Car hit the garage door

A dent at bumper height is rarely only a dent. The push travels through the hinges between panels into the rollers and tracks, and a door can be out of line from top to bottom while looking damaged in one spot. The practical problem often comes first: the garage may no longer close.

Keep the opener off

A door knocked out of line binds, and a motor driving it bends it further. The Consumer Product Safety Commission: "If doors are not 'balanced,' or if they bind or stick, they should be serviced by a professional" (CPSC Pub. 523). If the car is still touching the door, back it away slowly, and only if the door is not resting on it.

What to look at and photograph

• the bent panels, and whether the bend stops at the bottom section;
• the tracks, for bowing or a bracket pulled off the wall;
• rollers outside the track;
• a slack cable or a door lower on one side (see crooked or off track).

Take the pictures before anything is moved. This page does not say what a policy covers.

Repair or a new door

Whether bent panels can be replaced depends on how many there are and whether matching panels are still made for that model. The technician answers that after seeing the door, with the price. In Brazoria, Galveston and Chambers counties, and in the parts of five Harris County cities that lie east of Highway 146, a new door brings its own step: see windstorm inspection.

If a new door is sold on the spot

The FTC's Cooling-Off Rule excludes a repair visit you asked for, but the exclusion stops at the repair: "If, in the course of such a visit, the seller sells the buyer … additional services or goods other than replacement parts …, the sale of those additional goods or services would not fall within this exclusion" (16 CFR 429.0). A new door or opener sold in your home for household use can come with the right to cancel "at any time prior to midnight of the third business day after the date of this transaction", and the seller must tell you so in writing. The rule does not cover purchases for a business, and a buyer gives the right up by signing a handwritten statement that the work is needed for a bona fide emergency.

Updated 2026-09-30.