Skip the winter prep and here's what usually happens: a spring that's been quietly corroding all summer from Alabama humidity finally gives out on the one cold morning you actually need to leave for work. Or the door drags on swollen tracks, throws itself out of balance, and strains the opener until that burns out too. None of this is random bad luck. It's the predictable result of a door that went into fall already stressed and never got checked before the temperature dropped.