McBride's Garage Door Repair

Summary:

This is a difficult review to write. We are taking Mr. McBride to small-claims court, after his months and months of refusal to return phone calls or respond to USPS letters (including registered mail). He made a BIG $2500 mistake in measuring/ordering, and he will not own up to it.

The bottom line: We are stuck with a door that obviously is the wrong size for our garage. The error is visually obvious, and he has blamed everything but himself.

Background:

Mr. McBride did an excellent job for us in repairing our old garage door. He obviously knows garage doors.

The problem (and a very expensive $2500 problem it is) came when he installed our new door.

He measured the opening and had all the time he needed.

He was extremely adamant about the choice, provided in a folder from the manufacturer he works with. He insisted that we needed the "modern" look, in which the windows go across the top panel. The sure sign of being outdated, he said, was having the windows in the second-from-top panel. (That's how our old one was.)

I stress this particular detail, because it underscores just how badly the job went--and how shocking is his refusal to acknowledge his error.

He and his assistant worked all day, removing the old door and installing the new one. He had AMPLE opportunity to see the problem before he finished the job. But he did not.

When it was installed, it was glaringly obvious from the outside. The opening of the garage cut straight across the top row of windows. Instead of showing the wood panel above the window opening. In short, he had mis-measured.

When I pointed it out, he was quite grumpy. A little scary even. Very imperious. I was home alone. Perhaps he was tired (he is not a young person) and blood sugar was low, as he and his assistant had worked straight through without stopping all day. (That does not explain, however, his prolonged refusal to own up to his mistake and ignore our attempts to contact him.)

I had to demand that he move the top panel to the second panel, in hopes that the 6-8-inch error would be less noticeable. He fought me on it. Very high-handedly. Weirdly. He was STILL insistent that the door would look dated if the window panels weren't at the top. He did not care that that the windows were being cut almost in half (horizontally) by the garage opening. This was not rational behavior.

His calmer assistant finally prevailed upon him to see reason. They switched the panel, but Mr. McBride wasn't happy about it.

He said that the problem was our garage-door opening. It was an "off" size.

I didn't know what to do. I should have not given him the check, I suppose. But he had been so irritable and irrational, I was actually afraid. Moreover, maybe he was right; the problem was with the garage door opening. I thought we could try to live with it. We had so many problems during the heavy rains with the old door, I was just grateful to have a working door.

On the other hand, I learned that he was not telling the truth. I checked several other houses on our street, houses built at the same time and with the same plans as ours; the garage door openings measured exactly the same! And they all had properly fitting garage doors! So, it was NOT the fault of our garage door opening.

It is shocking to me that Mr. McBride would behave so shoddily. I did not take him for a fraudster. He ripped us off to the tune of $2500. Not to mention time from work I spent dealing with it. And now what? Who will I have to pay to come get this garage door so we can get a properly fitting one.

Now I have to take the time and make the effort to go to small-claims court.

Be very cautious. I would not have him do anything but minor repairs. If you need a new garage do, go to a reputable company that backs their work.

Brian should be your go-to guy for any garage door issues. We inherited a home with aging garage doors. We used our home warranty at first and the repair people through that program were... lets just say... not the best.

Enter Brian, who was a breath of fresh air. He is incredibly, INCREDIBLY knowledgeable! I watched him work with the door, checking it over and over again, talking through the process and it was clear immediately that he knows exactly what he is doing.

The other repair people had *sort of* fixed our problem, Brian came in and completely fixed our problem, noticed that the doors were out of balance and closing too quickly, fixed that on BOTH doors and fixed another issue that was looming but not obvious. All the the price he originally quoted us for one job.

He is seriously the best. We will never waste our time calling anyone else again!

Brian is professional and knows his business, he's personable and honest man.
I used his services four times for different projects so far and he is always prompt and gets the job done.
I will always call Brian for any garage door problems.
Mona,

Brian did a wonderful job servicing our garage door. It decided it didn't want to close all the way so we found McBride's and he was quick, thorough and the price was as-quoted.

We highly recommend his service and will definitely use him in the future!

The springs on the garage door finally broke yesterday (probably 15 years after the original homeowners installed it), which meant that I needed to manually lift up the garage door to open it. Considering it just started raining today, manually opening the garage was not something I was looking forward to doing.

Thanks to my dad who happened to already be helping me with other house upgrades, he called several repair places and provided me with my list of options & quotes. After discussing the options and getting his "I'm-a-handyman-but-we-need-an-expert-for-this" feedback, we both agreed on Brian McBride. Although, the quote seemed higher than the others, we hired Brian because his price included tax, parts, and labor....no surprises! Also, he sticks to his words regarding his price, "I do a good job".

Let's just say, in the end, my dad and I thought that Brian did an "above and beyond" job for the money.

Side note: I'm very lucky to have a dad who is handy and is familiar with what to look for in contracting someone for getting the job done with excellence and pride. Brian definitely fits the bill. I highly recommend him. =)

Brian McBride was referred to me by a friend. He returned my call promptly and came over to the Coast from Millbrae to look at my 26 year old Garage Door. I found him to be very knowledgeable and personable. He repaired the door, but after one week I had another problem and had to re-call. Rather than put me off, he ran to the problem, and came back promptly to Moss Beach to fix a little thing, and did not even charge me for the return visit.

I give him a hearty recommendation and my highest rating and would not hesitate to refer him to friends.

Our garage door was 50 years + old. It actually fell off and onto our cars. Brian dropped everything and came out the next morning. He was able to get the door off the cars with no damage to the cars. He installed the new door the next day after driving all the way across the bay to get it. It is beautiful with windows and all.
What a relief that was. Thank you Brian!

Brian McBride should call his business *The Garage Door Wisperer*! I got a much bettter garage door than the one I needed to replace and it was installed by the owner himself, not hired help. He's an old fashion fellow who is amiable and acts like he appreciates your business by being efficient, clean, on time, and available for follow-up should anything need to be tweaked after installation and some use.

A real pleasure to have met such a craftsman and my new Garage Door Repair go to guy.

Brian is extremely professional, knowledgeable and efficient. I would highly recommend him to my friends and family.

Most definitely, I agree with the other Yelpers. Brian and his company - McBride's Garage Door Repair - are simply as good as it gets!

I had a garage door spring snap coming home late in the evening and I called him the next morning for a quote and to see if he could perform the repair right away. He called me back within minutes and was able to schedule me in - on a Saturday no less.

He came at our agreed appointment time, performed the repair thoroughly, and didn't leave until he was satisfied with my garage door operation and settings. He quoted me a very reasonable price before he started and didn't pad the bill with any surprise extras after he completed the job.

Brian's an old-school guy - and you won't go wrong by calling him. It's rare and wonderful to have such great service in an industry full of sales people trying to separate you from your money!