Residential/Light Duty Commercial Door Closer with Parallel Arm Bracket in Aluminum - Size 2

I was expecting the item to have bad instructions, as the other reviews noted (which this did), but I was not expecting the item to leak hydraulic fluid on the very first day it was installed.The instructions were difficult to read, due to the bad translation, and numerous typos, but eventually it is possible to find all of the information required to assemble and install the door closer properly. Once the item was installed, exactly per the limited instructions, it operated OK.I say OK because the point where it transitions from close-latch is difficult to adjust.Also the unit makes a lot of noise. Not any particular loud or obnoxious noise, but it ticks and groans as the door closes. Again, maybe that should be expected with a cheap door closer, but I was hoping for a quieter operation. Especially the first day out of the box.The biggest problem is the constant drip of Yellow/Green hydraulic fluid. It happens when the door is open or closed, and regardless of the position of the two adjusting pins.I'll be entering a warranty claim. If I get a new functioning one, I will improve my rating.But as-is I've got a noisy, leaky unit, so that is a 1-star experience at best.

The last house I owned we installed the Stanley brand hinge pin door closers on several doors in the house, but they never worked well, they caused damage to the woodwork, and they started to break (that is, the springs) after about 2 years of use. So, when we built our new house I decided to go with this one to keep the door from the mud room into the garage closed (the kids always leave the door open when they go in and out to the yard).Really, the only problem I had with the installation was that I used the included template to locate the holes for the main spring unit on the door. This template says right on it "Standard installation template" but for some reason that did not communicate with my brain. I was doing the parallel arm installation, so now I had 4 holes in my steel door in the wrong spot. So, then I had to drill four more holes for the mounting. I ended up putting the 4 extra screws in the holes, so it looks like they are there for a good reason, rather than have four holes in the door.The only other difficulty I had was that the instructions don't tell you that you mount the main arm on one side of the spring unit for right hand doors and on the other side for left hand doors. It took me a while to figure out that you can remove the cap and there is another spot to mount the arm on the other side. (I had a returned unit. Maybe with the brand new product the cap isn't already on one side). Anyway, when you go to install the main arm, you have to attach the main arm, following the instructions regarding the "index mark" and then hold the main arm under tension when you attach the main unit to the door. That way, it keeps some spring tension even when the door is all the way closed. They do that to have enough spring power to close the door all the way. Otherwise, it would stop before the door is shut.Realistically, this is a really good door closer for household use, not really intended for business or commercial use. It does look ugly, but it really does work well for a garage entry door. It would also work well for an exterior door in a garage or shop. I would probably stick with hinge pin closers if I were going to do an interior door.

As other reviewers mentioned before me, the 'manual' is near-useless. With some Internet backup, a reasonably experienced DIY'er could still handle that. In my case however, the unit turned out to be far too weak to actually close the door shut, even with the weather strips removed. Disclosure: this was my second door closer DIY project, the first one from a big box DYI store worked out fine.

I'll start this out by saying I have never installed one of these before so I had no idea what I was doing. I like to consider myself fairly competent / handy and figured this would be an easy install. Boy was I wrong.The instructions are worthless. Just throw them out. The only thing that was of marginal value was the template. On both sides of the template there are instructions saying to fold here and line up with door hinge, be sure to do that or you might end up with a few extra holes (ya, my bad).Mounting the opener to the door wasn't too hard, but the biggest pain was the arm that attaches to the door frame. If I had followed the directions and put the non threaded piece on the opener, the door would have never opened, much less closed, so I had to figure that out on my own.Overall, I was just happy to finish this project and save my company a couple hundred bucks from having to pay a professional to do it. With all the problems I had, i could do one in my sleep next time, so if nothing more it was a good learning experience.

I'm very happy with the closure. I bought this for the door form the house to the garage. Building codes require a spring closure but that would slam the door which was very annoying and causing damage to the door. I have it installed on the push side, parallel arm, and 90 degree opening inside the garage. It was quite easy to mount but you do have to pay attention to the instructions as the template is for every possible mounting option. It took a bit to make sure I had the right configuration but once that was settled the closure went up with no problems. Adjustment was simple and it works exactly as expected. It does however require a touch more effort to open the door than the spring hinges it replaced so if you are disabled, in a wheel chair or even using a walker you will want to use a different model that is fully ADA compliant.

The unit works well, does what it is supposed to.The instructions are horribly confusing and lack organization and explanation for any DIY.The parallel arm mount was too long to fit my door jamb. Had to cut it and redrill holes to mount.Why is there no drop plate available for this model? Had to make my own which was not fun.