Garage Door Motors- Is it time to repair or replace your motor?

A faulty sectional door opener or roller door opener is not just an inconvenience but a likely safety issue for you and your family. At Dynasty Garage Doors we assist our customer repair and replace a wide range of garage door openers and garage door motors.

Once one of our expert team members diagnoses the problem, our clients are often left with a decision to make. Do they get their current sectional or roller door motor repaired or do they ask us to replace it with a new quality garage door opener?

Often, this decision is not an easy one to make. Although repairing your garage door motor may be less expensive, the long-term running costs of that garage door opener may be significantly more expensive. At Dynasty Garage Doors, we provide our clients with all the facts and likely scenarios of either decision.

The fundamental question – What caused the damage?

Reputable garage door motor manufacturers use parts rated to handle the loads and stresses of standard operating conditions. When one of these components fails, simply replacing it seems to be the logical solution, and a practice most commonly used within the garage door industry.

However, on many occasions the damaged caused to a garage door motor is the direct result of a malfunction or damage to a separate component of the garage door opener.

As an example, it is standard practice within the garage door industry to replace broken drive gears. On the surface this would appear to be a perfectly logical solution. Unfortunately, this easy fix often masks the real cause of the damage. Drive gear damage is often caused by failing limit switches or malfunctioning circuit boards. The excessive loads placed on the drive gear mechanism due to other damaged garage door motor parts is the most common cause of these drive gear failures.

Causes of Garage Door Motor Issues

Natural corrosion and weathering is another root cause of garage door motor failures. Many garage door motors rely on limit switches to stop the drive mechanism at the open and close points of the garage door. When these limit switches become corroded their operation can be significantly compromised to the point where it becomes impossible to control the exact closing and opening limits.

Similarly, corrosion to the circuit board, which is the brain of the garage door motor, can cause numerous operating issues. Much like we rely on a healthy brain to function normally, the garage door motor relies on a functioning circuit board (control board) to control all aspects of its operation. Although a failing circuit board presents as an obvious operating issue, this is not always the case. Memory issues on the circuit board can cause it to forget limits, power settings, coded remotes and other key functions.

All of these components are intrinsically linked and can impact one or the other. Replacing one component will not always fix the real underlying issue. The cost of replacing all of these components will more often than not exceed the cost of replacing the entire garage door motor.

Repairing garage door motors can quite quickly become a short-term fix ‘v’ long term costs equation that is worthy of serious consideration. Fundamentally, unless a repair to your garage door motor is guaranteed to work for a significant amount of time and warrants the possibilities of other component failures, then the net repair costs and inconvenience are likely to rise over time.

Do we repair or replace?

At Dynasty Garage Doors we source, supply and install the industries best garage door openers and motors. We only install motors with genuine long-term manufacturer backed warranties and industry backed extended warranties. When choosing your garage door motor, quality needs to be proven. Read our blog to learn more about how to tell if the garage door motor brand is legitimate.

If you would like to repair or replace your garage door motor or opener, or if you would like further information about our product range or service, call us today.

You can find our range of roller door motors and sectional door motors on our webpage.