and chevy’s have always had one cable slightly longer than the other. You load 1500lbs in the bed and you’ll see the whole thing flex and it’ll flatten out. Ever seen a flat bed? Notice how they bow up in the middle? Flattens out when loaded. I’ve over loaded many trucks with tailgates with different length cables and have never had a problem.

The only time I’ve ever broken a cable is when I had the tailgate down with no load on it and drove over a rail road track. Otherwise, the majority of the weight of the load is resting on the bed and not on the tailgate. Only way you are going to place 700lbs on the tailgate is to actually put 700lbs on the tail gate. That last 2’ isn’t going to support hardly any of the weight.


2014 z71 LTZ
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