Ghost Controls Gate Motor Replacement Nationwide

Ghost Controls Gate Motor Replacement: The West Hollywood Owner’s Guide

Ghost Controls gate motor replacement in West Hollywood typically runs $480 to $950 installed, including the arm assembly, control board matching, and photo-eye realignment. Most replacements take 60 to 90 minutes on site, and we carry Ghost Controls-compatible motors and boards on the truck for same-day service when the failure is confirmed. If your gate suddenly won’t respond to the remote, grinds when it moves, or the arm has gone limp and the gate swings free in the wind, you’re likely looking at a motor unit or gearbox that has reached the end of its working life. Owners usually discover the failure the same way: the gate worked fine on Tuesday and wouldn’t open on Wednesday, or it opened six inches and stopped with the alarm blinking twice. That blinking pattern is the control board telling you something specific, and it’s usually the motor drawing too much current or the travel sensor reading nothing at all.

Call (424) 321-7416

Which Ghost Controls Models This Applies To

We service every Ghost Controls swing gate motor line currently installed in West Hollywood: the TSS1, TDS2, and TSD2 series single and dual gate openers, along with the older GTO/PRO models that Ghost Controls absorbed. The compatibility gotcha most homeowners run into is the control board revision. Ghost Controls updated their receiver boards twice since 2018, and a motor from a 2021 TSS1 will not talk to a 2016 GTO/PRO board without a pigtail adapter that Ghost Controls sells separately and that we keep stocked. The quickest way to identify your model is the silver rating plate on the underside of the arm, near where it meets the post bracket. You’re looking for the model prefix followed by a date code, like “TSS1-2110.” If the plate is faded or gone, measure the arm from pivot to piston end: TSS1 arms measure 38 inches, TDS2 arms measure 41 inches, and that half-inch difference decides which motor body fits. As for OEM versus aftermarket: Ghost Controls OEM motors carry a two-year factory warranty and the connectors mate cleanly, which matters because the harness plugs are keyed differently by model year. Quality aftermarket equivalents from US Automatic and Mighty Mule’s commercial line fit the post pattern but often require splicing the limit switch leads, and that splice is the first thing we see corroded three years later in the salt-tinged air that pushes up from the coast into West Hollywood mornings. For most homeowners, we recommend OEM when the gate is your primary access point and aftermarket only when budget is the deciding factor.

Signs Your Ghost Controls Gate Motor Replacement Is Failing

• The gate moves in jerky increments, not a smooth arc. This is usually the gearbox stripping internally. Plastic worm gears are the first casualty in Ghost Controls units after roughly seven years of daily cycles, and once the teeth start shedding, the motor strains harder and the jerking gets worse until it seizes.
• The remote stops working but the manual button on the board still opens the gate. The receiver module on the control board has failed, not the remote itself. We test this by swapping the remote battery first, and when that doesn’t do it, the board is the culprit. Ghost Controls boards are replaceable separately from the motor, which saves several hundred dollars when the motor itself still runs clean.
• You hear a humming sound but the arm doesn’t move. The motor’s start capacitor is dead. It’s a $40 part, but on some Ghost Controls models the capacitor is potted into the motor housing, which means the whole arm assembly gets replaced rather than repaired.
• The gate drifts open or closed on its own when the wind pushes it. The internal brake or the worm gear lock has failed. A properly functioning Ghost Controls motor holds the gate position when idle; if it doesn’t, the gate is a hazard and you should secure it with a chain or the manual release pin while you arrange repair.
• The diagnostic LED blinks a specific sequence every time you try to open. Two blinks means motor overcurrent, three blinks means travel sensor fault, five means obstruction detection. We walk every customer through reading their own blink code before we dispatch, because it changes what we load on the truck.

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Replacement Cost & What’s Included

Ghost Controls motor replacement in West Hollywood prices out like this: $480 to $620 for a single swing gate motor swap with OEM parts, $620 to $950 for a dual gate setup where both arms get replaced, and board-only replacement runs $220 to $340 when the motor itself tests good. The spread depends on whether your post brackets are still solid, whether the control board revision is current enough to skip the adapter, and whether the photo-eyes need repositioning. Every quote is written and handed to you before we touch a tool, with the part number printed on the sheet. That’s Haven Standard Clause 1, and it applies to parts replacement the same way it applies to full installs. Labor is flat, not hourly: the price you sign is the price you pay, even if the bracket crumbles when we pull the old arm and we spend an extra forty minutes drilling and anchoring. The work carries our 365-Day Done Right Promise, which means if the replacement motor misbehaves at any point in the first year, we return and make it right at no charge.

DIY or Call Us?

Here is the honest split. If your Ghost Controls gate is dead and you want to check a few things before spending money: confirm the breaker hasn’t tripped, confirm the manual release pin isn’t pulled, and check whether the diagnostic LED is blinking or dark. Those three observations take five minutes and tell us a lot when you call. What you should not attempt is opening the motor housing or pulling the arm off the post while the gate is in any position other than fully secured with the pin set and power disconnected at the breaker. The arm is under mechanical tension from the spring inside, and the limit switch linkage can pinch fingers badly when the housing comes apart. We’ve also seen homeowners swap a motor, plug the old harness into the new board without the adapter, and short the board on first power-up. That turns a $600 repair into a $1,100 repair. If you have the plate number from the underside of the arm, call us at (424) 321-7416 and we’ll tell you over the phone whether it’s a swap we can do same-day or something we should survey first. Name what you found, name what it costs, name what you left behind.

FAQs

How long does a Ghost Controls gate motor last in West Hollywood? Seven to ten years on average, with coastal air corrosion and daily use cycles being the two biggest lifespan killers. Gates used more than eight cycles per day in the Hollywood Hills heat tend to fail closer to seven years, while lightly used gates in shaded West Hollywood side streets can push twelve.

Can the motor be repaired instead of replaced? Sometimes. If the failure is the capacitor, the limit switch, or a loose harness pin, we repair those on site for $85 to $180. If the gearbox is stripped or the arm piston seal has blown, the repair cost exceeds the replacement cost and we tell you that plainly before quoting anything.

How long does the replacement take? Sixty to ninety minutes for a single gate, under two hours for a dual system, assuming the post brackets are intact. If the bracket anchors are rusted or the post itself is loose in the footing, we stop and write a separate scope for the structural fix before proceeding.

Do you stock Ghost Controls parts on the truck? Yes. We carry TSS1 and TDS2 arm assemblies, control boards for both pre-2018 and post-2018 revisions, adapter pigtails, photo-eyes, and receiver modules. If your unit needs something we don’t have on board, it’s typically available from our local West Hollywood supplier within one business day.

If your Ghost Controls gate is acting up and you want a written price before anything gets touched, call (424) 321-7416. We answer in person, day or night, and we’ll tell you over the phone what the symptoms point to and what it costs to make it right. We’re Vance Gate Repair West Hollywood, independently owned and operated, not affiliated with Ghost Controls, and we also stock parts for LiftMaster, Mighty Mule, and DoorKing systems when the job calls for a different brand on the property.

Written by Adrian Vance, Owner, Vance Gate Repair West Hollywood at Vance Gate Repair West Hollywood, serving West Hollywood and nearby areas.