Why does my garage door open unevenly after a spring replacement?

The three usual suspects, in order

1. Unequal cable tension at the drums. The final step of a torsion job is setting both lift cables to identical tension before locking the drums to the shaft. If one side was locked with a half-inch more slack, that side lags on the way up. You see it as a bottom edge that tilts, often more visibly in the first foot of travel. It also produces a flapping or slightly loose-looking cable on one side at the top of travel.

2. Springs wound to different counts. On a two-spring door, both springs must carry the same number of quarter turns. A tech interrupted mid-job, or a DIYer losing count around turn 25, can leave one spring a quarter or half turn ahead. The shaft then twists slightly under load, and the door racks. The turn logic is laid out in how many turns a torsion spring needs.

3. A drum or cone slipping after the job. Set screws bite into the shaft with real force, but a shaft with old screw craters, or screws torqued timidly, can let the drum creep a few degrees over the first dozen cycles. This is the case where the door was level on day one and crooked by the weekend, usually with a metallic clunk somewhere in its history.

Rule out the innocent bystanders

Not every post-replacement lean is the installer's doing. Before the callback conversation, check:

• Track obstructions. A stone, a wasp nest (an Oklahoma summer specialty), or a bent track flange will cock the door no matter how perfect the winding is.
• A worn roller that chose this week to die. New springs change how the door loads its rollers; a marginal roller sometimes fails right after a spring job coincidentally.
• Pre-existing frame issues. Older homes around Capitol Hill or Britton with settled foundations can have openings out of square by an inch. A good installer levels the door to the opening as best the structure allows and says so on the invoice.

Why you should not run it crooked

A racked door loads one track and one cable with more than their share. Left alone, the overloaded cable frays early, rollers wear egg-shaped, and the top panel gets twisted at every cycle. The opener also fights the rack on every lift, and that chronic strain is a classic path to a stripped drive gear, turning a free callback into a paid opener repair. If the door is more than an inch out level or is visibly binding, stop using it entirely until it is corrected.

How the fix should go

Any reputable installer, us included, treats this as a workmanship item: re-check turns on both springs, equalize cable tension, re-seat drums, verify with a tape measure from floor to bottom edge at both ends, then balance test. It takes a competent tech 20 to 40 minutes. If the company that did your springs will not return, we will straighten out someone else's work at a fair rate and document what we found; call for repair service or book a slot online. Our own spring replacements get leveled and tested before the truck leaves the driveway, which is the cheap way to never have this conversation.