This Guy Thinks Harbor Freight Winch Better Than Warn

[goose77]

The winch isn't to blame for that failure.

It's interesting to get his take, especially since he said he worked for WARN. I thought it was a good watch.

Sponsored

 

[OSCAR II]

Everyone has an opinion. WARN has been great to me, always high quality stuff.

Wranglerstar HF vs WARN

WOW, I haven't watched that channel in a while but I remember when he got it. He talked it up like it was all that and a bag of chips. Now hes like, don't want or even a free replacement!

I saw those winches during a trip to HF and I was tempted. But I just could not overcome the previous HF reputation I had in mind. So I ended up with a differennt non-Warn winch.

I'm with ya 100% That's what they are known for, cheap stuff.

I have an old WARN that I bought many years ago. Its never let me down. I mounted it on a rig that fits in a receiver. I've had it on trailers, Suburbans but that thing is a monster to much to be hanging off a Jeep. When the JL comes it will get its own in the bumper.

 

[jeepingib]

It's interesting to get his take, especially since he said he worked for WARN. I thought it was a good watch.

I recall reading somewhere else that HF actually hired a former Warn engineer to design the Apex winch. Don't know where I came across it though. Would be interesting if true.

 

[goose77]

I recall reading somewhere else that HF actually hired a former Warn engineer to design the Apex winch. Don't know where I came across it though. Would be interesting if true.

Yes, I am not knocking Harbor Freight. They are good value on most things. They pretty much copy the leading brands, call them out and market their cheaper version. If I needed a winch on a budget, I would check them out.

 

[offcamber]

For years I bought only Warn winches when I got a truck/jeep. Then I had 3 Warn winches in a row leave me stranded and Warn's warranty service sucked - they asked me to pay freight to them and took almost 6 wks to get one of them back to me. That winch in particular failed on me a second time. So next time I bought a Jeep, I decided to get a Smittybilt with their in store warranty at 4Wheel Parts. My thoughts were when it failed (and it would, right? I mean everyone knows they are junk...) I would just take it back to 4 wheel parts and they would replace it. I used the crap out of that winch for 6 years on my 2012JKU. One night I spent almost all night winching a buddies F250 out of a bog. I toasted a battery but my winch never failed. I'd paid $379 for that winch with synthetic line. When I got my JLU, what did I put on it? Not a Warn. If you want to pay for a sticker that is fine but for years Warns' failed in the major magazines torture tests. Warn let me down too many times on a winch that I paid over $1000 for. Never again.

 

[offcamber]

I just purchased a Warn Zeon 8S for my '22 JL on its way. For me my tune has changed in recent years. I am now trying to buy 'American', support US manufacturers, and supply chains as much as possible, and sometimes paying dearly for my efforts.

I work for a 'fully made in USA' manufacturer and deal with knock offs/copycats both foreign and domestic. I appreciate inventors and innovators that have created and refined their products and like to support them. It is very difficult to bring innovation to the market and so easy to copy not knowing/appreciating all of the testing and learning that went into the original.

I remember once talking to the founder of the company I work for and saying how it pissed me off that other companies were copying us and selling inferior product... he smiled and said, "copying is the sincerest form of flattery".

What I have found is that the original manufacture knows why it is designed and built a certain way. The copy cats don't. As an engineer, I appreciate that.

Think of it this way... the extra money you paid hopefully is going toward R&D. You know damn well when paying for a knockoff... not much if any is being reinvested to innovate or improve the product.

Just my three cents... adjusted for inflation.

They only way you are getting a Warn winch that is made in the USA is if you are buying an old one. All of the new ones are put together in Oregon but most of the parts are from outside the USA. Same parts that Smittybilt and other companies are using, they just assemble those parts in USA. Warn isn't being truthful and is misleading folks like you who THINK they are buying US products.

 

[Whaler27]

I’ve watched several of his videos; that guy lives in an alternative reality.

Having said, Matt’s Off-road Recovery use Harbor Freight winches

The cool thing about sponsorship is an endless supply of the product being sponsored. If one dies, just bolt up another.

** Disclaimer: I have no idea who sponsors Matt’s Recovery, I occasionally buy disposable Harbor Freight tools for one-time jobs, and I know zero professional mechanics who rely on HF tools for the backbone of their tool chests.

I still think “Sears” tools (as opposed to Craftsman) were the beginning of the downfall for Sears. When Richard Sears created the company he offered an amazing “satisfaction guaranteed” policy, the first of its kind, which was eventually extended to all their tools, all of which were Craftsman. In the late 1970’s I had a Craftsman tape measure in my truck tool box with flares and recovery gear. The box leaked, which created a nasty slurry of corrosive crap in the bottom of the box. That slurry turned my ten year old tape measure into a rusty, seized block of metal. I brought it to the local sears store and the manager pointed me to the new ones and said, “leave that here and go get a new one”. A couple years later I brought in a Sears ratchet which had broken on its second use. The same manager said, “I’m sorry. The lifetime replacement guarantee only applies to the Craftsman brand.“ That’s when I started looking hard at the quality and pricing difference between the expanding “Sears” brand (Chinese) and the traditional Craftsman brand (then still American and fully warranted). The problem is, the once stellar Sears reputation rapidly eroded with millions buying the cheaper Sears tools and then suffering failures with no warranty support. The company reputation went from one of top quality and durability, to one of lousy quality in less than twenty years. The company leveraged the reputation it took several generations to build to sell millions of crappy tools — which killed the reputation and their sales within a generation.

Warn is following is Sears footsteps. Most of their line, and undoubtedly most of their sales volume, is comprised of cheaper, lighter, Chinese-made winches with a Warm nameplate on them. When they fail, and they do, it’s scored as a Warn failure. Nobody says, “I bought one of the cheap foreign-made Warns and it died.“ They say, “I bought a Warn and it died”.

Even the the most durable products occasionally fail. That’s true of Toyotas, Glock firearms, and Warn winches. The folks who test, build, and warranty Warn products will tell you the “price point” winches have nothin in common with the Oregon-made winches but the nameplate, line and fairlead... but they’re selling he heck out of them. There just isn’t a large enough market for commercial quality products anymore. It’s a shame.

 

[Initial-Jeep]

heh, this thread reminds me of the movie, "Outsourced":
"Buy American"
but
"People who buy the expensive Warn _<insert personality defect here>_; buy the cost-effective _<insert made in China model here>_"


The Chinese will build whatever they're told to build however they're told to build it: if you tell them to build junk, they'll build junk; if you tell them to build quality, they'll build quality. Nobody claims iPhones are "cheap Chinese junk".

Contrarily, my experience with "Made in the USA" over the past decade or so has made me disprefer domestic, reminding me of early-'70's Japanese products but not with a cheap price tag.

I prefer to buy quality and I don't care where they happen to live.


Having said all that, I've still no idea which winch to pinch. (I'm defaulting to the Warn Zeon 10-S platinum until I have enough useful data points to suggest otherwise--I care less about cost and more about it working when I need it.)

 

[roaniecowpony]

I used my wench to preload my new synthetic line.

Pictures or it didn't happen.

 

[aldo98229]

The cool thing about sponsorship is an endless supply of the product being sponsored. If one dies, just bolt up another.

** Disclaimer: I have no idea who sponsors Matt’s Recovery, I occasionally buy disposable Harbor Freight tools for one-time jobs, and I know zero professional mechanics who rely on HF tools for the backbone of their tool chests.

I still think “Sears” tools (as opposed to Craftsman) were the beginning of the downfall for Sears. When Richard Sears created the company he offered an amazing “satisfaction guaranteed” policy, the first of its kind, which was eventually extended to all their tools, all of which were Craftsman. In the late 1970’s I had a Craftsman tape measure in my truck tool box with flares and recovery gear. The box leaked, which created a nasty slurry of corrosive crap in the bottom of the box. That slurry turned my ten year old tape measure into a rusty, seized block of metal. I brought it to the local sears store and the manager pointed me to the new ones and said, “leave that here and go get a new one”. A couple years later I brought in a Sears ratchet which had broken on its second use. The same manager said, “I’m sorry. The lifetime replacement guarantee only applies to the Craftsman brand.“ That’s when I started looking hard at the quality and pricing difference between the expanding “Sears” brand (Chinese) and the traditional Craftsman brand (then still American and fully warranted). The problem is, the once stellar Sears reputation rapidly eroded with millions buying the cheaper Sears tools and then suffering failures with no warranty support. The company reputation went from one of top quality and durability, to one of lousy quality in less than twenty years. The company leveraged the reputation it took several generations to build to sell millions of crappy tools — which killed the reputation and their sales within a generation.

Warn is following is Sears footsteps. Most of their line, and undoubtedly most of their sales volume, is comprised of cheaper, lighter, Chinese-made winches with a Warm nameplate on them. When they fail, and they do, it’s scored as a Warn failure. Nobody says, “I bought one of the cheap foreign-made Warns and it died.“ They say, “I bought a Warn and it died”.

Even the the most durable products occasionally fail. That’s true of Toyotas, Glock firearms, and Warn winches. The folks who test, build, and warranty Warn products will tell you the “price point” winches have nothin in common with the Oregon-made winches but the nameplate, line and fairlead... but they’re selling he heck out of them. There just isn’t a large enough market for commercial quality products anymore. It’s a shame.

I don't think Matt gets a sponsorship from Harbor Freight to use their winches. He doesn't even talk about them.

Most likely, he buys Harbor Freight winches because they are cheap, and if any were to fail, he has the tools --and the know-how-- to fix them.

 

[Blanco Willys]

Pictures or it didn't happen.

Didn’t have time my wife was complaining I had her in the Jeep lightly holding the brake and steering as I pulled her from the tree in the front yard. She said I was blocking the road and shouldn’t pull it through the yard.

 

[Traveller128]

MORR, FabRats, Robby Layton. Subscribed to all three!

Ditto for us. Fun to watch!

 

[Traveller128]

The winch isn't to blame for that failure.

Interestingly, my wife and I used to watch him a bit, and had the same reaction to his "failure". He wasn't trying to do anything he said in that video, other than try to get a failure out of the winch. Secured his truck to a large tracked vehicle anchor, secured his winch to a large stump fully seated in the ground with no attempt to break roots or anything, loosen dirt, etc., then pulled until something gave. That's not "trying to pull a stump", that's a classical case of irresistible force meets immovable object. It would have taken a whole lot more than 12,000 lbs of force to move that stump.

His eyes were all over the place when he was describing the failure, so he knew he was being dishonest. Not sure why he did it, but we had watched a bunch of his videos over the last year or so, and he was totally disingenuous in that one, and we both reacted to it when we watched it. There was an agenda behind that one.

 

[brewski]

I don't understand why people think someone is an expert just because they have a youtube channel. I have known a lot of people who have done a lot of recoveries and have a lot of experience and don't do things safely or correctly. Some of the stuff these YouTubers do would get you removed from SAR. When I did SAR you have to take safety into account and cannot be a cowboy... but that doesn't make for interesting TV. These guys do things to get attention and increase subscriber count. I like MORR for entertainment, but people need to remember these guys (MORR & Friends) are showing you a side they want you to see. It's no more honest than reality TV.

 

[Whaler27]

{SNIP}
The Chinese will build whatever they're told to build however they're told to build it: if you tell them to build junk, they'll build junk; if you tell them to build quality, they'll build quality. Nobody claims iPhones are "cheap Chinese junk".

I doubt anybody asks Chinese manufacturers to "Please build me a piece of junk winch."

I suspect what the hopeful retailer asks is something more like, "Can you build us a winch that is rated to pull 8,000 pounds, meets the _____ water resistance standard, will withstand an average of ___ duty cycles under load, and sells (to us) for $300 in 5,000 unit lots?" Perhaps I'm wrong, but I think that's the type of negotiation that get's us the $650.00 Warn winch that goes on sale for $599.99. Nobody really wanted crap, but the market pressure and price-point drive that result. (I see all of the retail numbers have jumped a LOT since I bought my last winch a couple years ago, so these numbers probably need to be increased -- but you get the idea.)

I'll add that I've had perfectly good luck with some HF tools that probably end up on the shelf through a similar negotiation.

Sponsored