Walk into any upfitter and ask for a lift gate and you will get pointed at whatever model has the best dealer margin that month. That gate might be twice the capacity you actually need, half the capacity you actually need, or completely the wrong style for the bed it's about to be bolted to. We see all three at least once a week, usually after the fact, usually with a frustrated owner who paid for a brand-name solution that doesn't fit his job.
Start with the load, not the brand
Before you talk brands or models, sit down with a coffee and answer two questions honestly. Not optimistically, not how you'd like it to be — honestly.
- What is the single heaviest thing you will load on this gate in a year? Not the average. The peak.
- What is the largest footprint you need to lift? A pallet? A 4x8 sheet of plywood? A riding mower?
Those two numbers determine capacity and platform size. Everything else — power source, stow style, brand — is downstream of them. If a salesman starts you on brand before he asks you those two questions, you're in the wrong showroom.
The three brands worth your time
Tommy Gate (G2 Series and Railgate)
The default choice for most service bodies, and for good reason. The G2 hides flush against the rear of the bed when it's stowed, which preserves your departure angle on a steep driveway and your resale value at trade-in. Capacities run from 1,300 to 3,500 pounds, which covers about ninety percent of the trades we build for. We install more Tommy Gates than every other brand combined.
Maxon
The workhorse for heavier commercial duty. If you're routinely loading 3,000 pounds or pallet-sized footprints, Maxon's tuck-under platforms are built for the abuse and the long duty cycles. Slightly more money up front, dramatically more capacity headroom, and the parts availability is excellent in any region with real industrial activity.
Anthony Liftgates
Where Anthony shines is rail-style gates on box trucks and the very heavy applications — 4,000 pounds and up, every single day. Less common on a pickup-chassis service body, but if you're hauling that kind of weight regularly, this is the conversation to have.
The integration mistake that costs people thousands
Bolting a lift gate onto a stock pickup bed without reinforcing the rear sub-frame is the single most common — and the single most expensive — mistake we end up fixing. It looks fine the day it leaves the upfitter. Eighteen months in, you start to see frame flex. Two years in, the welds at the rear cross member crack. Three years in, the gate no longer sits level and the bed has a permanent slight bow you can see in a parking lot reflection. The trade-in value of that truck just dropped four to six thousand dollars, because the next buyer can read the damage on sight.
Every gate we install gets a properly reinforced rear sub-frame as a standard, not as an upcharge. It is not negotiable in our shop. Doing it right the first time is free compared to doing it wrong, and it's the only way the manufacturer's capacity rating is actually honest.
"The gate I had before was rated for what I lift, but the bed underneath it wasn't ready for the abuse. Alumbody rebuilt the back end and the new gate has been bulletproof for four years now. Should have done it from day one."
— Dave T., landscape contractor
Capacity ratings you can actually trust
Manufacturer capacity ratings assume a static, evenly distributed load on a perfectly level surface, lifted slowly, with no horizontal force. Real life is a guy standing on the platform with a riding mower while the truck is parked on a slight grade and the wind is pushing him sideways. We size gates to the real-world load plus twenty-five percent, and we test every install with calibrated weight before the truck leaves the floor. If you want the actual numbers, ask — we'll show you the test sheet.
