Common Issues With Guardian Garage Door Openers

The Guardian brand of garage door opener is a brand that came on the scene a few years back. They were brought into our market by distributors looking for a less expensive opener that could be installed for home builders. Service companies that install products for home builders are constantly looking for a way to cut costs, since builders are relentless at seeking the lowest price.

Competition is a good thing when quality control is maintained, but when it calls for inferior product, the homeowner is left footing the bill a few years down the road. In this article, we go into detail about the issues we have experienced with Guardian garage door openers.

Guardian Safety Sensor Issues

If your Guardian garage door opener is beeping twenty times, you are having issues with your safety sensors. This is the most common phone call we get related to Guardian openers, and many times, we can hear the beeping noise in the background as we are speaking with the customer. A solid red and a solid green light on the safety sensors means they are properly aligned.

The problem with the Guardian openers is we have a hard time getting the sensors properly aligned on brand-new units. Customers would pay an exorbitant amount of money to a scammer to have a Guardian opener installed, and the unit would constantly beep. We go out to the customer’s home and try to align them, without much success. I would call Guardian only to find out the sensors need to be replaced on a brand-new unit. This happened far too many times.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that safety sensor related issues are probably the most common phone call any garage door repair company will receive. Typically, sensor issues are caused by someone knocking them out of alignment or a blockage from something being stored in the garage. The issue we were seeing with Guardian safety sensors is repeated failures on new units.

Reprogramming Guardian Opener Limits

One of the most common issues we have found with a Guardian garage door opener is having to reprogram the force and travel limits. We would go out to a home and reprogram the travel limits on a Guardian opener that was installed in a rental home. A few weeks later, we would get a call from the property manager saying we needed to go back under warranty and fix the opener that is having the same issues. This only has to happen a few times before you stop working on certain brands.

Belts Coming Off Guardian Openers

One of the oddest things we have experienced with Guardian garage door openers is the belts coming off the openers. The customer who called us recently had his Guardian opener installed by one of the scammers. The reason we know this is that he paid a ridiculous amount of money for his new opener.

When we arrived, the belt was hanging down and the tensioner parts were all over the garage. I can only assume this opener was installed incorrectly, or there was a defect in one of the parts. Either way, the installing company would not come back out to warranty their product, and we did not carry Guardian parts on our trucks. The tensioner parts were bent to the point they could not be reused, so we ended up replacing the unit.

Distributor Stopped Carrying Guardian Openers

As Guardian was setting up dealers in our market, we started seeing their garage door openers more frequently in rental homes we were servicing for property managers. The local distributor that started stocking them was installing a private label version called “Ascend Master”. The outside cover actually had the distributor’s name along with phones numbers to all three of their locations.

I made a call over to this distributor and spoke to a gentleman I knew that has been in the garage door business over 30 years. He is regarded as one of the top garage door minds in our area. As I picked his brain looking for a resolution, he proceeded to tell me they no longer stock the Guardian brand. I asked why, and the answer was simple… far too many issues.

It was at that point we decided not to repair any Guardian openers because if you’re the last one to touch the unit, you will get blamed for every problem it encounters. As a company, you have to determine what product you want to service and repair. Because there is so much “builder grade” junk today, you have to walk a tight rope, always balancing income with the risk that is associated with repairing inferior product.

If we get a service call on a modern-day Genie, Marantec, Atoms, or Guardian opener, we always first recommend replacement unless a customer wants to pay us several trip charges to keep going out to reset limits.

Guardian Manufactured Sears Openers For a Short Time

For decades, Sears Craftsman garage door openers were manufactured by The Chamberlain Group, and they had one of the most loyal followings I had ever seen. If you tried to sell a homeowner a new LiftMaster opener, and they had great success with their Craftsman, they wouldn’t hear of it. They would drive to Sears and grab a new Craftsman opener and have you install it. Even if you told them, they were both made by the same company.

When Sears started having their financial troubles, I noticed something different about a few units. Upon closer inspection, I realized that Guardian was now manufacturing garage door openers for Sears Craftsman. Well, this threw a wrench in everything.

If someone called you on the phone and had a Craftsman opener question, you first had to determine if it was a Chamberlain or Guardian product. Needless to say, the Craftsman and Guardian marriage didn’t seem to last long, since the newer units I saw were claiming to have Chamberlain’s MyQ technology.

Tachyon Garage Door Openers

Guardian also private labeled their garage door openers under the Tachyon name in our area. I don’t know if a particular distributor requested this, or if the reason was to disguise the fact it was a Guardian opener. As far as I am aware, there was not a distributor or garage door company in our area that went by the name Tachyon.

Scammers Were Installing Guardian Openers

There is a company out of California that got in a lot of trouble with Google, the State of California, and garage door suppliers because they scammed so many senior citizens. One of their installers actually went to jail for a few years. Garage door manufacturers started boycotting this company and would not sell to them because of their poor business practices.

At one point, this company was only installing Guardian garage door openers because no one else would sell to them. The price they were installing these units for was anywhere from 2-3 times more than what a standard opener should cost. Some pricing was so high that many customers were embarrassed to tell us how much they paid. This was another reason we steered clear from Guardian openers.

Now, I am in no way saying that Guardian Garage Door Openers condoned or endorsed the behavior of this company. This was how the situation presented itself in our area.

Carriage Installed Upside Down

Another issue we were seeing in the field is carriages on the Guardian opener rail installed upside down. Now, I don’t know about you, but if I was selling garage door openers to a scam company that was misrepresenting my product and installing it incorrectly, I would try to put a stop to it. Because this carriage was installed upside down on this Guardian opener, there was no way for a homeowner to pull the red rope in case of a fire.

Universal Remotes With Guardian Openers

One of the most common remotes used in the garage door industry is the LiftMaster 380UT. This remote programs to most mainstream brands and provides garage door dealers a way of keeping less inventory on their trucks. Guardian garage door openers do not program to this remote, so if you service management properties, you would have to keep Guardian inventory on your truck. Not a major deal, but I really wish the distributor that stopped carrying the brand would have never brought them into our market.

Conclusion

We have replaced just about every Guardian unit we have come across with a LiftMaster or Linear opener. This was the only way we could guarantee the customer a more trouble-free experience with their garage door. Guardian may have worked out all the bugs in their units, I don’t know. But, it’s not a brand I would install in my home.