The door came down on the car

Why didn’t the garage door stop when it came down on the car?

The safety eyes watch one thin line about six inches off the slab, and a car does not have to cross it. An open liftgate, a tailgate or a bumper sitting in the opening is above that line, so the door ran down on its normal close. A door now resting on a car, sitting crooked or hung up in its tracks is an emergency garage door repair case until someone has looked at it.

The eyes are there for a foot or a dog crossing the floor. Nothing at bumper or hatch height ever reaches them, and how the safety eyes and the force rule work covers the rest of that system. With the beam clear, the one thing left to stop the door is the opener feeling resistance on the way down and turning around.

The setup for it is common here. Hancock County is still a farm county between the subdivisions, and a full-size pickup in a garage framed for a sedan fits by inches, tailgate hanging over the threshold. In the two-car garages of the newer builds along the US 40 corridor, the second car often parks deep with its tail still in the opening, and the person closing the door is in the other car, already backing out.

Where did the door land, and what does that tell you?

The bottom edge always arrives first. How high it was when it met the vehicle decides where the push went. A door stopped high, on a hatch or a roof, still has most of its sections up in the curve of the track, and the opener arm pushes against the top section. A door stopped low, on a bumper or a tailgate, is nearly closed, and the bottom section takes it.

Where it usually lands:

• An open liftgate or rear hatch. The door is barely down. The bottom seal took the contact, and if the opener kept pushing, that push ran back through the opener arm into the bracket on the top section. Look there for screws pulled loose or steel creased around the bracket.
• The roof, or a roof rack, of a car pulled in short. Same high stop, with the contact spread along more of the bottom edge. Look at the top section bracket and at the rollers sitting in the curve of the track.
• The hood or front bumper of a car whose nose stayed in the opening. A rounded surface narrower than the door, so the contact sits on a short stretch of the bottom edge and the door can rest unevenly on it.
• A tailgate or a pickup bed past the threshold. A flat, hard edge at about waist height, landing on the bottom section’s lowest rib and the two corners where the cables attach.

The seal along the bottom edge is the part most often marked in all four. A torn or pulled-out seal on a door whose steel looks fine still tells you where the contact was.

Did the door go back up, or did it keep pressing down?

Whether the door went back up decides whether the opener can be trusted again. A door that touched the car and went back up did its job, and the whole event was the eyes’ blind spot. A door that stalled on the car, or kept pushing until the motor quit, has a reverse that is out of adjustment. It would do the same to a child or a dog lying in the opening.

If nobody was standing there, the door and the car usually tell you which one happened. A door found back up, with a scuff on the paint of the hatch or the bumper, reversed. A door found still sitting on the car did not.

A door that pressed down should not close on that opener again. Unplug the opener at the ceiling outlet and leave it unplugged until the reverse has been checked and set. The force rule in the won’t-close guide explains what that check looks at. Nobody should try it against a car.

A door that reversed has nothing wrong with its opener. Its seal and bottom edge are still worth a look.

Should you raise the door off the car or leave it where it sits?

Leave it where it sits. A door that went back up on its own is already off the car, so the question only comes up for a door still resting on it, and that door either stalled or kept pushing. Its reverse did not work, and the parts that carry its weight took the hit. Unplug the opener so nobody sends the door anywhere from a car remote, and keep the car where it is.

Raising it with the wall button asks an opener that failed to stop to move a door nobody has checked. A crooked door, a slack cable, a roller out of its track or a bottom corner bent in settle the matter at a glance. A door that looks square from the floor can still have a cracked bottom bracket or a cable off its drum, and neither shows until the door is moving.

A door resting on a car is often partly held up by it. Back the car out and whatever was holding that corner is gone, and the door drops the rest of the way with nothing controlling it. A slack cable on one side is the clearest sign of it, with the door sitting low on that corner.

Leave the red release cord alone on a door resting part way open. With the opener disconnected, the springs and cables carry the whole door, and those are the parts that took the shock. The short “Until help arrives” list on the emergency page covers the rest of the waiting.

What did the door take from the hit?

Usually the bottom section, its seal and the hardware at the two bottom corners. A door that kept pressing can also bow a strut, crease a section along a hinge line, or push a vertical track out of plumb, and a track pushed out far enough leaves the door off its track. Most of it is one visit. A section replacement runs $250 - $600 and an off-track re-hang runs $150 - $350.

Going through the door from the floor up:

The rubber seal along the bottom edge, the astragal, tears or pulls out of its retainer. It is the cheap part and the most common one, and on a door that reversed it is often the only damage.

The bottom brackets sit in the lower corners and anchor the lift cables. A bent bottom bracket is not a homeowner job, since the cable on it is holding the spring’s full pull and lets go all at once when the bracket is unbolted.

The strut is the steel brace screwed across the back of a section to keep a wide door from sagging. A bowed one shows as a section that dips in the middle when the door is closed.

The vertical tracks should stand plumb from the floor up. A track pushed out at the bottom shows as a gap between the roller and the track, or a roller riding the lip of it.

Whether a creased section gets swapped or the whole door goes is a separate question, and whether one section can be replaced after a hit answers it. The price list shows what a section replacement or a re-hang costs along with everything else the visit might turn up.

How do you keep the door from finding the car again?

Two habits put a car under a closing door. One is a car that parks with its tail in the opening. The other is a door closed with nobody looking at it: a visor remote pressed on the way out of the driveway, a door on a schedule, a tap on a phone from somewhere else.

The parking fix is a mark on the floor or a stop the deep car’s tires meet, set so the back of the car clears the threshold with the hatch up. The door fix is a force reverse set right, so that when something the eyes cannot see is in the way, the door turns around on it. That is garage door opener repair work, and on a door that pressed down on a car it is the part that has to happen before the opener goes back into daily use. Leave the safety eyes where they are.