Stanley Works until the early to mid nineties when the company was separated and sold as separate divisions. The opener division was purchased by Whistler and was only allowed to use the Stanley name for a short time and they ceased manufacturing them once the name expired. This was happening at about the same time that UL started to demand additional safety features including the photo-cells that get mounted near the bottom of the overhead door track so there are very few of them that meet the UL-325 safety code.

 Even though Consumer Reports listed them as the number one garage door opener for many years, in my opinion they required more service and broke more often the any other opener on the market at that time. There were numerous plastic parts that had a habit of breaking on a regular basis. The idler bracket (attaches the tube to the header), the tube support (attaches the tube to the motor head) the gear case body and the gear case cover (housing for all the gears under the motor cover), the limit assembly (controls the up and down position under the motor cover), and the overload cam (controlled the reversing of the opener when the door struck an object) were all known to break and probably many of them did so at least once on the majority of the openers in existence. A very common problem was that the screws holding the motor to the housing would loosen or fall completely out and cause the the gear case body and cover to crack or break completely in half. One ofthose things that a couple of self locking nuts holding the screws would have solved, but unfortunately most people didn’t know this until the damage was already done.

 Therefore if you still have a Stanley Garage Door Opener that you are looking to repair you really should consider replacing it with a new one that has all of the latest safety features by requesting an estimate from a local dealer. It has lived a good life and you got more then your money’s worth and it’s time for it to be retired!!!