Reliability questionable
Written: Jan 15 '06
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Relatively low price
Cons: Very poor reliability
The Bottom Line: Not recommended due to very poor reliability and a suspect design.
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| esscargo55's Full Review: Genie Chain Glide Garage Door Opener GCG350L |
This unit was purchased new from my local Home Depot and installed in Summer 2003 on a single-bay 8-ft. tall steel sectional door. Adjacent to it I have an identical door except it is two-bay. The adjacent two-bay door has an Alister traditional (looped) chain drive opener that has never required service in the 14 years I have owned this home – it is a total of 18 years old. Both doors are equipped with flat rubber weatherstrip that surrounds and seals the door at the face on the top and sides when the door is in the closed position.
These doors are both perfectly balanced and well lubricated, and I can manually open and close either with force applied through two fingers of my hand.
I mainly bought the Genie Chain Glide unit due to its’ easy availability and the assumed durability represented by the Genie name. The low Home Depot price also helped in my decision making. I am a degreed engineer by training, so by following the clear Genie instructions, I found installation for me was not difficult and took about a total of 8 hours. (This included mounting brackets for the drive unit on a finished ceiling and front wall – due to this being a new installation on a door that had never had an opener).
The Chain Glide unit is designed to operate by enclosing the drive chain in an sectional extruded aluminum rail (in my case I had to buy a Genie extension kit to extend the rail approximately one additional foot to accommodate my 8 ft. door). This protects the chain from dirt, and also allows the chain to operate in both tension and compression. When raising the door, the chain is in tension as the drive unit “pulls” the chain into the housing; when the door is lowered, the chain is in compression as the chain is “pushed” out into the guide rail to lower the door. When the door is opened, the chain is drawn into the power unit housing and stored in serpentine channels molded into a plastic block. Initially, I was impressed with this seemingly clever design.
After installation and adjustment of rail-mounted limit switches and opening and closing force per the user instructions, the unit was placed into normal daily operation. It was probably opened and closed 3-4 times on most days. After about 15 months operation (Fall 2004), the unit’s drive mechanism failed. Removal of the drive unit housing and close inspection revealed a crack in the drive gear housing near where the motor shaft enters the plastic housing. After calling the Genie customer service hotline, they indicated this breakdown would be covered under the standard 3-year motor warranty (parts, not labor); and indicated they would send out a new drive unit and also a postpaid mailer to return the old drive unit.
A few days later the new drive unit arrived. I uninstalled the opener from the garage ceiling and moved the aluminum guide rail and limit switch hardware from the old unit to the new unit. I reinstalled the unit and made all necessary adjustments per the original installation. I retested the unit and made sure that that door could be opened and closed easily by hand (two fingers), even with the Genie door bracket sliding along (but disconnected from - by use of the emergency release cord) the guide rail. I did not receive any return mailer – calls at that point to Genie indicated I should just go ahead and toss the failed unit in the trash instead of returning it.
After this replacement, my Genie Chain Glide accomplished another nearly 12 months of normal operation. During this time, I was closely monitoring the unit to detect any signs of excessive motor strain or other mechanical problems, as I wanted to avoid any more breakdowns. Manual testing indicated the door was still perfectly balanced and could still be opened and closed using my “two fingers on the handle” test. As weeks went by and Fall turned into early Winter, the unit started acting up again. Occasionally the unit would make noise that sounded like the chain drive was straining and even skipping. I stopped using the unit and called the Genie customer hotline for advice. The said as long as the door opened and closed to keep using it. “If the closing force did not exceed the limits designed into the self-protective reversing mechanism, the unit was built to handle it.” I did not really trust this advice, so I continued to see if I could do anything with my garage door to make it work smoother and easier with the Genie unit. My close observations did reveal that the weatherstrip on the outside face of the door (sides and top) did present some level of added static friction as the door moved into its’ final inch or so of travel into the closed position. After considering this problem, I decided to clean the weatherstrip and spray it down with a dry lubricant (teflon/PTFE spray) purchased for about $4 from Home Depot. This did reduce the static friction at this closed position.
A few more weeks went by with reduced noise and less apparent strain, then suddenly returned. Close inspection of my Chain Glide unit at this point revealed that the drive housing was cracked in almost precisely the same location as the first failed unit. A call to Genie customer service indicated that the unit would still be covered by the three-year warranty and the drive unit parts would be replaced again at no charge. I told them I did not want to replace the unit again as the design seemed to be flawed. (I did not see any logical end to this pattern of failure and replacement until the warranty expired.) I suggested they might consider refunding my purchase price based on a pro-rata portion of either
(a) the expected life of the unit (they said 7 years was a normal expected life) or
(b) at least over the portion of the unused 3-year motor warranty (less than one year at that point).
The phone rep indicated my only recourse was to accept another replacement drive unit and install it myself as before. I refused and told him I was going to remove the Genie Chain Glide from my home and install a different brand.
A few weeks later I purchased a Chamberlain screw drive unit at my local Costco and installed it in January 2006. The unit works perfectly and has no evidence whatsoever of any strain or effort during door closing or opening. (The Genie unit guide rail always “bowed” and flexed somewhat when applying the force to “push” the door closed – the Chamberlain screw drive unit never does this due to the smooth screw mechanism and fact that the screw dynamically behaves the same whether in compression or tension).
When discussing the second failure on the phone, the Genie rep claimed the Chain Glide units have no pattern of questionable reliability. However, I note they are no longer sold at my local Home Depot, and the weblinks from the Genie website to Home Depot, Lowes and Ace show no Chain Glide units are available from any of those stores. Calls to my local Ace and Lowes also indicated they no longer carry the Chain Glide line, but do carry other types of Genie openers.
Overall I was very disappointed with this "high tech" Chain Glide unit, especially in comparison to my generic-brand "low tech" traditional looped chain unit that has been running strong for more than 18 years on a larger, heavier door.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
esscargo55
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Location: DuPage County, IL
Reviews written: 3
Trusted by: 0 members
About Me:
Homeowner 20 years (2nd home), married 22 years, 2 teenagers.
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