2007 Tundra will not start with tailgate down

I had an issue a while back when running some brush down to a burn pile near my house. I was transferring the brush with the tailgate down. I made a couple of trips and then on the third trip the truck would not start. Never had that problem before or after. I got a neighbor to tow me home. After looking the truck over and finding nothing wrong the idea of the tailgate being down causing the problem crossed my mind. I closed it and tried again and wha-lah the truck started. My question then would be, how can I disable this feature. This is a 2007 double cab. There have been many times that I needed to haul something that I needed to lay the tailgate down for so I would like to get rid of this feature. Any thoughts from the people who know??? thanks

 

It's not a feature. That's not normal.

My best guess (worth very little) would be that you have a loose electrical connection that happened to cause the issue, and when you closed the tailgate it jiggled back into place. Check your battery cables and such to see if something is just loose enough to have intermittent issues.

 

Have you been able to repeat the truck not starting with the tailgate down? Or does it now start no matter what? If it starts now, no matter what, the tailgate down was just a happenstance and most likely did not contribute to the truck not starting. If you are able to repeat the scenario then I'd look at a short or pinched wire that is pulling or hitting when the tailgate is open.

 

The word is coincidence unless there is some non-oem wiring and pin switch or mercury switch on the tailgate. Now, to find out why it really didn’t start…

Did it click, or crank, or nothing at all when the key was turned to start?

 

Ok, first off thanks for all your replies. I have not tried to leave the tailgate down and drive since that one time because I was thinking that should the truck shut down while driving, I would not be able to steer it or have brakes to stop in a hurry, well that is beside the parking brake. I have never had the problem again and it has been nearly 10 months to a year since this happened. No problems with battery connections. When this happened it just cranked and did not fire like it was not getting juice to the ignition system but once I closed the tailgate it fired right up like always. Since then I have thought there was a switch somewhere in the tailgate latch or lock but since you guys say it doesn't have one then once again I'm back to "I dunno."

 

Let me ask do you have a after back up camera in the tail gate handle?

if you do there's probably a short in the harness where it folds and is causing a back feed making the truck think its not in (park or Neutral) which would cause a no start due to safety.

 

Howdy, there are no cameras on the truck and no additional alarm systems as well. Do you guys know if there is any wiring at all in the tailgate? I did replace some plastic clips behind the latch once but I do not recall any kind of wires in that area. I may go ahead and leave the tailgate down for a while and see if it happens again. There have been many times when leaving it down would have helped me do things without pulling a trailer.

 

If you don't have the camera, there shouldn't be any wires going in there.

 

Years ago I had a S-10 that would just shut off the engine at the worst times. Engine would crank but not engage. Stranded me once on the side of the road, called tow truck they said lets try it one more time before they hooked up and lo and behold it started. Long story short, it was the Throttle position sensor going bad. It would cut out completely and stop gas from going to engine, or even more scary it would fault out to the max...wide open throttle. It failed multiple times to the point I kept an extra sensor and a t15 torx in the glovebox to change it out.
It was an intermittent issue that took several times before they were able to pinpoint the problem.
Most likely you had a loose connection somewhere that got shook back together when it was towed by your neighbor. Leave the tailgate down and see if you can recreate, but I doubt you will see the problem again.
Goodluck!

 

You can check with the tail gate down along the crack if theres no wires there no wires. Other spot would behind the the drivers side tail light where the EZ down strut is located. If nothing is pinched then it should be 100% a coincidence of the tail gate. Have you been able to recreate the no start with the tail gate down?