I think my first question would be why is it cracking, and where is it cracking. Top Section, center? Steel garage doors can be painted, after a good cleaning, with a GOOD quality latex paint. If your opener is working well.. then yes you can replace just the door and keep the existing op. Might be a little difficult to diagnose whether an op is "about to go". For me, it would depend on how it has been running, the name brand and the age of the opener. The co. I work for sells a few different brands of openers(including our own brand) and I service all of them plus one's we don't sell. I get the fewest service calls on Liftmaster Ops. NO, I do not work for Liftmaster, but I do have one in my garage :)

Thanks, My3dogs. As I recall, the decals or paint or whatever makes the design is on the inside of the glass, somehow. Not the inside of the garage, but actually inside the window--maybe between two panes of glass? Oddly enough, my mom just bought a house around the corner that has the same weird thing on an exterior door. Even though it looks like a single pane of glass, there is a dragon (!) somehow in the glass although you cannot feel it or find anything to scrape or peel off on either side. Before she bought the house I saw the dragon and thought "oh, some kid put a decal on this window, I'll peel that off for mom before she moves in". Then I set about trying to do it and ???? cannot even figure out how it is in there!

Depending on layout and available space, one may need to opt for one or other option. I remember always wanting a home with side entry garages but due to lack of space on the left, ended up building front entry snout garages in our home in NJ. Subsequently I initially designed our next home in PNW with side garages but so glad I did not entirely pursue that dream. Main two double garages with two 18' glass/aluminium doors will flank front left with an additional side entrance double garage with 40' of hard standing, for my hobbies etc. Coming home late in the evening on a dark rainy night in the PNW, the last thing one would want is try to negotiate a 90degree turn in a large suv; sure I would do it but probably drive my DW mad.

My door got trimmed a bit to fit and get rid of some dings so the hinge mortises got trimmed off. Procrastinator that I am, I never got around to putting the pull hardware on and just used the hole left from the knob. There was a recessed cup pull I had my eye on to use though. It would have completely taken care of my knob hole. It would depend on what type of knob and lock set was on your door. One edge on each door will probably never be seen anyway once the trim is on.