Roller guides vs slide guides - I was a hardcore slide guide guy for a decade

I always thought roller guides were just a fancier way to get the same ride quality until a 2009 Otis in a downtown Phoenix highrise kept throwing codes on floor 14. Swapped to roller guides and the vibration levels dropped by over 40% on the test runs. Any other slide guide diehards out there get converted by a specific job call?

2 comments

2 Comments

leep891mo agoTop Commenter

Man that 2009 Otis you mentioned reminded me of a similar headache I had with a Mitsubishi in a condo tower near the water. Drove me nuts for weeks with door zone errors that didn't make sense on paper. Turns out the slide guides were just old and dried out from the salt air coming off the bay. Replaced them with rollers and the noise complaints from the penthouse people stopped overnight. Funny how one bad experience can flip your whole opinion on something you thought was solid forever. Never went back to slides after that either.

nathan1931mo ago

Never thought I'd say it, but I'm with you on that. Used to swear by slides on anything older than 2010 because they were easier to swap and cheaper. Then I had a Schindler job in a beachfront hotel that acted up every time a storm rolled in. Humidity and salt just wrecked the guide shoes so fast, same as your Mitsubishi. Rollers cured it in one afternoon and I've been a convert since. Funny how one stubborn fix can make you throw out years of habit.