Let's talk winches folks

[Chainringtattoo]

Honestly I bought the Zeon for for two reason. I prefer the look of the Zeon from a purely aesthetic point of view and second, it’s made in the USA.

With that said, I’m sure the the other brands will do just fine, but I wanted the look the Zeon offered and the reliability knowing it was assembled here for whatever that’s worth these days.

I have yet to use it but plan on doing some test recoveries soon.

I agree with you on both counts but I'm still trying to figure out why I can get a Chinese made winch any day I want but can't find a made in the USA winch.

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[Whaler27]

I don't have direct experience, but in my research the Badlands Apex seems to be stout and cheap. Wireless. Synthetic line.

Got my new 2021 Rubi Xtreme Recon last week and starting to look at mods. came with 35"s and will be adding couple hundred lbs in bumpers. Any recommendation on winches for both capacity and brand. I have no idea who makes good quality. Most likely will be used minimally but wanna have it work when needed. Looking right now at the DV8 bumpers series but nothing bought yet.

Thoughts and recommendation?

You have a beautiful, top-of-the-line, Jeep. I. would never bolt a crappy Chinese winch to a machine like that. You’ll be happier in the long run if you take your time, enjoy the research, enjoy the build, and add only quality pieces that you can trust and you only have to purchase once. As they say, ”Buy once, cry once”. Or is it “Cry once, buy once?”

There are several good winch brands, but you get what you pay for. Sadly, even Warn, the gold standard of yesteryear, sells some Warn-branded Chinese dog-squeeze. The Oregon made Warn winches that earned the great reputation are very expensive and, in my view, well worth it. (Unless you’re confident you’ll never use it and it’s just for “looks”.)

It’s not a question of how much they will pull on your test outing when you take it out to play with it. It’s whether you can trust it to work when you need it four years down the road, after it’s been fully submerged twice, covered in wet mud two dozen times, and weathered sixty or eighty rain/snow/freeze cycles. That’s when the rubber really meets the road. Winches, like firearms, need to work every time, not some of the time or most of the time.

The Oregon made Warn Zeon 10 series is a great fit for your Jeep. In over 44 years I’ve had five Warn winches on Jeeps. I’ve abused the crap out of them and never had one fail. I’ve transferred several of them to successive Jeeps, but couldn’t transfer my 9000 from my TJ, because it was too wide to fit in the factory steel bumper on the new JL, so I went with a new Zeon. Whatever you do, don’t buy one of the cheap Chinese Warns. You’ll be paying up for the brand, but getting the same Chinese quality sold by Smitty, Quadratech, and Harbor Freight — like the difference between buying the disposable Taiwan-made “Sears” tools and the old Craftsman tools that came with a no-questions-asked lifetime guarantee.

By the way, I buy plenty of disposable Harbor Freight stuff, including cheap specialty tools for the one-off jobs I may never do again. I’m not a guy who always has to buy the expensive stuff, but a winch is different. When you need it you really need it. The 12,000 pound Warn on our one-ton pickup got me and my niece out of an unexpected jam one cold Thanksgiving night, one winch-pull at a time, through about seven or eight long pulls. It was a Godsend and, quite possibly, a life-saver. That experience alone justifies the $800 price differential — every time.

If you’re feeling tight on cash at the moment, there are lots of useful safety and recovery tools you can accumulate that will provide added safety margin, like a good jack, radios, an in-reach sat unit, a come-along, Bubba ropes and shackles, traction boards, etc. You can always defer the winch purchase until you’re ready to do it right.

This time I went with the Zeon 10S mounted on the factory steel bumper using the Maximus-3 winch plate and tow loops. We’ve done the easy stubby conversion on the bumper and fashioned Kydex panels to cover the backs of the stubby ends to prevent mud and rocks from getting packed into the bumper ends and light fittings.

 

[mark203]

Curious if anyone went to Sema 2021 or has info on the new Smittybilt Gen 3 X20 winch? I'm in Edmonton, AB, Canada. Warn Evo VR 12S has gone up about 20% in recent months and doesn't seem as good as value. Rachel at 4WP near me said she just got training on the new Gen 3 X20. Said it's quite the winch.


Trying to do some research but can't find anything, it's not even on Smitty's website. That said, I know it exists cause there is a few seconds of it on a YT video and Rachel at 4WP showed me her screen with some behind the scenes 4WP training info.

It is on their website now: https://www.smittybilt.com/X20_GEN3#prettyPhoto

 

[Krondor]

You have a beautiful, top-of-the-line, Jeep. I. would never bolt a crappy Chinese winch to a machine like that. You’ll be happier in the long run if you take your time, enjoy the research, enjoy the build, and add only quality pieces that you can trust and you only have to purchase once. As they say, ”Buy once, cry once”. Or is it “Cry once, buy once?”

There are several good winch brands, but you get what you pay for. Sadly, even Warn, the gold standard of yesteryear, sells some Warn-branded Chinese dog-squeeze. The Oregon made Warn winches that earned the great reputation are very expensive and, in my view, well worth it. (Unless you’re confident you’ll never use it and it’s just for “looks”.)

It’s not a question of how much they will pull on your test outing when you take it out to play with it. It’s whether you can trust it to work when you need it four years down the road, after it’s been fully submerged twice, covered in wet mud two dozen times, and weathered sixty or eighty rain/snow/freeze cycles. That’s when the rubber really meets the road. Winches, like firearms, need to work every time, not some of the time or most of the time.

The Oregon made Warn Zeon 10 series is a great fit for your Jeep. In over 44 years I’ve had five Warn winches on Jeeps. I’ve abused the crap out of them and never had one fail. I’ve transferred several of them to successive Jeeps, but couldn’t transfer my 9000 from my TJ, because it was too wide to fit in the factory steel bumper on the new JL, so I went with a new Zeon. Whatever you do, don’t buy one of the cheap Chinese Warns. You’ll be paying up for the brand, but getting the same Chinese quality sold by Smitty, Quadratech, and Harbor Freight — like the difference between buying the disposable Taiwan-made “Sears” tools and the old Craftsman tools that came with a no-questions-asked lifetime guarantee.

By the way, I buy plenty of disposable Harbor Freight stuff, including cheap specialty tools for the one-off jobs I may never do again. I’m not a guy who always has to buy the expensive stuff, but a winch is different. When you need it you really need it. The 12,000 pound Warn on our one-ton pickup got me and my niece out of an unexpected jam one cold Thanksgiving night, one winch-pull at a time, through about seven or eight long pulls. It was a Godsend and, quite possibly, a life-saver. That experience alone justifies the $800 price differential — every time.

If you’re feeling tight on cash at the moment, there are lots of useful safety and recovery tools you can accumulate that will provide added safety margin, like a good jack, radios, an in-reach sat unit, a come-along, Bubba ropes and shackles, traction boards, etc. You can always defer the winch purchase until you’re ready to do it right.

This time I went with the Zeon 10S mounted on the factory steel bumper using the Maximus-3 winch plate and tow loops. We’ve done the easy stubby conversion on the bumper and fashioned Kydex panels to cover the backs of the stubby ends to prevent mad and rocks from getting packed into the bumper ends and light fittings.

I bought into this once.

I never had to repaint my Smittybilt, and it never failed me. All for a third of the price I paid for a pretty winch, that was bubbling and in need of repainting after 3 years in the garage and kept clean. The Warn still hasn't failed me, but I have to say my confidence is no longer high.

YMMV

 

[Whaler27]

I bought into this once.

I never had to repaint my Smittybilt, and it never failed me. All for a third of the price I paid for a pretty winch, that was bubbling and in need of repainting after 3 years in the garage and kept clean. The Warn still hasn't failed me, but I have to say my confidence is no longer high.

YMMV

Even the best-built products occasionally have a failure of one kind or another, but I’m curious as to whether the Warn you are talking about is one of the top tier (American) units or one of their bargain Chinese units.

My Zeon is one of the earlier units that came with a 180 degree clutch levers. Those will NOT fit in the OEM JL steel bumper, as there isn’t enough room for the lever to rotate fully. The solution is a 90 degree lever, which is how the winches are now equipped, but I had to find that part and install it. At the time they were very hard to find and my search led me to a business in Northern California that does nothing but winch rebuild work. The guy who runs the place has Warn parts going back to the 60s and he’s a tremendous resource. He didn’t have the lever I needed, but he gave me a free 45 minute education on the differences between Warn’s current heavy duty line, which is built with the quality that earned the reputation, and the “price point” line, which he won’t even work on. (The winch on my last CJ was one of the goofy-looking upright 8000s. It never failed, but it needed a rebuild near the twenty year mark — but the point is it was worth rebuilding.)

Warn eventually tooled up to meet the demand for the lever I and many other JL owners needed. They overnighted it to me for free and I installed it. That resulted in the inadvertent disassembly of my winch. The weight of the winch is in the gears. They are made of high quality steel and they are extremely heavy. Maybe the Chinese have come up with a new super-light metal that allows their winches to be equally strong and durable while weighing 30% less, but I doubt it.

One last point, I’m sure there is a Yugo car out there somewhere that is still running, but they were crappy, crazy-cheap cars with a laughable failure rate. Toyota builds lemons too, but very, very few. When it comes to winches I urge people to lean toward the more Toyota-like track record, because it’s the percentage play on something you may actually need.

 

[Gadgettr1]

You have a beautiful, top-of-the-line, Jeep. I. would never bolt a crappy Chinese winch to a machine like that. You’ll be happier in the long run if you take your time, enjoy the research, enjoy the build, and add only quality pieces that you can trust and you only have to purchase once. As they say, ”Buy once, cry once”. Or is it “Cry once, buy once?”

There are several good winch brands, but you get what you pay for. Sadly, even Warn, the gold standard of yesteryear, sells some Warn-branded Chinese dog-squeeze. The Oregon made Warn winches that earned the great reputation are very expensive and, in my view, well worth it. (Unless you’re confident you’ll never use it and it’s just for “looks”.)

It’s not a question of how much they will pull on your test outing when you take it out to play with it. It’s whether you can trust it to work when you need it four years down the road, after it’s been fully submerged twice, covered in wet mud two dozen times, and weathered sixty or eighty rain/snow/freeze cycles. That’s when the rubber really meets the road. Winches, like firearms, need to work every time, not some of the time or most of the time.

The Oregon made Warn Zeon 10 series is a great fit for your Jeep. In over 44 years I’ve had five Warn winches on Jeeps. I’ve abused the crap out of them and never had one fail. I’ve transferred several of them to successive Jeeps, but couldn’t transfer my 9000 from my TJ, because it was too wide to fit in the factory steel bumper on the new JL, so I went with a new Zeon. Whatever you do, don’t buy one of the cheap Chinese Warns. You’ll be paying up for the brand, but getting the same Chinese quality sold by Smitty, Quadratech, and Harbor Freight — like the difference between buying the disposable Taiwan-made “Sears” tools and the old Craftsman tools that came with a no-questions-asked lifetime guarantee.

By the way, I buy plenty of disposable Harbor Freight stuff, including cheap specialty tools for the one-off jobs I may never do again. I’m not a guy who always has to buy the expensive stuff, but a winch is different. When you need it you really need it. The 12,000 pound Warn on our one-ton pickup got me and my niece out of an unexpected jam one cold Thanksgiving night, one winch-pull at a time, through about seven or eight long pulls. It was a Godsend and, quite possibly, a life-saver. That experience alone justifies the $800 price differential — every time.

If you’re feeling tight on cash at the moment, there are lots of useful safety and recovery tools you can accumulate that will provide added safety margin, like a good jack, radios, an in-reach sat unit, a come-along, Bubba ropes and shackles, traction boards, etc. You can always defer the winch purchase until you’re ready to do it right.

This time I went with the Zeon 10S mounted on the factory steel bumper using the Maximus-3 winch plate and tow loops. We’ve done the easy stubby conversion on the bumper and fashioned Kydex panels to cover the backs of the stubby ends to prevent mud and rocks from getting packed into the bumper ends and light fittings.

I absolutely agree and second everything in your post! I also have a Warn Zeno 10s on a Maximus-3 mount with their front and rear tow loops. I highly recommend all of the above products, well worth the extra “made in USA” expense. So far I’ve only had to use my winch to extract others, but I know when I need it, it will work.

 

[Krondor]

My Zeon is one of the earlier units that came with a 180 degree clutch levers.

So we have the same older winch. I found they were quick to send out the 90 degree lever, and in fact they sent two by mistake. I gave the second to another member. Did yours start bubbling?

If it still didn't work like a champ, I'd be upset. As it is, I'm no longer a believer that my extra money bought me the "quality" I was sold. Still, if all I have to do is pull it apart and re-spray it every three years, I'll count myself lucky.

 

[Whaler27]

So we have the same older winch. I found they were quick to send out the 90 degree lever, and in fact they sent two by mistake. I gave the second to another member. Did yours start bubbling?

If it still didn't work like a champ, I'd be upset. As it is, I'm no longer a believer that my extra money bought me the "quality" I was sold. Still, if all I have to do is pull it apart and re-spray it every three years, I'll count myself lucky.

I just had bad timing when I discovered I needed the part. Warn was happy to send the lever as soon as i was produced, but Warn didn't have any in stock, the front of my Jeep was torn apart, and I didn't want to wait a couple weeks to get it put back together.

I'm surprised Warn didn't agree to warranty the paintjob. That's disappointing. I'd call them again and give them a chance to make it right, as they've always done right by me.

 

[Krondor]

I just had bad timing when I discovered I needed the part. Warn was happy to send the lever as soon as i was produced, but Warn didn't have any in stock, the front of my Jeep was torn apart, and I didn't want to wait a couple weeks to get it put back together.

I'm surprised Warn didn't agree to warranty the paintjob. That's disappointing. I'd call them again and give them a chance to make it right, as they've always done right by me.

Already painted and back in service.

I did contact them a couple of times, but the best I got was a new set of stickers. I am currently working with Pixeldecals.com and may put something else in place. Though I like the thought of a "W," I would want to tie it more to "Wanderer."

 

[Headbarcode]

You have a beautiful, top-of-the-line, Jeep. I. would never bolt a crappy Chinese winch to a machine like that. You’ll be happier in the long run if you take your time, enjoy the research, enjoy the build, and add only quality pieces that you can trust and you only have to purchase once. As they say, ”Buy once, cry once”. Or is it “Cry once, buy once?”

There are several good winch brands, but you get what you pay for. Sadly, even Warn, the gold standard of yesteryear, sells some Warn-branded Chinese dog-squeeze. The Oregon made Warn winches that earned the great reputation are very expensive and, in my view, well worth it. (Unless you’re confident you’ll never use it and it’s just for “looks”.)

It’s not a question of how much they will pull on your test outing when you take it out to play with it. It’s whether you can trust it to work when you need it four years down the road, after it’s been fully submerged twice, covered in wet mud two dozen times, and weathered sixty or eighty rain/snow/freeze cycles. That’s when the rubber really meets the road. Winches, like firearms, need to work every time, not some of the time or most of the time.

The Oregon made Warn Zeon 10 series is a great fit for your Jeep. In over 44 years I’ve had five Warn winches on Jeeps. I’ve abused the crap out of them and never had one fail. I’ve transferred several of them to successive Jeeps, but couldn’t transfer my 9000 from my TJ, because it was too wide to fit in the factory steel bumper on the new JL, so I went with a new Zeon. Whatever you do, don’t buy one of the cheap Chinese Warns. You’ll be paying up for the brand, but getting the same Chinese quality sold by Smitty, Quadratech, and Harbor Freight — like the difference between buying the disposable Taiwan-made “Sears” tools and the old Craftsman tools that came with a no-questions-asked lifetime guarantee.

By the way, I buy plenty of disposable Harbor Freight stuff, including cheap specialty tools for the one-off jobs I may never do again. I’m not a guy who always has to buy the expensive stuff, but a winch is different. When you need it you really need it. The 12,000 pound Warn on our one-ton pickup got me and my niece out of an unexpected jam one cold Thanksgiving night, one winch-pull at a time, through about seven or eight long pulls. It was a Godsend and, quite possibly, a life-saver. That experience alone justifies the $800 price differential — every time.

If you’re feeling tight on cash at the moment, there are lots of useful safety and recovery tools you can accumulate that will provide added safety margin, like a good jack, radios, an in-reach sat unit, a come-along, Bubba ropes and shackles, traction boards, etc. You can always defer the winch purchase until you’re ready to do it right.

This time I went with the Zeon 10S mounted on the factory steel bumper using the Maximus-3 winch plate and tow loops. We’ve done the easy stubby conversion on the bumper and fashioned Kydex panels to cover the backs of the stubby ends to prevent mud and rocks from getting packed into the bumper ends and light fittings.

It's posts just like yours that got me off the fence between a Zeon and VR Evo, and happily jump into the grassy knoll of a Zeon 12s.

 

[Iguanamann]

So I wound up with An XBull winch. Mounted a solenoid and wired it into my AUX switches. Custom bracket for the solenoid. Picture if anyone is interes.

 

[wranglerbro]

Hmmm...listen to people who have used their $1500+ Warn winches a handful of times (or zero) or to people who make their living winching/recovering people out of dire situations? I'll take the latter...

 

[Whaler27]

Hmmm...listen to people who have used their $1500+ Warn winches a handful of times (or zero) or to people who make their living winching/recovering people out of dire situations? I'll take the latter...

I have no doubt those guys know more about recovery than I do, and that recovery in particular was as sketchy as they come.

Of course, they never go anywhere without at least a couple rigs and plenty of help. And, oddly, although they do recoveries for a living, they always seem to have a new looking winch mounted on their rig. I wonder why/how that is? Most importantly, they are heavily sponsored. Like Brad on TrailRecon, who I respect and enjoy watching, many people in the YouTube 4x4 business are well paid to use products that would not otherwise be their first choices. Brad installed a Chinese winch on his JK. Marco, his travel buddy who was not so enthusiastically sponsored, went Warn Zeon.

In the end, ”you makes your choices and you takes your gambles”. There will always be folks who managed a success or two with a Chinese winch or tools made in Taiwan and then conclude they are equivalent to Warn or SnapOn. My experience has been very different — but power to‘em!

 

[Zandcwhite]

I have no doubt those guys know more about recovery than I do, and that recovery in particular was as sketchy as they come.

Of course, they never go anywhere without at least a couple rigs and plenty of help. More importantly, they are heavily sponsored. Like Brad on TrailRecon, who I respect and enjoy watching, many people in the business are well paid to use products that would not otherwise be their first choices. Brad installed a Chinese winch on his JK. Marco, his travel buddy who was not so enthusiastically sponsored, went Warn Zeon.

In the end, ”you makes your choices and you takes your gambles”. There will always be folks who managed a success or two with a Chinese winch or tools made in Taiwan and then conclude they are equivalent to Warn or SnapOn. My experience has been very different — but power to‘em!

I would bet that harbor freight is not a sponsor of Matt's offroad recovery (or anyone else on youtube for that matter). But what you are comfortable with and run it. If a winch is your only conceivable means of recovery, you definitely shouldn't be out alone anyway.

 

[545moose]

Honestly I bought the Zeon for for two reason. I prefer the look of the Zeon from a purely aesthetic point of view and second, it’s made in the USA.

With that said, I’m sure the the other brands will do just fine, but I wanted the look the Zeon offered and the reliability knowing it was assembled here for whatever that’s worth these days.

I have yet to use it but plan on doing some test recoveries soon.

Nice color matching! What winch plate is that with the hooks, and what's the purpose there? Those Baja lights look great too, do you have to have the off-road camera? If so, can you see much or at all with it using a bumper with the hoop I'm hoping?

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