Garage door openers

"built in system"? Sheesh, what kinda fancy-pants cars you think I have?

My idea of built-in system is velcroing the remote in the Miata where the sun visor used to be.

Tim Baxter wrote: "built in system"? Sheesh, what kinda fancy-pants cars you think I have? My idea of built-in system is velcroing the remote in the Miata where the sun visor used to be.

I used to leave a remote in the miata, but I didn't always park that in the garage. It occured to me all someone would have to do us break into the miata, and then they could easily get into the garage. Doesn't help that I rarely lock the miata.

Joey

Before you replace it, did you take a look at it? I thought I was going to need a new opener as well... motor running netted no door movement... turned out the gears had stripped... after a quick online search, about $30 in parts and maybe a 1/2 of work, I have a working opener again... I was NOT looking forward to installing a new opener...

I had Overhead Door come out and look at it. Bad switch (NLA), bad belt and bad bearing. Total cost to repair would've exceeded cost of a new one, IF they could find a switch that would work, which they didn't think they could do with such an old opener. Screw it, get a new one.

If you have one installed now, that's half the battle. The brackets and electricity are already there. Regardless of type, make sure that you get one with rolling code technology and a keypad. I haven't used a door key in years!

Tim Baxter wrote: I had Overhead Door come out and look at it. Bad switch (NLA), bad belt and bad bearing. Total cost to repair would've exceeded cost of a new one, IF they could find a switch that would work, which they didn't think they could do with such an old opener. Screw it, get a new one.

Now what kind of GRM answer is that?

Seems really strange they can't find the switch... one of the limit switches, I'm guessing? I never even thought of calling someone to come look at it... figured, "how complicated can it be? a motor... some gears... a couple of limit switches and some wiring... I'll figure it out..." Maybe I got lucky... Oh well...

Sounds to me like they just want to sell you an opener and the installation... Of course, I have just about zero trust in contractors (deal with them every day for my job... )

Ian F wrote: Now what kind of GRM answer is that?

The kind you get when I've got better things to do than futz around with a garage door opener -- which I ended up doing anyway

They may have been trying to sell me one, but I don't really think so. They've been pretty good in the past, and I saw the look of "what kind of stone-age crap is this" on the guys face.

I bet if "Pops" had come out, he would have been able to rustle around in the back of his truck and dig out a NOS switch, but it's like anything else these days... if it's old, they wouldn't know what to do with it even if they wanted to.

And I figure at 30+ years old, it was probably going to go completely belly up pretty soon anyway.

I bet the new one doesn't make it that long, though.

May be true... and not being there to look at it, I can't rightly say... although for me, it is sometimes like working on cars: I'll often spend more on tools to do a project than it would cost to have someone else do it... but it's not always about the money... often it takes less time and is less aggravating to DIY than to try to pay someone else to do it...

Ian, Eventually, you'll get to a point where you don't have to go buy new tools to do a new project. Then the repair becomes very inexpensive. Plus doing it yourself means you can do it right and if it's screwed up, you know exactly who to blame.