A driveway gate is the heaviest moving thing on most properties. It carries structural weight, runs on mains power, and cycles several times a day for years. When it stalls halfway across the driveway, drags on the concrete or stops answering the remote, everything behind it stops with it: cars cannot leave, deliveries cannot arrive, and a gate stuck open is no longer security at all.
Silence Garage Door & Gates repairs residential and commercial driveway gates across Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley, on sliding and swing gates alike, in iron, steel, wood and aluminum. We are family owned, founded in 2010 and based in Reseda, and we hold California contractor license CSLB #1079396. We are licensed, bonded and $2M insured. Our technicians carry the parts, tools and welding equipment needed to complete most repairs on the visit rather than leaving a gate tied open. Call (888) 261-9976, or text or WhatsApp (818) 441-2995 with a photo of the gate and we will tell you what we are looking at. 24/7 Emergency Dispatch.
What Actually Fails on a Driveway Gate
Almost every driveway gate fault we are called to falls into one of a handful of families. Knowing which one you are looking at is what separates a repair that lasts from one that has to be done again in a month. The four below account for the overwhelming majority of the driveway gate repair work we carry out in Los Angeles.
Operator and motor failure
The operator is the machine that moves the gate, and it is the part that takes the punishment. Capacitors weaken and the motor hums without turning. Limit switches drift, so the gate overruns and slams or stops short of the post. Control boards fail after a power surge or a wet winter, and gearboxes wear until the drive slips under load. On a sliding gate the drive gear and rack teeth wear against each other; on a swing gate the arm bushings and screw drive go stiff. We diagnose the operator on site, replace the failed component where the unit is sound, and tell you plainly when a motor has reached the end of its service life rather than selling you a repair that will not hold.
Sliding gates off track
A sliding gate that jumps its track, grinds, or leans as it travels is almost never a motor problem. The usual causes are worn or seized V-groove rollers, a track packed with grit and driveway debris, a bent or lifted track section, a failed guide roller at the top of the post, or a concrete footing that has settled and taken the whole run out of level. We clean and straighten the track, replace rollers and guides, re-shim or re-set posts where the geometry has moved, and re-align the gate so the load is carried by the wheels rather than by the operator.
Sagging swing gates, worn hinges and broken welds
Swing gates fail at the hinge side. A wide leaf is a long lever, and over years the hinges wear oval, the top hinge pulls, and the leaf drops until it catches the driveway or refuses to latch. Behind that you often find the real fault: a cracked weld at a hinge plate, a corroded post base, or a frame that has racked out of square. We re-weld cracked joints, replace worn hinges with correctly sized bearings, reinforce hinge plates and posts, and bring the leaf back to square so it swings on its hinges instead of hanging on them.
Safety sensors, keypads and intercoms
A gate that opens but will not close, or reverses for no visible reason, is usually reporting a safety fault rather than a mechanical one. Photo-eye sensors fall out of alignment, lenses fog or fill with cobwebs, edge sensors fail, and wiring corrodes where it crosses the driveway. The same is true of the controls: keypads lose backlight or keys, intercom stations lose audio, and buried loop detectors break down. We test the safety circuit properly, repair or replace the faulty device, and confirm the gate reverses on obstruction the way it is supposed to.
Sliding Driveway Gate Repair
Sliding gates carry their weight on a ground track or a cantilever beam, and everything depends on that run staying straight, clean and level. We repair rollers, guide wheels, end stops, catch brackets, chain and rack drives, and the tracks and footings underneath them. Where a rack has worn flat against the drive gear we replace the rack rather than shim the motor, because a slipping drive will eat a new gear in weeks. Where a footing has settled we lift and re-set it. On cantilever gates we check the counterbalance length and the roller carriages before touching the operator at all, since a cantilever that is out of balance will destroy whatever is driving it. If your gate is powered, our electric gate repair service in Los Angeles covers the same work on the control side.
Swing Driveway Gate Repair
Swing gates ask more of their fixings than any other type, so swing gate repair is mostly structural work. We straighten and re-square racked leaves, re-weld cracked frames and hinge plates, replace hinges and bearings, reinforce or replace posts, and repair the stops and latches the leaf lands against. Wooden infill panels are rebuilt or replaced where rot has taken hold; iron and aluminum leaves are welded, ground back and refinished. Once the structure is true we set the operator arms, travel limits and closing force so the leaves meet cleanly instead of being forced into position by the motor.
Gate Operator and Motor Repair
We service and repair the operator brands used across Los Angeles, and we are an Authorized Dealer for LiftMaster and All-O-Matic. We also work on FAAC, DoorKing, Viking, Eagle, Ramset, BFT, HySecurity, Linear, Marantec, Mighty Mule, Genie, Chamberlain, Sears Craftsman, Haas, Martin, First United, Cookson, Cornell Iron Works, Overhead Door Corp and Raynor equipment. Typical operator work includes capacitor and control board replacement, limit switch and encoder resetting, gearbox and drive gear replacement, hydraulic arm service on swing operators, battery backup and transformer faults, and re-programming remotes and receivers. Where a fault turns out to be in the gate rather than the machine, we tell you, because replacing an operator will not fix a gate that is binding. Our automatic gate repair page for Los Angeles goes into the operator side in more detail.
Welding, Fabrication and Structural Repairs
We fabricate and weld in house, which is what lets us repair a gate rather than condemn it. Cracked frames, snapped hinge plates, corroded post bases, bent pickets, damaged tracks and worn drive brackets are cut out, re-fabricated in steel or aluminum and welded back in, then ground flush so the repair does not read as a patch. Priming and painting are done in house; powder-coating is the one finish we subcontract to a specialist. Where a section is beyond saving we can build and hang a matching replacement leaf or panel to the original profile. The same shop work stands behind our gate installation service in Los Angeles and our aluminum fence installation, and we work in iron, metal, wood and aluminum fencing to match.
Keypads, Intercoms and Access Control
Most driveway gates are only as reliable as the device people actually touch. We install and repair keypads, intercoms and access control hardware, including DoorBird and DoorKing stations, and we repair the wiring, transformers and low-voltage runs behind them. Common jobs are a keypad that has lost its backlight or has worn keys, an intercom station with no audio or a failed camera, a call button that no longer releases the gate, and water ingress at a gate post junction box. If the intercom is the main problem rather than the gate itself, our intercom systems page covers that work directly.
Where We Repair Driveway Gates
We are based in Reseda and work across Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley. Most of our driveway gate work is in the Valley and on the Westside — gate repair in Sherman Oaks, Studio City, Encino, Tarzana, Woodland Hills, Van Nuys and Calabasas on one side of the hill, and Beverly Hills, Bel Air, Brentwood, Pacific Palisades, Hidden Hills and the Hollywood Hills on the other. If your area is not listed, it is worth asking: the full list is on our Los Angeles service areas page, and we cover a good deal more of the county than we have room to name here.
Driveway Gate Questions, Answered
Can a driveway gate be repaired, or does it have to be replaced?
Most driveway gates can be repaired. Because we weld and fabricate in house, faults that often get quoted as a replacement — a cracked frame, a snapped hinge plate, a corroded post base, a bent track — can usually be cut out, re-fabricated and welded back in. We recommend replacement only when the structure has corroded past the point where a weld will hold, and we will tell you that plainly rather than sell you a repair that will not last.
My gate hums but does not move. What is wrong?
A hum with no movement almost always points at the operator rather than the gate. The usual causes are a failed start capacitor, a seized or worn gearbox, or a drive gear that has stripped against the rack. It can also mean the gate itself has jammed and the motor is straining against it. We check whether the gate moves freely by hand first, because that one test separates an electrical fault from a mechanical one.
Why does my sliding gate keep coming off its track?
Repeated derailment is a geometry problem, not a bad luck problem. The common causes are worn V-groove rollers, a track packed with grit, a bent or lifted track section, a missing or worn guide roller at the post, or a footing that has settled and taken the run out of level. Replacing rollers alone will not hold if the track or the footing has moved, so we correct the run before we fit new wheels.
My swing gate is dragging on the driveway. Can it be fixed without replacing the leaf?
Usually, yes. Dragging is normally the leaf dropping at the hinge side because the hinges have worn oval, a hinge weld has cracked, or the post has moved. We re-weld the cracked joints, fit correctly sized hinge bearings, reinforce the hinge plates or post as needed, and bring the leaf back to square. The leaf itself is rarely the part that has failed.
My gate opens but will not close. Is that the safety sensors?
Very often it is. A gate that opens normally and then refuses to close, or reverses part way, is usually reporting an obstruction it cannot see past: photo-eye sensors knocked out of alignment, a fogged or cobwebbed lens, a failed safety edge, or corroded wiring where the run crosses the driveway. We test the whole safety circuit rather than simply disabling it, and confirm the gate reverses on obstruction before we leave.
Do you repair the gate operator brand I already have?
We service the brands used across Los Angeles, including LiftMaster, All-O-Matic, FAAC, DoorKing, Viking, Eagle, Ramset, BFT, HySecurity, Linear, Marantec, Mighty Mule, Genie, Chamberlain, Sears Craftsman, Haas, Martin, First United, Cookson, Cornell Iron Works, Overhead Door Corp and Raynor. We are an Authorized Dealer for LiftMaster and All-O-Matic.
Do you repair keypads and intercoms as well as the gate itself?
Yes. We install and repair keypads, intercoms and access control hardware, including DoorBird and DoorKing stations, along with the low-voltage wiring, transformers and junction boxes behind them. Worn keypads, intercoms with no audio, failed call buttons and water ingress at the gate post are all routine work for us.
Do you work on commercial and HOA properties as well as homes?
Yes. We repair driveway and vehicle gates for apartment buildings, HOAs, property managers and commercial sites across Los Angeles, and we can set up ongoing maintenance so faults are found before a gate fails in use. Silence Garage Door and Gates is licensed, bonded and $2M insured, and holds California contractor license CSLB #1079396.
Every driveway gate repair and installation we carry out is covered by our warranty. Repairs carry three months on labor, parts we supply carry one year, and new installations carry one year on labor and parts alongside the manufacturer’s own limited warranty. The full terms, including how to claim and what happens if you sell the property, are set out on our warranty page.
Still not sure what you are looking at? Send a photo of the gate to (818) 441-2995 by text or WhatsApp, or call (888) 261-9976, and we will tell you what we see. You can also contact Silence Garage Door and Gates or look through our recent gate and garage door work.
Driveway Gate Work Across Los Angeles
