Best value winch?

[J0E]

(Vehicle weight x 2) + 25% of that.

I never wheel alone.

I've never had a winch.

Anytime I've been stuck a 30ft Bubba rope was all I needed to get out.

When the jeep in front of me rolled on it's side on narrow road, my 20 foot 1.25" Bubba pulled him 20 feet up the hill where we had more room. A winch with 2 jeeps would pull the two jeeps as we found out later. I used my inreach satellite to call for help. It took a winch to roll the jeep over, no way to do that with a kiinetic rope. BTW, a 7/8" rope would have broken.

A kinetic rope can be faster, but sometimes you need a winch. We've been in several other predicaments when a winch was needed.

I’ve had good luck with Smittybilt. Quality product at a reasonable cost. I’m a fan of synthetic line-wire has a different set of issues. Nothings perfect but I feel safer using the synthetic line.

After trying to convince several recovery experts that wire is OK, I'm a convert, synthetic line is the only way to go.

https://www.amazon.com/X-BULL-Winch-Synthetic-Winch-10000-Capacity/dp/B08RYV6DLW/ref=mp_s_a_1_6?crid=1W8WL1OXJCQ67&keywords=xbull&qid=1647229397&sprefix=xbull,aps,153&sr=8-6
X-bull 10k has been solid for 2+ years. Works every time I hit the button on the wireless remote. We wheel a heavy JLUR on 38's, winch has had no issue pulling us out of bumper deep, thick mud even when the nearest tree only left 3 wraps on the drum. We carry 2 snatch blocks just in case, never had to use either one yet. At $350 you can't go wrong. Any tool can fail, why spend more than necessary for a false sense of security?

Wow, they're under $300 now.

Sponsored

 

[J0E]

More info for anyone. Video showed both in use.

Good video. In the video they over heat the 12K RC winch with a snatch block. A 9.5K winch without a snatch block would have burned up. Only the Warn Platinum monitors temperature and lets you know when you've reached the duty cycle limit.

 

[Kleiss1]

I just got a Smittybilt 10000 for under $600.

 

[Old Jeeper]

Cheap don't good and good don't come cheap.

That said how much do you wheel, what level of trails and how often?

IF you are a lone wheeler ( I am) its Go Warn or don't get home.

Sure everyone wants to spend as few buck as they can, go they go Harbor Fright..

Harbor Fright: When I had my off road shop I did a LOT of welding and fab work. I had 1 DeWalt cut off wheel. Now welding is a mult-steps from raw steel to finished product. I went Harbor fright after I counted out the steps from raw to ifnish and I came up with 10 steps or so. Went to Harbor Fright and they had a sale on 4.5 in cut off wheeels and I bought 12 , giving me 2 more than I needed.. 10 tears later I sold my shop and kept most of my tools. Of the orginial buy of 12, I had 11 left over and they all were worked after all those years and all the fabing I did. They held up!

I was buy sanding wheels 36 at a time.

They were good and they were Cheap compared to my DeWalt at $64 buck.

What need to weigh think on a worse case scenario for you adventures and what would be the impact of a failed winch at that time in life?

Worst Case Scenario: Early moring we meet at 0700 at Table Mesa. about 7 or 8 Jeeps ples myself and the trail leader. The trip is exploration of mines in the Table Mesa AO, no extreme trails to be done.

Left staging area and drove across the RIVER, water was summer time slow and low, rims of tires did not get wet.

Its around 5 pm and we get back to the RIVER and head home. WHOA that river is wider and flowing like crazy. Big storm up north dumped big rain and the river was unpassable. However its the best route to get out of Table Mesa and go home. There is a back trail and its long ways below where we are.

Leader says he will try getting across, he has a puck lift of about 1-1.5 in so it will be a good test. He gets about 2/3ds over and stops, he cannot go any further, the Jeep is stuck and the river is rising.

I tell his the Cavalry is on it way and I hit the river with a big splash, I got 37s and a 3 in lift. Water is at the fender level time I get to him. Turns out got stuck on a stump.

I pull out max Masterpull rope and its rated at 29,XXX lb and I have my trusty Warn 9.5 Ti Winch. I pull out the rope about 80+ feet as I seen my black sheath starting to come out of the winch and its about 10 long. WInch is under water.

I pull him off the stump and back up to get up on the bank of teh river and do another full pull and him out of the water.

I am in a Worst Case Scenario with lkife and Jeep on the table.

Will you winch do a FULL PULL under water?

If you look close in the pic you will see me in front of my Jeep getting ready to spool it out and hook up to his Jeep, right behind mine.

Life saved, Jeep life saved, we got home that night.

Post Script: We got home, and the other 8 Jeeps made a choice to stay as the river was rising. I offered to rescue if they did make it, they said we will leave sometime tonight or in the moring. River contunes to rise and rises all night and till about noon the next day. Wives call Sheriff's office who send out a Helicopter to look for them, find them and go back and drop off water and food supplies. Water receeding slowly and they spend another night and spend 3 nights total.

Take Away: Only you can make the call. Would Chinese swim the river and not drown? Dunno but my Warn made it. You may ever need a winch or maybe just to pull a guy out of a shalow ditch. I will say this, I have 3 vehicles and they all have a Warn Winch. In fact I used it yesterday to extract a water softner that was buried here at my place, don't ask why they buried it???

 

[aldo98229]

I had the cheap Warn VR on my 2015 Sahara briefly. I wouldn’t recommend it.

The solenoid body is made to look steel but is actually plastic; the controller switches are literally lifted off a 1970s JC Whitney catalog. To make matters worse, the bolts holding the solenoid box in place started rushing after only two weeks. It was very disappointing. I sent it back.

FYI - Warn recently issued a recall on 121,000 VR and EVO winches: https://gearjunkie.com/motors/warn-winch-wireless-remote-recall

On the other hand, I found the Quadratec Stealth line of winches to offer some of the best values out there. It has a nice compact size, comes with a solid full cast steel body, synthetic line, both wireless and wired controllers, and even has a built-in LED light above the drum!

I paid $600 for a Stealth-10 eighteen months ago or so. I am very pleased with it.

 

[Zandcwhite]

Cheap don't good and good don't come cheap.

That said how much do you wheel, what level of trails and how often?

IF you are a lone wheeler ( I am) its Go Warn or don't get home.

Sure everyone wants to spend as few buck as they can, go they go Harbor Fright..

Harbor Fright: When I had my off road shop I did a LOT of welding and fab work. I had 1 DeWalt cut off wheel. Now welding is a mult-steps from raw steel to finished product. I went Harbor fright after I counted out the steps from raw to ifnish and I came up with 10 steps or so. Went to Harbor Fright and they had a sale on 4.5 in cut off wheeels and I bought 12 , giving me 2 more than I needed.. 10 tears later I sold my shop and kept most of my tools. Of the orginial buy of 12, I had 11 left over and they all were worked after all those years and all the fabing I did. They held up!

I was buy sanding wheels 36 at a time.

They were good and they were Cheap compared to my DeWalt at $64 buck.

What need to weigh think on a worse case scenario for you adventures and what would be the impact of a failed winch at that time in life?

Worst Case Scenario: Early moring we meet at 0700 at Table Mesa. about 7 or 8 Jeeps ples myself and the trail leader. The trip is exploration of mines in the Table Mesa AO, no extreme trails to be done.

Left staging area and drove across the RIVER, water was summer time slow and low, rims of tires did not get wet.

Its around 5 pm and we get back to the RIVER and head home. WHOA that river is wider and flowing like crazy. Big storm up north dumped big rain and the river was unpassable. However its the best route to get out of Table Mesa and go home. There is a back trail and its long ways below where we are.

Leader says he will try getting across, he has a puck lift of about 1-1.5 in so it will be a good test. He gets about 2/3ds over and stops, he cannot go any further, the Jeep is stuck and the river is rising.

I tell his the Cavalry is on it way and I hit the river with a big splash, I got 37s and a 3 in lift. Water is at the fender level time I get to him. Turns out got stuck on a stump.

I pull out max Masterpull rope and its rated at 29,XXX lb and I have my trusty Warn 9.5 Ti Winch. I pull out the rope about 80+ feet as I seen my black sheath starting to come out of the winch and its about 10 long. WInch is under water.

I pull him off the stump and back up to get up on the bank of teh river and do another full pull and him out of the water.

I am in a Worst Case Scenario with lkife and Jeep on the table.

Will you winch do a FULL PULL under water?

If you look close in the pic you will see me in front of my Jeep getting ready to spool it out and hook up to his Jeep, right behind mine.

Life saved, Jeep life saved, we got home that night.

Post Script: We got home, and the other 8 Jeeps made a choice to stay as the river was rising. I offered to rescue if they did make it, they said we will leave sometime tonight or in the moring. River contunes to rise and rises all night and till about noon the next day. Wives call Sheriff's office who send out a Helicopter to look for them, find them and go back and drop off water and food supplies. Water receeding slowly and they spend another night and spend 3 nights total.

Take Away: Only you can make the call. Would Chinese swim the river and not drown? Dunno but my Warn made it. You may ever need a winch or maybe just to pull a guy out of a shalow ditch. I will say this, I have 3 vehicles and they all have a Warn Winch. In fact I used it yesterday to extract a water softner that was buried here at my place, don't ask why they buried it???

The dramatic story may seem like an endorsement of warn, but to me it reads like a whole bunch of what not to do followed by a good bit of luck and some assumptions that A. No other winch would have worked and B. Another Warn winch or even the same winch would not fail in the same conditions next time. Will my xbull make a hard pull under water? Absolutely has when I entered a big sloppy wet mud hole with 0 chance of anyone dying. Am I going to put myself or anyone else in a position where a winch failure results in death? Absolutely not. In 30 years of wheeling, I've seen more Warn winches fail than any other brand. Now granted, especially 20 years ago they likely outnumbered other winches on the trail at least 10 to 1, but they do fail. So do Toyotas or whatever else people see as the gold standard of reliability. Every recovery I've ever been a part of with a single winch could have been accomplished without one via a bunch of extra work. Now if you're talking multiple winches, vehicles rolled off hill sides, etc now that's a different story. I'd suggest not putting your life on the line where a winch failure will end it, as EVERY brand sees failures. In a rising river with vehicles and/or lives on the line I'd probably go for the kinetic recovery rope, after backing in to the river with my winch line or someone else's on dry land attached just in case as it would be far quicker than winching with any winch.

 

[Old Jeeper]

The dramatic story may seem like an endorsement of warn, but to me it reads like a whole bunch of what not to do followed by a good bit of luck and some assumptions that A. No other winch would have worked and B. Another Warn winch or even the same winch would not fail in the same conditions next time. Will my xbull make a hard pull under water? Absolutely has when I entered a big sloppy wet mud hole with 0 chance of anyone dying. Am I going to put myself or anyone else in a position where a winch failure results in death? Absolutely not. In 30 years of wheeling, I've seen more Warn winches fail than any other brand. Now granted, especially 20 years ago they likely outnumbered other winches on the trail at least 10 to 1, but they do fail. So do Toyotas or whatever else people see as the gold standard of reliability. Every recovery I've ever been a part of with a single winch could have been accomplished without one via a bunch of extra work. Now if you're talking multiple winches, vehicles rolled off hill sides, etc now that's a different story. I'd suggest not putting your life on the line where a winch failure will end it, as EVERY brand sees failures. In a rising river with vehicles and/or lives on the line I'd probably go for the kinetic recovery rope, after backing in to the river with my winch line or someone else's on dry land attached just in case as it would be far quicker than winching with any winch.

LOL, wow an attempt at a hatchet job assault on my post. I gave you a like because it is quite comedic. I think you need a sharper hatchet!

Telling me not to put my life on the line...joke of the day, I love it! Life on the line, on occasion, I only spent 26 years US Army INFANTRY! I got more time walking the valley of the shadow of death than you got wheeling.

However, in the event, you find yourself in a bind, just call I will be there and I will get you out of it. I don't leave my soldiers on the battlefield and I won't leave your butt on the trail.

 

[Zandcwhite]

LOL, wow an attempt at a hatchet job assault on my post. I gave you a like because it is quite comedic. I think you need a sharper hatchet!

Telling me not to put my life on the line...joke of the day, I love it! Life on the line, on occasion, I only spent 26 years US Army INFANTRY! I got more time walking the valley of the shadow of death than you got wheeling.

However, in the event, you find yourself in a bind, just call I will be there and I will get you out of it. I don't leave my soldiers on the battlefield and I won't leave your butt on the trail.

Your actions are 100% what I would do, your “trail leader” on the other hand… You don’t enter rushing water on a ”let’s see if I can make it”. That’s just dumb. He risked his life and yours in the process. If there’s any doubt, hook a line to the lead rig before he goes in the river. It’s a risk that didn’t need taking. I didn’t mean to imply you should have left him there, you took action and saved his dumb ass. Thank you for your service and I’d gladly wheel with you any day, that trail leader not so much.

 

[Speed331]

At this this point, the Apex Badland 12,000 has been out, and in heavy use long enough, to be declared free of any design or manufacturing problems. It still gets rave reviews and if it had any fundemental flaws they would have been uncovered by now.

While I've only rarely needed it, mine has yet to let me down.

It's performance at it's price point is exceptional - I'd almost call it the GTX1060 of winches...

 

[Fouts]

I just agonized over a winch purchase, read a lot and decided to go with the Warn Zeon. I really wanted to buy American and really believed it would be the best option until it came to paying for it. I really could not justify the additional $500 to $700 dollars so I went with the Superwinch. A bit more than some options but came with synthetic and cordless remote. Sorry can't report on performance yet, waiting for bumper to come back from powdercoat.

 

[Old Jeeper]

Your actions are 100% what I would do, your “trail leader” on the other hand… You don’t enter rushing water on a ”let’s see if I can make it”. That’s just dumb. He risked his life and yours in the process. If there’s any doubt, hook a line to the lead rig before he goes in the river. It’s a risk that didn’t need taking. I didn’t mean to imply you should have left him there, you took action and saved his dumb ass. Thank you for your service and I’d gladly wheel with you any day, that trail leader not so much.

That morning we drove across the river and the water was not even rim deep and barely flowing.

We did our run and expected to just drive back over and thru the river. The back out is way South of us and no one on the run had ever done it. Now we are thinking it's either spending the night here which was a day run and no one had planned for spending the night. The leader and I talked, and looked hard at the river. At that time the river was about 100 yards wide and that morning it was maybe 20 yards. All of us are long-time Table Mesa wheelers. The leader says he is gonna chance it. The width it's grown to around 100 yds means it is still fairly shallow.

He would have made had he not driven over the (unseen) stump and could not move. I had no other choice and I see where the water line was on his Jeep and I KNEW I make it. I also had 37's and he only had 35s and he did not have a 3 in lift he only had a 1 or 1.5 in spacer lift. I knew my rig would do it and I also knew the river was rising.

Its not the pic I posted but there an F 350 Superduty over there not far from him but he did have a strap or a winch and neither did our Leader. But I did! I knew the worse scenario I hook my winch to the truck bumper and strap to the leader we would get out.

Take Away: I KNEW I could it work, the water level was high but I knew my Jeep would make it and with the truck sitting there and the winch bag this was going to work. I learned to winch back in the 60s. I am an old man and maybe the oldest guy on the forum, in fact if are older than me and on here you probably got a winch on you wheelchair.

How old am I, well got a birthday coming soon. My wife just gave me my Birthday present. I got 2 20 in Husqvarna bars for my 2 commercial chainsaws, I got a carbide-tipped chain and another Titanium chain and she surprised me with a contract on some land she bought for me to go clear. Yea an old man but I can swing a 18 lb chainsaw...

 

[tshaw2009]

If you want a good quality winch at the best price, look no further than openroad4wd winches. Matt from Ozark Overland Adventures partners with them and they are pretty solid.https://openroad4wd.com/collections...ectric-winch-waterproof-ip67-panther-series-2
https://openroad4wd.com/collections/electric-winches-panther-2s/products/openroad-13000lbs-winch-2s

 

[J0E]

I just agonized over a winch purchase, read a lot and decided to go with the Warn Zeon. I really wanted to buy American and really believed it would be the best option until it came to paying for it. I really could not justify the additional $500 to $700 dollars so I went with the Superwinch. A bit more than some options but came with synthetic and cordless remote. Sorry can't report on performance yet, waiting for bumper to come back from powdercoat.

My next build will mount a ZEON 12-S PLATINUM WINCH
Nothing else come close. It's the only winch that tells you when you're at the end of the duty cycle and need to cool down.

My guess is the Superwinch 12K is just as good as the non-Platinum Zeon's. I like it so much I bought another for my TJR. With free shipping to Hawaii, the superwinch was half the price of the Zeon. Using one remote (assuming the remotes don't have a channel), I'll have 72K lbs pulling power using two jeeps and four snatch rings.

If it's a hard pull and there's room for another rig to pull up next to me, I use the other rig as an anchor point. Doubles the pull on the stuck rig, half the pull on my rig. And it's just as fast to set up. It's much faster and easier than using a traditional tandem style anchor.
I've used my superwinch several times and I'll use it at least 50 times in the next year. It's a rare weekend when someone doesn't need a pull.

Everyone is concerned with durability. Going with a 12K winch and using a snatch ring most of the time is the best way to protect your winch.

Your actions are 100% what I would do, your “trail leader” on the other hand… You don’t enter rushing water on a ”let’s see if I can make it”. That’s just dumb. He risked his life and yours in the process. If there’s any doubt, hook a line to the lead rig before he goes in the river. It’s a risk that didn’t need taking. I didn’t mean to imply you should have left him there, you took action and saved his dumb ass. Thank you for your service and I’d gladly wheel with you any day, that trail leader not so much.

That’s just dumb.

Unless you were there, it's difficult to appraise risk. I was ice racing on the interstate in MT, hit 115 MPH and the studs coming out sounded like a machine gun. The Monday morning QB, back seat driving response is always That’s just dumb.

Foolish might be a better adjective for that. But most stories it's not so clear without being there.

I’d gladly wheel with you any day.

Thanks for being civil. I’d gladly wheel with you two any day.

That's a much better response than

This thread is just so…..dumb. I’ve wheeled autos. They did just fine. My Jeep’s a manual. I stall. Occasionally stink up the cabin with clutch fumes. I love it.
If you’re so insecure that you’ve got to post about this online to make yourself feel better (especially posting a pro/con list in your sig??? ), remind me never to go wheeling with you. Ever.

remind me never to go wheeling with you. Ever.

because he disagrees with my assertions on AT vs MT.

 

[Zandcwhite]

My next build will mount a ZEON 12-S PLATINUM WINCH
Nothing else come close. It's the only winch that tells you when you're at the end of the duty cycle and need to cool down.

My guess is the Superwinch 12K is just as good as the non-Platinum Zeon's. I like it so much I bought another for my TJR. With free shipping to Hawaii, the superwinch was half the price of the Zeon. Using one remote (assuming the remotes don't have a channel), I'll have 72K lbs pulling power using two jeeps and four snatch rings.

If it's a hard pull and there's room for another rig to pull up next to me, I use the other rig as an anchor point. Doubles the pull on the stuck rig, half the pull on my rig. And it's just as fast to set up. It's much faster and easier than using a traditional tandem style anchor.
I've used my superwinch several times and I'll use it at least 50 times in the next year. It's a rare weekend when someone doesn't need a pull.

Everyone is concerned with durability. Going with a 12K winch and using a snatch ring most of the time is the best way to protect your winch.



That’s just dumb.

Unless you were there, it's difficult to appraise risk. I was ice racing on the interstate in MT, hit 115 MPH and the studs coming out sounded like a machine gun. The Monday morning QB, back seat driving response is always That’s just dumb.

Foolish might be a better adjective for that. But most stories it's not so clear without being there.

I’d gladly wheel with you any day.

Thanks for being civil. I’d gladly wheel with you two any day.

That's a much better response than




because he disagrees with my assertions on AT vs MT.

I could have been more polite, but driving into a river that is 5 times as wide as it was in the morning is...not smart. Especially in the less capable rig. If you want to test the waters, send the biggest/tallest rig across 1st. I've done my share of dumb, the last thing I'm going to do is get offended or try to defend it when called out on it.

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