I am now back from our holiday. Thank you very much for all your comments; I did not reply since I was frantically trying to heat up the tailgate. I lifted the pull-out tailgate step and heated the lock with a hairdryer. It took a good 15 minutes with the hairdryer cutting out every now and then. The good news is that the 400 W power outlet is in good working order and can deal with a hairdryer. However, I never should have closed the cover since when we arrived at Big White the tailgate was once again frozen shut! I had to go throught the whole process again while trying to keep 3 kids and a wife calm. I love this truck and everything it stands for but needs to have a truck that can handle the Okanagan Valley snow, rain and sun. I am planning to park my truck outside all year round. Hopefully Orchard Ford can fix it later this week. I am sure it must be a seal or something that is allowing the water and snow into the lock. Unfortunately there is no manual keys function for the tailgate. This is a factory ordered F150 and I shall be very surprised if it was not designed to deal with the Canadian weather. Will let you know what happens.

 

Just seen this. Mine did the same thing last night. Today it works fine.

 

A similar thing happened to me the other day. At the hardware store, I tried to open the tailgate but it would not open. I tried several times, you could hear the regular "click" after hitting the button, but the tailgate would not budge. The weather outside was about 20 degF and it had snowed lightly during the night. I thought it might have been the seal of the tonneau cover that was froze to the tailgate.

I shoved my stuff into the back seat and went home. When I got there, the tailgate was open. Clearly this was disturbing since it didn't open when it should have, but did open when it shouldn't.

It hasn't happened again, and it has snowed a couple more times since. I'll keep an eye on this ...

 

With the number of posts lately about door locks not working when cold out and tailgate not opening, seats not heating etc I'm sure they didn't do much real winter testing.

 

When I lived up north...I found that five gallons of hot water would thaw about anything on a vehicle. Never cracked any glass either. Tap hot water....not boiling. The trick was to make sure it dried before re-freezing. M1911

 

Dried before re-freezing is the hard part... Dry heat while slower doesn't compound the problem.

 

Well ok, I sort of retract my previous statement. It snowed again today, and my truck sat outside in the driveway all day without moving. I tried to open the tailgate this afternoon, and it did the same thing, click but wouldn't budge, no matter how hard I pulled on it.

I took out a credit card, and slid it between the tonneau cover seal and the tailgate, and sure as ****, it opened. I guess I can deal with this, I can't blame Ford for this, maybe BAK industries, but I can deal with this.

 

Mine doesn't have a tonneau cover yet, and still stuck.....

 

next time you're "stuck" you can always open your zipper and **** on it might make you feel better and thaw it...
sorry to hear you guys are having trouble with that, sounds like a better seal somewhere should be part of the next TSB...

 

It is not my cover that is stuck, it is the white plastic lock device that is visible inside the tailgate under the pull out tailgate. Hot water of any kind will work but will cause it to refreez even more. it must be a default seal.