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idrive ReviewNever Buy Waynde dalton products from openers to doors. They are Cheap for a reason. I been in the Garage door business for 2 years and Not one person has liked the openers due to so many problems with their Idrive. Neat idea but plastic parts? Even worse is there Torque Master or Torque Breaker system. I replace about 3 of these a week to real torsion systems. they last on average 2-4 years. Our springs are more like 15years. Pathedic wayne dalton. They are slowly going out of business in the area I live. ken I moved into my 15 year old house two years ago. The garage door is a very heavy 18'x 8' wood door with windows at the top panel. The previous owner told us he had recently replaced the garage door opener with a "top-of-the-line" (his words, not mine) Precision brand belt-driven unit. Over the past two years we have had only headaches with the garage door. It would take three to five attempts to close the door and the jerking from the opener finally splintered the wood frame around the windows. We reinforced all the joints and the splintered section of the door with metal brackets because no garage door vendor would replace just the top panel. All the dealers wanted to sell us a new door. After reinforcing the top panel, the door became even more difficult to close until, to avoid new damage, I disconnected the garage door opener and opened and closed the door by hand. When I stumbled into a review of the iDrive it seemed like the perfect solution to my problem. I got the iDrive for torsion springs. The installation took longer than expected because of two glitches. The bottom brackets where the tension cables attach, do not look anything near to what is shown in the iDrive installation manual (too old of a door probably) so they interfered with the brackets for the springs from the iDrive that keep tension at the bottom of the cables. It took me a couple of hours to make room for the spring brackets without damaging or weakening the bottom cable brackets. After I finish the installation and run the self programming routine, the door stopped about two thirds open made an awfull noise and one of the lift cables came off the spool. The culprit for the mess was a gap in the door track where the vertical section and the horizontal section meet so the spring tensioner (the same one I had trouble with above) got tangled in the gap. It took me about an hour and some skin off my knuckles but I was able to put the cable back in place and I also patched the gap in the track. The opener has worked flawlessly since. It has taken us two years to find a solution to our garage door problem. Someone writes about short range for the remotes. We did not experience that problem. The range on ours is almost a hundred feet. The programming of the HomeLink on my Honda Pilot was very easy to do and now everything is working well. It seems like most professional garage door installers that post on the internet hate the iDrive. These are the same guys who wanted me to replace my garage door because of a faulty opener. I had never installed a garage door opener before, and I was able to install the iDrive despite the glitches I mentioned earlier so I wonder If this is what fuels the hate from the installers. As a mechanical engineer the basic principle of the iDrive made sense to me. When you open a well-balanced garage door manually, all you do is use the torsion bar, springs, and cables to lift the door for you. That's what the iDrive does. I would recommend this product based on my experience. Carlos R I have been in the garage door business for over 15 years (owner). At the begining of 2006 I was contacted by a Wayne Dalton Rep to sell their product. WHAT A MISTAKE. The doors that I installed were all messed up, 7' track for 8' doors, wrong springs, miss allinged parts, missing windows where there was to be windows, and the list goes on. I have tried every angle in customer support to help. NONE. I am slowly removing the torquemaster i drive openers and replaceing them with a Liftmaster Product, true and trusted. Roger We purchased the Idrive several years ago and have had nothing but problems since. After hours on the phone with Wayne Dalton and hundreds of dollars paid to Garage Door Installers, we are now throwing the thing in the garbage. Even our local authorized dealer said to get rid of it. Everyone refuses to work on these things because they are so problematic. What a waste of money! Laura I've had an iDrive since early 2003 and I love it! I installed it on a then new Wayne Dalton door. My guess is that since it's different, expensive and may take more time to install, professional installers don't like it. And why would they if they can make more money with the old fashion type. For DIY you get a quiet, fast and reliable opener that frees up your garage ceiling. iNomis I have installed wayne dalton doors for 15 yrs.Most torque master springs last ten yrs or more.I have install thousands.Torsion springs are better by far though.They have the best commercial doors period,I make a living working on others.Residential doors are among the best made - just maintain them and don't run into them.Having installed hundreds of I-drive openers,problems have been few but I would stick with traditional types and not lift-master!Yes parts are easy to come by because they are needed i.e drive gears. I have only repaired a few screw drive genie's and those were retail version.Fewer parts, fewer problems is the general rule.Hard to understand other negitive comments here. poor installs ? Company's thrive on servicing bad products. roger I bought 2 Wayne dalton Doors with the I-drive openers. Wayne Dalton installed everything. 2 years ago. I have had them out 6 times to repair and have replaced the I-Drive on the main (16') door 3 times. These things are a joke! I opened the smaller door last night at 11pm and it would not close again. Cables got all twisted up. Had to cut them so I could close the door. We open and close these main door 2 times a day. I noticed that Wayne Dalton didn't install all the bolts on the smaller door brackets too. Paid good money for these doors and openers..... Mike Mike I purchased and attempted to install an iDrive unit on a single wide sectional door back in 2005. I had installed belt drive and screw drive openers several times before. The installation was very complicated and I had a similar experience as Ken with cables jumping offetc. In fact one or more of the parts broke during installation and the whole unit was replaced by Lowe's. I again experienced problems getting the door to operate correctly and called a professional installer. He spent almost an hour adjusting the door to make the unit work. It did work when he left and for about a year. The remote worked intermittently and the range had to be less than 15 feet. Then one day the door would not close with the drive, it locked up on something. So to close the door we have to use the safety release and lower the door manually. The drive still opens the door. Now my 14 year old Wayne Dalton chain drive unit has failed on the double wide door. I took it apart and found all the gears are stripped/worn out. So I now have two non-functioning garage door openers. Will I buy a Wayne Dalton product? Not if I can help it. Lary After 1.5 years after having these doors installed, they are a piece of crap. I have had the cables come off the spools at the top on both sides and get pinched and tangled. After removing the side sprockets at least 3 times, I have given up and went with a Craftsman. Nothing more than I enjoy is spending my late night in the cold trying to get my garage door to close. I would not recommend this product, too expensive and not reliable. Oh, and I love the sticker, "do not return this to the store" call Wayne Dalton and let us put you on hold. Sort if a good idea with the direct idrive, but they need to use better parts and go back to the drawing board before they sell anymore of these things. anonymous I too have had bad experiences with idrive. Intermiitent problems with the door refusing to stay shut that seems to be related to cold temperatures. I have been on the phone with numerous call center "technicians" and none could help beyond sending replacement control boards. My feeling is the obstruction sensor is too sensitive, probably as a result of design being driven by lawyers and fear of lawsuits. william SO CHEAP is my Wayne Dalton door that it totally ripped out a middle sectioin where the anchor bracket fits to the garage door opener. Rather than giving anyone connected with Wayne Dalton my business, I called around and found a very competant contractor. He replaced my ( Torquemaste, a Wayne Dalton product ) with a standard spring system and reinforced my top door panel in 1.5 hours.. This standard torsion spring system is open, so it can be lubricated, not like Daltons enclosed tube product. When I asked about the 15 year warranty back-up, without even coming out and looking at it they were prepared to automatically deny coverage using any reasoning, logical or otherwise. I had a repairman on contract with Dalton come out and inspect my system. It seems it was MY fault because the torsion spring broke, the opener was not sensitive enough, or I did not set it right. Incidentallt Dalton's door panels are made of foam and cardboard with a 1/32 strip of metal to secure to the garage door opener. The strip of metal is held by 4 small sheet metal screw approxmately 1/4 inch long! Thier Warranty is a joke, it warrants everything that cannot possibly happen to the door. NEVER Andy I have been installing and selling doors for 13 years. I like many others in the industry bashed Wayne Dalton. Also for the same reasons. Then I decided to learn. It's like anything else if you don't know what your doing don't do it. Most of these products come from Lowes and most of the time are installed by sub contractors who have no more training than you and just have a shirt and that makes them a "pro". Most installers are paid by the job so if it takes longer it must be bad. Or if they are paid by the hour then the company doesn't want the cost to train them on something new. These are good openers and have a place in the market. They really only have 3 main parts. Motor, circuit board, and limits. Not much to break. Every person that bashes it says they are to sensitive in reality they just installed thier door poorly, and don't want to mess with that. If the door runs smooth with no hang ups an Idrive will be great. If your door is rough it should be fix first before installing any opener. Mike WAYNE DALTON PRODUCTS ARE NOTHING BUT JUNK, AND THEIR CUSTOMER SERVICE IS DEPLORABLE. I am a contractor who has built hundreds of homes over the years. I use a professional garage door company with well trained installers. Recently, we did a townhome subdivision using all Wayne/Dalton wood doors. BIG MISTAKE AND NEVER AGAIN!!! Wayne/Dalton doors are the only doors that I have EVER had a problem with, and Wayne/Dalton will not stand behind their product AT ALL!!! If you have had problems with your garage doors, let me know. I think that it is high time that they were held accountable for their substandard product. Lori October 2008 I was convinced by my builder that the Wayne Dalton and iDrive system was the greatest thing since sliced bread. What a joke! The iDrive is slick in the design but the mechanics of the system are terrible. The installers (Dalton certified) made several trips to adjust the doors that would mysteriously fail to close on the coldest days of winter. Additionally, the cables would tangle and chew the plastic (yes, plastic) spools to pieces. I had to cut the cable one evening to close the door. After losing sleep over these POS doors, I had the installer change them out for the pro drive system-the more traditional with "fewer vices". Wrong! These darn things rarely close on the first attempt and are crap. Additionally, the insulated door is the cheapest darn thing I've ever seen. I'll be setting these out for the garbage collector in the spring. Mark Mark Hi all, Thought I'd weigh in with my two cents as I have spent the weekend taking apart my Wayne-Dalton 9600 Door/Torque Master/iDrive installation in order to replace the torsion springs. One spring snapped the other night while I was in the garage. It sounded like a loud thunder strike with the reverberations of the spring uncoiling in the torque tube, but other than that it was uneventful. I already have replacement springs on the way as they were easy to find on the internet. This is a 16x7 door that I purchased at Lowes and installed myself a little over 8 years ago. Our garage door is used as our primary entrance to the house and must be opened and closed at least four times a day. This is the first problem I've had with the door and I've not had to do any other maintenance beyond replacing batteries in the remotes. I love the way this door works and would readily replace it with another if I ever needed to - though I don't see any reason I would need to do that any time in the foreseeable future. I really can't understand all of the negative comments about Wayne-Dalton doors, the TorqueMaster spring system and/or the iDrive. I must have gotten the only good one out there! Again - If I had to move today, I'd gladly put in the same setup in my next home. Todd Todd I have installed 3 9x7 WD 9100 series garage doors and 1 iDrive opener in 3Q05. The door workmanship from WD could have been of a higher quality, but all 3 doors work well and I have never had a bit of trouble from the iDrive unit. I think it requires following the installation directions very closely. Why did I buy WD? Because the Clopay doors I originally installed rotted away. I plan to add another unit to a 2nd door soon. RLM I have 2 Wayne Dalton idrive torsion bar openers and plan to install a 3rd as soon as I finish building my shop. The 2 I already have, I bought after they were returned to the retailer because they would not work properly. I have had them in service for over 5 years and am very satisfied with them. Most of the Wayne Dalton torsion openers are returned because the door itself is not adjusted properly, these openers require the doors to be in installed and adjusted very well. I would recommend these openers, they are quiet, fast, have a great range for the remote and I have not had any problems with the openers in over 5 years. Jerry I sure don't understand why people are complaining about the Wayne Dalton door openers. I have had mine nearly 2 years with no problems except a broken drive coupling which was covered under waranty. The door and opener has to be properly installed in order for it to work trouble free. I suspect improper installation/alignment leads to most of the problems. Also the warranty is very good on my Wayne Dalton model 3522 opener. 5 years on electronic parts and 10 years on mechanical parts. As many times as we use our door and opener you could expect a problem now and then with any of them. In Minnesota the severe cold puts added stress on the opener. I have had Sears, which is Chamberlain, liftmaster and now this Wayne Dalton and none of them have been completely trouble free. Mark I built a new house in 2005. I have an 8'x7' and 16'x7' Torquemaster doors installed by the builder. I purchased the I-drive openers at Lowe's and installed them myself. I started with the single bay first; thinking the smaller door would be easier to install and adjust for operation. After completing the install I could not get the door to stay closed. Not to be discouraged I moved over to the double bay and got that one installed and adjusted properly. I then called the "help center" and they sent two new circuit boards. After installing the new boards I still could not get the single door to work. By now it was late december and the cold weather hit; first day below 20deg and the double wouldn't close or wouldn't stay closed. I called the "help center" again and after confirming I had new circuit boards they told me it must be my installation was faulty or the door tracks we out of square or the framing had settled. They sent out a technician from the Wayne Dalton distributor in town to do warranty service on the openers. He confirmed the framing, tracks and installations were all fine on both doors. He told me the i-drives basically suck for single torquemaster doors; the single sided spring seems to pull one end of the door up more than the other, causing enough binding (Yes, "torques" the door - pun intended)to trip the sensor. He also stated that i-drives will need "seasonal" adjustment to work properly. Three years later I've had to adjust my double door opener every winter and summer. The Single door has never worked. Last week the temps were -10deg and even the "winter" setting was not enough. I used the door once and it stuck; now the motor is grinding so bad I don't think it will work again even this summer. And I'm stuck opening the door manually. Tomorrow it's supposed to be 50 deg so I guess I get to spend my day after Christmas seen if I can salvage anything. Oh yeah; and the remote key pad stinks. The buttons don't have a "positive" feel so you can't tell if you've actually pushed it, so you mis-dial a lot; then it takes a long time for the remote to reset (while you wait for it) and the batteries die quickly. Plus the buttons don't light up so you can't see them at night. My next openers will definitely be something different. Bob Have had a Wayne Dalton grage door opener for 2 years. I will be installing a new opener this weekend and it sura as heck will not be a "wayne Dalton" product. It's been nothing but a pain in the a$$ since day one! CV first off! any body on here who is bashing wayne dalton is stupid! find a door that is better constructed?... ive seen every new door on the market and wayne dalton is by far better enginered and easy to install. granted the idrive has had its problems but when you narrow down what causes the problem it comes down to incompetency and inexperiance! the idrive frustrates me being an installer but its more the people who do because they dont have common sense just like the rest of these people who dont know how to read an owners manual or maintain there doors. you would think when you spend money on something you would take care of it...but no! when installed correctly the wayne dalton doors and openers are far superior from anything else on the market! threre like anything else out ther no matter what it is, if you maintain it it will last a while. get some common sense people!!!! your whats wrong with the world today joel Is that why Wayne Dalton is going out of business? They are the best garage door company out there? I have seen some cheap doors in my days, but come on, why make a door you can stick a pencil through. The idrive motor is a good concept, that is all. Mike I have worked in the field for Wayne Dalton for over 19 years. As an installer,service tech.If I only had a nickel for every I Drive I have seen sent back to the factory....pallet....after.... pallet.Half ,thats half do not work at all RIGHT OUT OF THE BOX.I fell SORRY for the homeowners when we put one in .Because I KNOW we will sooner than later get that call.The one thats always the same .WELL IT REALLY NEVER WORKED RIGHT FROM THE START.Dont get me wrong,ALOT of money and time went into M.r B (Wayne Daltons C.E.O)dream of the perfect opener.But somewhere along the line research ,development DROPPED THE BALL. Over the years there have been several models of the I Drive.But to be honest there was never ANY quality consistancy.And we the sales staff installers were all told if we ever spoke out in the shop,or to a customer that maybe this wasnt the best opener it was grounds for getting fired!!!!!!! Then we would be sent out to try our best to make the customers who already had them installed happy.Knowing all along they had a 50% chance we whould be hearing from them very soon.It a very clever idea Mr.B ,but you should have not allowed them to make it to complex,to much plastic .You know there are garage door openers out there (from other mfg.)still working that are 40 plus years old.If in 40 years if you can find one of those things still running.....I will be happy to give YOU a nickel. NICKEL I find a lot of these posting that bashes Wayne Dalton to be skeptical. For one thing, if half of the iDrive are REALLY sent back to Wayne Dalton, the company would pull the product off the market right away. At a minimum, it would stop producing new units. It just doesn't make any business sense to leave lemon products on the market. It's not financially viable. There wouldn't be ten generations of iDrive that the company is selling today. Chieh Cheng I have had my iDrive for 5+ yrs and it has been nothing but a pain. Customer support has replaced the circuit bourd to make the openers work better, fuses, 1 motor, and 2 completely new openers. I have no idea how they have made any money on me, but I'm thankful they are still willing to stand behind their product. rob I own a garage door shop in Southern Utah. I am the only one in the area who will work on or install Idrive operators. I have had a very good experience with the Idrive. When it is installed properly, it runs well. I have some that have been running for six or seven years and have had no problems. I am a fan of Idrives. Jared Simmons Two of my idrives are 5 years old, no issues except had to extend antenna wire. iDrive is against brick wall, so signal was not so strong. My only complaint WD should add feature, when something crosses safety beam overhead light to turn on. Brian I have 2 I drives and they both work fine. I have installed several for friends 6 in total. If it is installed properly it works fine. The trick to these things is making sure everything is securely mounted and square and it shouldn't take more than 40 minutes to install it (the first one a bit longer due to poor instructions and a learning curve). I think it is a good product as it is quiet and saves on overhead space. I would definitely recommend it and buy again. Mike The i-Drive is an excellent product but there are a few tricks to installation as it can be hard to see what is happening once the door is part-way open. Max Sharp Ive been in the garage door buisiness for 12 years now. I am a loyal wayne dalton dealer. I have sold the I-Drive since its first release. I'll admit there were problems in the beginning. But you will have that when your introducing a product that is the first of it's kind. Just like anything else you have to get it out in the real world in different climate and circumstances. Wayne Dalton has done a fabulous job on making on the adjustments needed. It is by far the best residential opener on the market. The complaints you here are coming from installers that have been used to installing doors poorly and being able to adjust the force on standard openers enough to force the door closed. I hear installers say that if they had a nickel for every bad i-drive they would be rich. Well if i had a nickel for every door and i-drive i have adjusted and got working properly i would be a rich man. Don't believe the hype. Just contact a proper gargage door company. Ryan We bought our house in August. It is only 2 years old. Never heard of Wayne Dalton before. About 2 weeks ago garage door started having problems. Pulled out the manual for I drive. Found how to push buttons to reset down force. Short story is door continued to have problems and finally motor stopped. Since I did not have a lot of time, I called a Wayne Dalton service contractor in my area. After a long discussion I found they have had a lot of problems. My summary after talking with this installer was the product would probably work well if installed correctly. Well if I was going to have him come out I just wanted it to be once. The estimate was about $1000 for a new torsion spring and garage door opener. So I have lived with just manually opening and closing the door. A couple of days ago I got the bright Idea of swapping the motor with my other garage door. They are both I drive's, the other one is just a single door and works fine. Turns out exact same 3amp motor - took me about 20 minutes to swap. Both doors worked, but double wide door I could see was having a binding problem and was probably the cause of my motor issue. So today I found the installation manual for my 9100/9600 series Wayne Dalton door. Read through the instructions fast. Went out to my door pulled the manual release found door binding some. Found installer had not put the horizontal rails in level - they need to be one hole above level - he did the opposite - found you are suppose to oil the joints every once in awhile - found the torsion bar is suppose to be level - do not know why installer had this out of level, but unscrewed the bracket bolts on the motor and adjusted it to level - put the cable back in operate mode - hit the retrain down force function. I think this solves all my problems and appears to be just a very poor installation. The door still has some binding when closing - when each panel meets there is some binding, which is probably just the tight fit design between panels. If anyone has a solution to that I would appreciate it. Probably spend 3 or 4 hours figuring it out and adjusting, but from my point of view that is $250 an hour, I get to keep my open ceiling space, and I think I can fix anything that goes wrong the next time. PS all 3 houses I have owned, my sisters, my mom's,a few friends, I have replaced garage door openers. They were all the traditional center mount chain drive some with torsion springs some with the springs that hang. I have always used sears chain drive 3/4HP - can't remember the different brands I have replaced, but I never have replaced a sears brand. Always went with the 3/4 hp as it is only about $30-$50 more and like I said never have had to replace one of those. eric Wayne Dalton used to be a great company. Today there products SUCK and the service techs they send SUCK just as bad. I would not buy any of their products and I sure wouldn't let one of their techs even look at sick dog. The best thing they can do is to shut the doors and go home for good. Dave
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