Any experience with claiming on warranty for B & D garage door?

[Hills Mum Bec]

Does anyone have any experience claiming repairs on warranty from B & D garage doors?  Ours is 4 years old & the motor has just stopped working, I'm guessing some kind of electrical fault.  Our safety switch tripped & the powers of deduction found the roller door motor to be the cause, tried the lead in another power point & it tripped the switch again.  The motor has a 5 year warranty but when I looked at the warranty details it said that the door must be serviced by B & D annually or the warranty may be void.  We built our house 4 years ago & nothing was ever said to us at hand over about having to have the door serviced, we have never had any problems with it, my husband keeps the tracks clean & lubricated & that's about it, no B & D services.

I will give B & D a call tomorrow but was just wondering what to expect & if I'm going to have a fight on my hands to get this fixed under warranty or if I should just suck it up & not waste my time because we didn't follow the warranty guidelines.

[Wuzgonna]

If they give you a hard time, Mention the ACCC. Tell B and D that a fair and reasonable warranty applies and you feel it should be covered.


Bugger ?

[willow2093]

Speak to them first. Tell them about not being advised about yearly servicing. Tell them what servicing your hubby does. If you go in like a cyclone you will not get anywhere.
Advise them that you think it may be electrical. Look they may send out a tech to have a look at it.
If no luck there. You can contact your states, office of fair trading or other name for the dept is consumer affairs.
Australian Consumer Law is pretty strict on traders. It is protects the consumer in these situations.
ACCC will not be able to help as they go after the big fish in the corporate world. The computer and tablet people, telco providers, and recently solar providers.

Sent from my GT-I9305T using Tapatalk

[Dingo0163]

When you moved into your new house , did you find the manuals for your stove , heating/ cooling , roller door alarm if fitted etc. They are usually left in a kitchen draw. The warranties that you fill out and send away should have been with them. If the warranty for the door was not with them you might have a case against the builder. Either way , I hope you get the result you want. Good luck. 

[Hills Mum Bec]

When you moved into your new house , did you find the manuals for your stove , heating/ cooling , roller door alarm if fitted etc. They are usually left in a kitchen draw. The warranties that you fill out and send away should have been with them. If the warranty for the door was not with them you might have a case against the builder. Either way , I hope you get the result you want. Good luck. 

We have a folder with all the user manuals in it that the builder gave us.  It contains a user manual for the door that has details about the warranty on the back page, nothing to send back to B & D.

[MarDon]

So not about our motor but still our garage door.

Also tried to get warranty on our garage door years ago when the safety feature of it returning up if it hits something on the way down didn't work. Result being a buckled panel. We also were told that the warranty only applies if we have had annual servicing.    This was the first we'd heard of this! Anyway, shook our heads and simply claimed it on our own insurance. Had the whole door replaced, not just the one buckled panel, and even upgraded the style. All approved by the assessor.  We do occasionally make a fuss, but we pick our battles depending on how much time and energy we feel like putting in at the time.

If all these garage doors are being serviced annually, wouldn't you see a lot more doors actually being serviced. The only time I've ever noticed someone working on a garage door, even just thinking  about my own area, is when one is being installed on a new built or maybe a repair (almost never)! I can't think of one person that has this warranty servicing done annually.

Good luck.

[chester ver2.0]

Before you bother with a claim pull the motor down crack the case open and blow out the 4 years of dust that will be in there

Did this to ours in melbourne and away she went again no worries

[Jeepers Creepers]

Expect a few ups and downs and good luck.

[Variflex]

Before discussing warranty and advising of the fault I would simply give them a call and enquire on what they do during a a service, basically to establish if the failure is a result of the service being performed or it, if they do not touch the motor during the service then there is no way that not having the service completed could have caused the failure,

Most companies these days are pretty good with their warranties and are not out to avoid covering legitimate claims, as mentioned previously do call them firing up or mentioning ACCC etc, it won't get you anywhere

[D4D]

The motor is a non-serviceable part and typically not from B&D, usually from Merlin. The annual service is to check the door tension, lubricate, check open/close levels etc. The newer DC motor based openers only get about 5 years on average. Find a local roller door guy and get him to quote a rip and replace otherwise if you're handy Bunnos sell them for DIY.

[doogs01]

Having been in the garage door game in the past I can tell you that the 5 year warranty only covers the motor only, not the the control board which in about 99% of cases is the culprit. Geckos being fried to the board is a good example. I agree with D4D to just replace it. The cost of a new PC board plus labour would be around $300. The cost of a complete replacement is around $400. I highly recommend a Merlin operator. They are the best on the market at the moment. You should get at least 10-12 years use from it. When the guy installs the new motor he will service the door as well to ensure the operator works efficiently.
Cheers Garry

[Hills Mum Bec]

Well they ended up palming me off to a local distributor because we are outside the metro area & they wouldn't be able to get one of their own service guys to come out for weeks.  The local guy came out today but he has no idea what is wrong with it, said that it's likely the motor is gone & will need to be replaced under warranty & will let B & D know.  Now we have to wait for B & D to contact us ... I can see this is going to drag on.

[Mallory Black]

Great topic
our  B & D Panel lift has just started playing up after 5 yrs, one of the counterbalance wires has frayed and now lost it's tension so the door now is starting to skew
Is that a reasonable expectation of it's life? 

[prodigyrf]

Great topic
our  B & D Panel lift has just started playing up after 5 yrs, one of the counterbalance wires has frayed and now lost it's tension so the door now is starting to skew
Is that a reasonable expectation of it's life?

No it needs immediate attention so you don't distort the door permanently and the OP mentions her husband regularly 'lubricates' the B&D door. If it's a roller door you definitely shouldn't lubricate the guide tracks because they rely on the dry nylon braid stapled to the door panelling for easy movement. If your roller door doesn't go up and down smoothly then it needs servicing and often resetting the spring tension and perhaps levelling the roll mount if say one side bracket has sagged.

The motors are generally long lived provided the door apron is adjusted properly and smooth in its action but unfortunately many owners ignore tell tale signs and continue using them until the motor burns out prematurely. There is another factor at play here and it's a question of whether a commercial grade door and motor would be more suitable but everyone is price conscious these days and so they are rarely fitted to homes when their height and width, relevant to location and prevailing wind speed probably demands them. In the final analysis these are electro-mechanical wear items and it's a lot like your tug and camper in that regard where a stitch in time saves nine.

[prodigyrf]

I should add that with electric roller doors owners are often oblivious to a problem with their door action. While lack of smooth operation (ie jerky action) should be an obvious warning, motorised action can disguise improper spring tension and then the motor is working hard. How so? Well when your door is first installed the axle must naturally be level and the guides perpendicular to start with and I must say that can depend on the care of the installer. Then the spring is tensioned so that the apron needs pulling down to a point beyond half way where the door begins to roll gently to the bottom almost of its own accord. You are after all increasing the weight of apron acting on the coil spring although it's getting stiffer.

Problem is the spring has an initial takeup after that and usually feels weaker after a few months of use and needs re-tensioning, lest the motor works harder than it should. That's what servicing is about but alas it's a lot like a young Prodigy and his first Jayco when the winch system was a complete mystery behind the furniture for years, but fortunately no dramas before some villain purloined it. I know better now and you should too with your electric roller doors. Release the motor occasionally and test it by hand to see if it operates as I've described and if in doubt call a service guy.

A WARNING here. Do not release those axle u-bolts unless you know exactly why, how and what you're doing.

[D4D]

A WARNING here. Do not release those axle u-bolts unless you know exactly why, how and what you're doing.

I've had a spring let go on a panel lift door, fark me I thought I bomb went off.

[oldmate]

I've had a spring let go on a panel lift door, fark me I thought I bomb went off.

Yeah and on a roller door it's one way to get smashed in the head and knocked flying off your door quick smart

[MADCOW]

The motor is a non-serviceable part and typically not from B&D, usually from Merlin. The annual service is to check the door tension, lubricate, check open/close levels etc. The newer DC motor based openers only get about 5 years on average. Find a local roller door guy and get him to quote a rip and replace otherwise if you're handy Bunnos sell them for DIY.

I'd second! i have A CAD 4 motor on mine and only ever had issues with the drive cog on top that drives the chain. Only had to replace 1 in the past 11 years due to a poor design

[Mallory Black]

Thanks for the tips
till that wire started to fray it's been a picture of reliability
I've hit up one of my old pals from my property management days for a referral of a reliable B & D man to come fix the thing