Garage door resists closing

I have a Genie SilentMax 1000. The door opens without a problem but when I try to close the door, the SilentMax makes a horrible noise and the door seems to be stuck. When I move the door independently from the motor, it does go up easily but I feel some resistance when I push it down from its highest position. After I go past that initial point of resistance, the door does go down smoothly, so the issue is that initial resistance. What might be the reasons for this issue? Should I make sure that the side rails are perfectly horizontal / sloping slightly downward towards the door opening?

 

Welcome to the forums.

It's extremely important that the door roll up and down freely.

You're going to have to watch the rollers on one side and then the other to see where it's getting caught. It could be at the point where the tracks join or it could be a bad roller.

 

A garage door opener really just gently pulls and pushes the door open/close, if there is any binding in the rollers, broken springs, anything that causes strain the opener wont be able to overcome and eventually will burn out.

Need to solve the door issue!

 

Thank you for the quick responses. At the point of resistance, none of the rollers are at the intersection of 2 rails. Also, all the rollers move into their roller bracket freely (rotation and lateral movement). What should I be looking for when I look for a bad roller?

Another data point that might help - I barely feel the resistance when I pull the door from the door bottom. I feel it when I push the door from the door top.

Also, the middle sleeve on the bottom brackets is missing. Does this matter?

 

OK - I tested per your advice and noticed something that might cause the problem: the 2 side rails are not aligned to the door. In the back (closer to the motor), I have 1/4" space between the rail and the door on the right, and 3/4" on the left (when looking towards the outside). On the front (closer to the garage opening), I have 1" on the right and 1/4" on the left.

Based on the above, I think that the motor is pushing the door towards the left (when looking from the motor towards the outside), and as it cannot go further when starting to go down, the rollers shift to adjust the course of the door towards the right. Once that small adjustment is made, the door weight takes care of reducing the resistance and further adjusting the rollers.

Question is: do I just adjust the position of the 2 side rail so that they are parallel to the door, or do I need to make another type of adjustment?

 

The problem is not the opener pushing/pulling the door sideways..... it sounds like it's a mismatched or weak spring not allowing the door to open evenly.

If it was an opener issue... the door would operate smoothly with the opener disconnected.

 

I did the usual test of putting the door in the half open position and it does not go up or down, indicating that spring tension should be ok. Also, the problem just happens on the way down - when I push the door by hand from its top-most position, there is some resistance. Lifting the door when it's closed is not a problem.

Overall, shoudn't the side rails be parallel to the door?

 

Yes..... overall the rails should be parallel and equidistant from the doors.

However most rarely are. My door was getting sluggish and erratic. I purchased a kit of 10 rollers. I have a brand new door. My door does not always stay centered in the tracks.

 

Thank you Pete - I just placed an order for 10 new rollers. Will test that before making further amendments. Will report back.

 

I installed the new rollers last week-end. The movement is a bit more fluid but there still is resistance when the door closes. I will align the rails and report again.