• Welcome to For Trucks Only !

    We are a community of American Brand Pickup Truck and SUV owners. Join now! Its Free!

Never drive with your tailgate down again! New product just came out

Status
Not open for further replies.

Jacob Nawrocki

New Member
Joined
Dec 15, 2011
Messages
1
Reaction score
0
Location
Milwaukee WI
Contact seller
hey guys,

Just joined on here and I was seeing if you guys could give me feedback. I invented this product called TailgateSpotter. If you Love or Hate it please let me know I would love to hear what you think.

http://www.tailgatespotter.com

Long story short its to let you know when your tailgate is closed or open. Enjoy thanks for looking
 
No offence but that has to be one of the stupidest things I've seen for a truck . It'll probably sell good ! lol .... But I mean come on , if you drive a truck and you know how to drive then you know were your tailgate and the back of your truck is and if you don't then maybe you should'nt be driveing at all . And if you don't remember if your tailgate is up or down then try looking in your rear veiw mirror ( adjust down ) or out your back window . Like I said it will probably sell good . lol But thats just my two cents and you asked .
 
I agree with bear but so were truck nutz and look what happened there,it only took me one time to loose my tailgate [went muddin and tailgate came off] i never leave it open if i need it open i take it off.
 
Bear, I think its meant for trucks with some sort of cover or topper where you can't see it through the rear view. I agree though its a bit silly.
 
For the price and the availibility of your old lady to guide you to the trailer hitch I think it's worth the money. If you leave your tailgate down and drive off your just a big dummy.:ranger:
 
Wow, tough crowd.

I gotta agree with the majority opinion. Seems a bit silly.

The testimony on the webpage says a lot: distracted by cell phone. Here's an idea: how 'bout using common sense and not pick up the phone until the job is done or don't even get into the truck while you're still distracted.

As for backing up to a trailer there's a simple solution to that, too. Know how wide your truck is. Know how wide the trailer is. Chances are you've pulled it before. The decking on our car trailer is exactly as wide as my truck. Line up the sides of the deck with the sides of the truck and you're spot on with the hitch.

Come on! It's called being master of your vehicle. Does it rule you or do you rule it?
 
Don't even get me started on people who drive while there talking on there cell phone "rameth" . lol
 
Well I'll take the other road. If you have a roll top cover you can not see the tail gate at all! I have used an Agri Cover on every truck I've owned for the last 18 yrs. And yes I have left my tail gate down several times and had other drivers point it out to me. Maybe I'm just old but I do think there is a need for something like this. I know I came up with my own using a colorful zip tie.
 
Note: I review products and vendor documentation for a living. I also head the documentation process for my own internal engineering team. This is how I review things. Feel free to accept this as constructive feedback to help you improve your presentation. Before I get to my main comment, I have quite a few nits to pick with the website.

In general the website has a large number of spelling and grammatical errors. This makes the presentation seem less than professional. There are also some important questions that come to my mind with respect to the actual content.

First, one of the advertised benefits is that the driver will be able to "back up straight". How does this help with reversing? The only way I can figure is that presumably the driver would position the flag in the center of the tailgate? Can't you already see the center of your truck in the rearview? I mean, even if there is a cover you can tell where the center is. How does this help?

Second, there are literally tens of millions of pickups on the road. The website contains one broken embedded video and all of _2_ articles about debris falling from trucks. Of those two, the first one is a tire that fell from a flat bed. How does this article support the case of needing to know the position of ones tailgate? For all the hundreds of millions of miles pickups are driven on our roads each year, we have as evidence of this problem one anecdote from the seller and one news story wherein it is not stated if the root cause was the driver not knowing his tailgate was down. How do we know this was the case? How do we know the tailgate didn't have a latch that failed when the mower rolled into it? Worn latches mechanisms can allow a tailgate to be jarred open despite the best intention of the driver. On another page, you have one testimonial in which the author says the same thing.
My tailgate has fallen once who is to say it would not happen again.
Interestingly, in a post on a site called "quora", you yourself say that your "tailgate opened up" in the cabinet incident.
LINK: What was the most inspiring risk you ever took? - Quora

Third, I admit I didn't watch the ad videos, but one of them appears to be captioned "#1 rated Truck accessorie" spelling aside, where is the claim substantiated? Was this device really rated as a better (in ANY category) accessory than a tonneau cover, side steps, fog lights, LED light conversions, marker lights, towing mirrors, GPS mounts, winches, or backup cameras? If so, by whom? I do see similar text on the main page surrounded by asterisks (*) and followed by the name of a guy who appears to be a venture capitalist of some sort. The phrase isn't in quotation marks. Is it supposed to be a quote from this person? Is he funding the development of the device? I don't find any reference to him as an authority on truck accessories or any link to the quote in context. If he has a capital interest in the device, then this should be disclosed because it means his opinion is of little (if any) value.

On the FAQ page:
  • You probably mean a "rare earth" (neodymium) magnet
  • 450 miles? I drive my truck more miles than that in a week. This is not an impressive number of test miles. For a product that appears to have been in development for 3 or 4 years (testimonial indicates you demonstrated the device to the author in December of at latest 2011), I'm having a real hard time taking this "testing" statement seriously.
  • I don't think there's any question that the attachment will work in various temperatures. The question is, what about various terrain? Did you drive in rugged terrain or on the highway? What about rugged terrain with the tailgate down?
  • Paint can be damaged even without metal-to-metal contact. For example, dust collecting between the device and the paint can RUIN the finish. Ask anybody who has used a magnet mounted antenna.
  • If the security hook only works when the tailgate is closed, couldn't someone simply open the tailgate to steal the device? Many trucks (most?) have tailgates without integrated locking systems.
  • Car washes have been known to rip all manner of accessories from vehicles. Many (most?) car washes have signage specifically stating this. It is probably not a good idea to advise the user to leave the device in place when the car wash will almost certainly advise the opposite. If the user takes your advice over that of the car wash, who is responsible for damage to the next car that comes through the car wash? Also, if you have no bed cover, the device is mounted vertically and the attachment is a simple magnet, _HOW_ does the device stay in place in a car wash? Is your statement still true when mounted vertically with no bed cover?
  • Does your guarantee against defect cover damages including potential damage to paint finish from dust collecting on the device and rubbing against the paint work? Does it cover the car wash scenario? $2.99 doesn't go far in either of those situations.


Ok... Problems with the the website aside...

I'm having trouble reconciling this device with my own experience. Having said that, the rest of this comment accepts the premise that there is a valid use case for some kind of "I didn't mean to leave my tailgate down" warning system or that, generally speaking, driving with your tailgate down is a bad thing.

If the driver didn't check the tailgate, how do you suppose he will remember to check his tailgate flag? This is a passive system. If you _really_ wanted to make sure that you always knew your tailgate was closed before you drove off, you could add a door switch to the tailgate and connect it to your seatbelt warning light. You could wire it as a starter safety like the park/neutral safety on the auto trans. You could add a buzzer under the dash that sounds when you put the truck in gear. There could be any number of ways to provide the driver with an active alert - one not likely, or even impossible to ignore.

I dunno... If a person were too distracted to check your tailgate, would they remember to check for the little flag? I mean, over the several thousand times they drive their truck? I think if a person will take one thing for granted, they will take another. I think this just moves the problem around. If you accept the premise that this is a problem that needs solving, you can almost certainly get to a more robust solution fairly quickly.
 
Last edited:
I was thinking the same thing like a warning buzzer of sorts activated by a door switch for your courtesy light in your cab, just a simple little fix. Everything you said was spot on, as for the car wash If I go through one I always take off my antenna mast. The phone thing get an ear piece, a lot of states have a hands free only law. Me myself I have mine linked to media system so I can just use voice command it's a lot easier. I have found that most people can't multi task but, they think they can and that is this persons problem.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top