Tom HAYDEN

iTrader: (1)

Antho what BCM bit are you changing to activate this?

gopherman

I'm glad to see the PID wasn't completely removed from the firmware. I'm also surprised it still exists in years 2017-2018. I never looked into it even though I meant to, but am thankful you did! I won't be making any programming changes as I'm in the middle of arbitration on mine, but glad to see someone put in the effort to find the PID and test. It may help a few 2016 owners that had theirs disabled.

antho

726-67-02 x1xx xxxx xxxx

antho

Unfortunately it doesn't look like the 2016 is as easy as this. This should only work on 2017-2018. There are some other folks looking into but there isn't a designated thread pertaining to it.

KG7BTU

Antho, is the factory sensor in the tailgate release mechanism? I'm guessing I don't have the right hardware in the '15 XLT, but maybe I can retrofit and hook it up to my own alarm.

antho

Originally it was but I can't track down the part number nor do I want to waste time with something that apparently didn't work well. I'm just going to add a reed switch.

rliles1

I used to tow a car behind a motorhome using surge brakes. When I activated the motorhome brakes, the car's brakes were SUPPOSED to activate also. However, I wanted to know for sure when the car's brakes were activated. If I was driving down a long mountain slope in 3rd gear, I didn't want the car's brakes to be activated with me unaware. What I did, and it worked like a charm, was to tap into a switched hot wire under the motorhome's dash, and ran that wire to an LED light I installed in the motorhome dashboard. I then ran the ground wire for the LED light to the rear of the motorhome to a connector. The other side of the connector then went to ground. I ran a pair of wires on the car from a matching connector back to the rear and hooked them to a 12v normally open relay. I used the car's third brake light to activate the relay. Whenever the car's actual brakes were activated, the light on my motorhome dash would illuminate.

You can do the same thing, only replace the connector at the rear of the motorhome with a contact switch at the tailgate. You can optionally add a buzzer for an audible warning, and/or a toggle switch to disable the warning if you are intentionally driving with the tailgate down.

I don't have a dog in this fight as I have an XLT so I don't have a FOB tailgate release. Also, I have a cap on my bed that has a lip that comes down over the back of the tailgate, so if it were to come loose, it could not open without lifting the cap door first. I just thought my brake indicator solution could be applied here and would not need access to BCMs or TCMs or any other CMs.

SCrewYou

do you not look in your rearview mirror while driving?

KG7BTU

Do you not read a thread before posting condescending posts?

SCrewYou

sure did, did you not read my sig? i have a tonneau and can still tell if my tailgate is down. if you cant see it in the mirror youll see it in the backup camera.