Sears Craftsman Garage Door Opener

Steve of Vestal NY (9/16/03):
This is in reference to a craftsman garage door opener. Recently while attempting to open my garage door from the outside, the door did not open and the light inside the keypad was in a constant blinking mode. OK, my first thought was to check and replace the 9v battery. No change.

Next, consult the manual's troubleshooting section. There was no reference to a continous blinking pattern of the keypad. The next two days I would find myself on the phone for what seemed like hours only to be given the "runaround".

The day after the issue was discovered, I was able to contact a service technician who offered a possible solution ... though it did not fix the problem, at least an attempt was made. The strange part of that story is that the very next day when I called a service center and was connected to Lindsey. She informed me that Sears does not offer technical advice over the phone anymore. That decision must have been overnight...you think? My only option is to have a "road tech" pay me a visit to troubleshoot the problem.

Here's where it gets good. You see, I am an electronics technician and don't think I'd have a great deal of trouble with the repair ... pretty simple device. The remote keypads are designed in a way that they can not be opened once they are assembled. It appears they are epoxied together. Furthermore, what I find suspicious about the technician not knowing what the problem is: the blinking function MUST BE BUILT INTO THE DEVICE. Very rarely will a device such as these go into a mode on its own. It needs to be "told" to blink when an error occurs, not invoke a function on its own.

I have been a Sears customer for many years ... until now. A few years ago I paid a visit to the automotive service center to have a tire plugged...$35.00 That's right, $35.00 to plug a tire. I didn't bother to ask the price before hand because I've never known anyone to charge more than $8.00 for such a repair. I was outraged.

Now it appears I will have to either deface my keypad to fix the problem, purchase a new opener, or live without the remote feature. Sears has a long history of poor customer service as well as discontinuing parts a few years after a certain model is made. It's time to say good bye to Sears. Enough is enough.

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