What is a Heavy Duty Tailgate Cap? Do I Need One?

If you use your Tundra to haul anything longer than your bed, a heavy duty tailgate cap is cheap insurance.

The OEM tailgate cap is nothing more than plastic trim. It’s flimsy, deteriorates quickly and won’t protect your tailgate from much at all. Anything heavier than a few 2×4’s resting your tailgate, a couple big potholes or speed bumps later and you could end up with some significant damage.

If you use your 2014-2021 Tundra to pick up pallets and/or load cargo with forklifts, this cap will save your tailgate from damage like seen below.

We use the Tundra for all production and hauling all kinds of loads. With only a 5.5ft short bed, we haul with the tailgate down 90% of the time. The tailgate gets hit by forklifts and gets heavy pallets dragged over it all the time. 4 years later, zero issue.

There isn’t much you can do to repair your tailgate once it gets to this point, you’ll likely need to replace it entirely. Even used tailgates are very expensive nowadays, if you can find one in good condition with matching paint.

A heavy duty tailgate cap would have 100% prevented this

The Heavy Duty Tailgate Cap does more than protect the top of the tailgate. It also adds 2 tie down points, to the tailgate. Each Heavy Duty Tailgate Cap includes 2 stainless steel tie down loops, which are great for securing lumber, pipes, tubing or anything that is too long to completely fit inside the bed. The tie down loops are particularly useful for those who haul motorcycles, ATV’s, lawnmowers etc.

We use them to strap down loading ramps when loading and unloading motorcycles. You should always run at least 1 tie-down strap when loading and unloading motorcycle, this tailgate cap provides 2 extra tie down points in the perfect location to keep that ramp from slipping off and causing some serious damage. This is a must if you’re loading/unloading bikes by yourself.

The extra tie down loops are also great for keeping loads from sliding around the top of your tailgate.

If you use your 2014-2021 Tundra to haul anything, you will benefit greatly from this Heavy Duty Tailgate Cap.

Simply put, you can get one now and prevent the damage or wait until the damage is done and spend a lot more.