Wayne-Dalton IDrive Garage Door Opener



Question:
We have had a Wayne-Dalton "iDrive for torsion springs" opener for a little over three years. We had problems with it initially, but W-D sent a replacement controller board and light unit. Other than the unit having forgotten its settings a couple of times and having to be "re-trained," it's worked OK. Right before Christmas it started giving trouble, first merely buzzing without moving the door, later starting to move the door but then making a "ratcheting" noise without moving the door any further. Had somebody come and check out the door today. He said it was not significantly out of balance (but he adjusted one spring by half a turn anyway) but said the opener appeared to have stripped the gears. This afternoon went to a "real garage door company" to look at new garage doors (the old one is wooden and getting waterlogged). While I was there I heard somebody mention the word "iDrive" in deprecatory tone of voice. It turned out that this was somebody from the Wayne-Dalton distributorship, and he told me that even they try to steer people away from the iDrive. I'm going to see if I can get the iDrive replaced under the 5-year warranty and use it with the new garage door that we probably will buy soon. Otherwise this was a $250+ lesson on the perils of buying fancy new technology.

Answer:
The guy from the distributorship said that W-D has sometimes simply shipped people new units, but I haven't quite figured out how to take advantage of that. The warranty info. in the owner's guide says that warranty claims must be made *in writing to the dealer*; the store where I bought it no longer deals with W-D; one of the nearby places listed on the W-D Web site as handling the iDrive is in the process of being taken over and doesn't know which end is up; another said that since they didn't install it I'd have to pay their labor charge to take it down and examine it. W-D is closed this week. I downloaded the service manual for the iDrive, but only a few parts are listed as replacements. The worm gear looks as though it's integral with the motor shaft (the motor is available), but there's no sign of the pinion as a replacement part. It may be that even the dealer/service dept. couldn't repair it, only replace it.





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