I have a 3/4 HP sears on a 7' x16' door 4 yrs old and so far, no problems.
Mike

I have had nothing but problems with Sears units, zero with Genie.

Does a bear shat in the woods?

I have never had a Craftsman so I do not know the quality. I have had 3 Genies and after seeing them thrown under the bus wanted to relate how they handled a problem I had with one unit. I had a old unit and it was 6 or 7 years old. It stopped working so I called Genie customer service to help diagnose my problem. No receipt and out of warranty I just want to price the part to check against replacement. The customer rep diagnosed the problem as a bad main circuit board most likely cause by a surge. I knew that would be high. I asked how much and she said "I'll just send you a new one no charge." Whoa I thunk. Well not only did I get the new board but she sent it next day air to boot.

The Craftsman Garage Door Openers are the typical quality Sears has been delivering lately.....just like their mowers....low priced, mass market, minimal quality, junk....(in my opinion) Some Sears products still have the quality they had in the past but other lines suffer from the junk syndrome. Their walk behind mowers and their garage door openers could use some improvment.

I replaced a set of plastic gears in my 20 year old Craftsman last summer. No complaints.

When my Sears openers (2) stopped working I replaced them both with Genies. I love them both. My experience with the Sears units was once they stop working...throw them out because they are too expensive to replace. My Genies are pretty new so time will tell on reliability. And I agree, their customer service is outstanding (missing part in the box).

The Craftsman garage door opener that was in my place when I purchased it was probably 15-20 years old when it finally gave up the ghost last year. I replaced it with a Genie - no problems yet - but I'll never purchase a screw drive unit again (given the tremendous noise). I've heard good things about Chamberlain's units, from several people and seriously considered going with them.

From the number of questions about Craftsman Garage door openers that have been posted in this column, i'd say they are not of the best quality, and would never reccommend anybody buying them!
Rustyj

I have a 32 year old Genie and it has never had a problem. I just have to remember to lube the drive screw whenever it gets a little noisy.

Don't know anything about the newer Genies or Craftsman though.

Yes; after only 6 years openers drive and worm gear failed and was told they needed grease periodically. ( nothing in owner's manual about that). At seventy I have seen many openers that are much older and still going with just ordinary maintenance. (1/2 horse motor, single garage door and balanced).

rdaystrom,
post over in the workshop/garage forum. I was in there and found many gdo topics. So many they ought to rename it "GDO".

Peace

SEARS 1/2 Door Opener will not go down when
tempature is below 60 degrees worked fine for 4 years now can not use in cold weather.

Aquired Model # 139.53914 @ local estate sale. Everything but a wiring diagram. There are 4 quick connects on one side of the motor housing. One red, two whites, & one blue(?) just above the "Learn" button. I have six wires (two from the wall button, & two from each eye.) Anyone know the combination?
Thanks,
Richard

Lightning and other surges love to fry opener control circuitry, put your opener on a surge strip and it will last a lot longer.

Anybody want to chime in on this again? Its been awhile. I for one think my belt drive Crafstman GDOs are pretty crappy. They squeal when its humid out - not something I want to deal w/ for the 'quiet' selling point of a unit.

jopopsy your complaint is not normal. I suggest you perform maintenance on your door hardware.

I've oiled all the rails, all the guide wheels, and all the hinges. When I dis-engage the opener and just manually open/close the door, its quiet as a church mouse (well, almost). Its definitely coming from the opener - usually when humid or raining. Very weird, perhaps they have arthritus?

:P

does anyone know how to set up the security lights installed at the bottom of the door, i am having a devil of a time getting the door to close

Mount them both in-line and at the same height and pointed toward each other. On my opener one wire from each unit goes to each of two posts. In other words all 4 wires go to 2 posts. Mine is a Genie so that could be different on yours. If anything blocks the beam the door will reverse. Also there is a torque adjustment for closing that is unrelated to the beam sensor.

We had to have the garage door repaired. The Sears repairman told us that one of our problems was that we did not have a "large" enough motor on the opener. I thought for a minute, and said that we had the largest one Sears made at that time, a 1/2 horsepower. He shook his head and said, "Lady, you need a 1/4 horsepower." I responded that 1/2 was larger than 1/4. He said,

"NO, it's not. " Four is larger than two.."

We haven't used Sears repair since.

:)

jpopsy
Check the belt tension. Squealing is most likely a slipping belt.
I have an OverHead Door brand opener installed in 1963.Other than oiling chain and pulley bearings the only repairs consist of replacing the belt ($6.00) two years ago and replacing the remote control ($45.00) three years ago.

I have experience with Chamberlain and Genie, and I prefer Chamberlain (who builds Craftsman). The last two houses I have owned have had Chamberlain door openers in them, one chain drive, and my current house has two belt drive Chamberlains. I haven't had any problems with any of the Chamberlain units. My current ones are 2.5 years old, so I can't speak to longevity over that.

I rented a house with a Genie XCellerator for 1 year, and the opener itself worked OK, but the door was south facing, and the safety sensors would get washed out by direct sunlight causing the opener not to function. You would have to shield the sun from the exposed sensor to get the door to close. I tried to build a shade into the sensor to block direct sunlight, but it was only marginally effective. One of my Chamberlain units was also on a south facing door exposed to full sun, and I don't recall a single time in 2 years that the safety sensors had a sun blinding issue.

My father had a Genie Xcellerator that failed and had to be replaced. It was only about 2 years old at time of failure. So, I don't have an overall high opinion of recently built Genie openers.