Preventative service and inspections should be completed once a year in order to avoid complete failure.
Garage door openers are built with sensitivity settings that are designed to alert you of potential problems. Older openers make it easy to adjust the garage door opener "force" settings.
The opener force settings should never be turned up in order to overcome a problem with the garage door that should be resolved with a garage door service or repair, but homeowners and unprofessional garage door technicians alike used the force settings as a quick fix to cover up bigger problems.
This puts the entire garage door system at risk for severe failure such as a garage door off track situation.
If you have an opener that is older than 10 years, a new opener could be a good idea to remove the risk associated with older openers that have not been serviced regularly or properly.