The two parts that carry everything
The lift cables transfer the springs’ energy to the door; the tracks decide where the door is allowed to go. When either fails, the door’s 150-to-400 pounds stops being controlled weight and becomes a hazard. This is the repair category where “wait and see” is the wrong instinct — a cable down to a few strands is a countdown.
Why tracks drift in the valley
Wind is the quiet culprit. Santa Ana gusts push on the door’s broad face while it travels, racking it sideways against the tracks; over seasons, brackets loosen and tracks drift out of parallel. Dust compounds it — grit in the track wears rollers oval and widens the play. The result is a door that grinds, binds, and eventually jumps. The wind-season inspection checklist catches most of this early.
Repair, not resignation
Bent verticals can often be trued; brackets re-set; cables replaced as a pair with fresh drums inspected. An off-track door looks catastrophic and usually isn’t — most are re-seated, aligned, and running in a single visit. When a track section is genuinely kinked beyond trueing, we say so and replace the section, not the whole system.