Universal garage door opener

My daughter has a new 2008 Expedition that has a Universal garage door opener. Twice they have left home with the garage door closed only to find it open when they return. They have disabled the universal garage door opener. Anyone have an idea as to what we should look for to solve the problem?

Yes, I know this is an Explorer newsgroup, but the Ford Explorer Limited has a universal garage door opener so I assume it is probably the same one that is in the Expedition.

Thanks for your help. Tom

Reply to
SF-East Bay'r
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The Homelink system is only universal in the sense that you can program the "Homelink" transmitter to mimic your standard garage door transmitter and program your garage door opener to respond to the signal. The Expedition transmits a particular encoded signal it learns from your standard opener. You train your garage door opener to respond to the signal the Expedition transmits (which is the same as your standard opener). The signal from the Expedition acts just like your standard opener. I can't think of any reason it would be responsible for the door opening after the Expedition left the area. The home link buttons are on the visor. Is it possible that your daughter is inadvertently pushing the button a second time as she is driving away when she repositions the visor? Otherwise it seems unlikely that the Expedition transmitter is doing something different than the standard transmitter. You might want to contact the Homelink experts at

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or 1-800-355-3515. It might be worth erasing and reprogramming the button (the instructions are in the owner's guide
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There is an Expedition mailing list. You might ask your question to that group. See
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Ed

Reply to
C. E. White

It's also possible that someone else in your neighborhood has a garage door opener operating at the same frequency as yours. When they push the button to operate their door, it also operates yours. Don't know what you do about that.

Reply to
Big_Shoe

This is not much of a problem with "modern" garage door openers. It is not just the fequency that matters. They send out a coded signal that is learned by the opener. Instead of a just a few different combinations, there are millions of possibilities. The Homelink system attempts to learn the method used via the programming routine.

From

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: "The current garage door opener market uses a frequency spectrum range between 300-400 MHz and most of the transmitter/receivers rely on hopping or rolling code technology. This approach prevents perpetrators from recording a code and replaying it to open a garage door. Since the signal is supposed to be significantly different from that of any other garage door remote control, manufacturers claim it is impossible for someone other than the owner of the remote to open the garage. When the transmitter sends a code, it generates a new code using an encoder. The receiver, after receiving a correct code, uses the same encoder with the same original seed to generate a new code that it will accept in the future. Because there is a high probability that someone might accidentally push the open button while not in range and desynchronize the code, the transmitter and receiver generate look-a-head codes ahead of time."

See

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or
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for more information. Ed

Reply to
C. E. White

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