We all work hard for our money and don’t want to be taken advantage of, yet it’s happens everyday. You purchased a car, it turned out to be a lemon and the dealer won’t return your calls, you gave someone a deposit and they never showed up to do the job. ABS Garage Doors has been installing new garage doors as well as servicing, repairing garage doors and garage door openers in Palm Coast, Florida for over 25 years, we have seen it all at this point. In our first part of this series “How to replace your garage door” we outlined some tips to help you weed out the professional garage door companies from the ones that just want to take advantage of you. In this fourth installment we will show you how to get your garage door repaired and or serviced without getting ripped off.
In our experience, garage door repair and or service is the area where people get taken advantage of the most. Installing a garage door is hard, you have to visit the homeowner, provide a quote, order the garage door, go to the job site, install the garage door, dispose of the old garage door. Plus it can be really hot out. Wow! That’s alot of work! If you are in the business of taking advantage of people installing a garage door is not where you want to be spending your time, garage door repair and or service is. It be can be fast, you are in and out and gone before the homeowner knows what hit them. Below are some steps to keep from being taken advantage of:
- Is it really an emergency?: If you are leaving for an important doctor’s appointment, medical emergency, or a long planned vacation, the garage door falls on your car and you can’t get out. This is an emergency. If your remote control or keypad stopped working, this is not. Understand the difference because it will save you a lot of money at the end of the day.
- Be patient: A funny thing with well established, licensed, honest and reputable companies, they are always busy. You may have to wait a bit to be scheduled, but being in the “I have to get it done right now! ”mode will set you up to be taken advantage of. We see this one all of the time. “Oh you can’t get it done today? I will call around then.” If you are calling around you are not doing the basics needed to make sure you are hiring a reputable company. There are outfits that are only in business for that type of call and next thing you know they are at your house and your owe them $4200.00 for literally doing nothing. True story: A women in Palm Coast, Florida, paid $4200.00 for an hours worth of “work” from an unlicensed “company” because she couldn’t wait for a next day appointment and didn’t want to pull the manual release on her garage door opener to get her car out. And what did that “company” do for $4200.00?
Re-set a circuit breaker, and to make it look like they did something, changed out the springs on her two year old garage door that did not need to be changed there by voiding the warranty on her garage door. Sadly, we hear stories like this every day. - Who installed the product? This is typically where you would start but there are a few caveats. Look to see if there are any stickers on the door but tread carefully here, once the information is found make sure they are a locally owned, reputable and most importantly licensed.
- Are they a licensed company? As of July 1, 2025, you need a state license to install and or work on garage doors and garage door openers. Looking to see if a garage door company licensed? Check here.
- Is the garage door company local? A local company will typically charge less and be easier to get ahold of if future problems arise.
- You have to do your due diligence with the phone book: A certain segment of the population still uses the phone book and these are the ones that get taken advantage of the most. Stay away from the full page adds and ones that specifically say things like “Broken Spring Specialist” and “ BBB Triple A Rated”. Any company in the garage door business knows how to change a spring and we have already covered the BBB here.
ABS Garage Doors is located is Palm Coast, Florida, and sells, installs and repairs garage doors and garage door
openers in Palm Coast, Flagler Beach and Bunnell, Florida.