Over the years there have been some postings regarding the Wayne Dalton Idrive garage door opener. It is a neat design because it fits right above the door and manipulates the torque bar so there is no track in the middle of your garage ceiling.
Many of the comments were negative because of various bugs in the design.
I had Wayne Dalton install one 5 years ago at my parent's townhome and it has worked well during that time. They look complicated to install, and Wayne Dalton sells it installed for $400 and for that I would never tackle it myself.
Lowes sold it for a while but so many people had problems installing it they dumbed it.
Well I decided it was time to replace the openers for my 3 car garage and I called up WD. Ended up dealing with the guy who sold me the one 5 years ago. He told me that it had recently been completely redesigned internally with over 100 fixes. He also said that 20% seem to have a hiccup from the factory and he wanted to warn me that production wasn't flawless yet.
In any case they were installed Wednesday. Took the guy around 4 hours because one had a hiccup. A gear was slightly mispositioned at the factory and with a call to the factory the guy was able to fix it. In any case all
3 are working perfectly and I have to say are improved in one major way compared to the 5 year old unit. They move the door closed very quickly until they get to the last 10 inches and then slow down dramatically and gently ease it down making sure there isn't anything in the way. I can't imagine a better opener. The light units and garabe buttons are very well done but the keypad only has half the number of keys on it so that is a disappointment.For the record, these were installed on WD torque master doors with internal springs. I cannot vouch for the units that install on non-WD external torque spring systems.
For what its worth, I thought I would let you know that the IDrives look very good now with a torquemaster spring door.