What winch do you have?

[Speed331]

Did that same setup on our two door 3 1/2 years ago. Same Venator bumper, same winch. Lost 3-4 MPG and felt like we were driving uphill all the time. Put a lighter bumper and winch on, went right back to 21 MPG. Seems like there was a tipping point for weight forward of the axle on our 2 door.

It is a good looking setup, but functionally didn't work for us. Mind you, we have 80 MPH freeway with hills here.

I've an 80mph freeway too, but it's mostly flat. I'd say I noticed about a 1 or 2mpg difference. But it fluctuates wildly from 19 to 23mpg depending on how I'm useing the Jeep that week. Long freeway drives moves it to the upper end. Stop n go for work drops it back to 19mpg.

Sponsored

 

[AndrewS85]

Warn Zeon 10s

 

[PNWcamper]

I have had multiple Warn winches over the years on multiple rigs. i have never had a problem with any of them except for my old 8274 which gave out. I took it to Warn Milwaukee, OR repair center. Not only did they find the problem which was a solenoid (that had gone bad after 30+ years of abuse from my father wheeling his CJ hard before handing me the keys) they replaced the solenoidfor free along noticing some wear on the gears which they also replaced, they cleaned up the entire winch and basically handed me back a completely rebuilt winch that will last for another 30+ years all free of charge.

I also appreciate Warn because they give back to the off road community and more specifically they support and donate money fighting to keep trails open.

harbor freight does not support any off road programs. The owner of harbor freight has never once donated to tread lightly, blue ribbon coalition, or any other off road programs.

According to Tread lightly and Blue Ribbon coalition Warn is always one of their largest annual donators and trail program contributors.

The Owner of harbor freight donated money to a politician who recommended selling public lands to private interest. That is not what I want my money supporting.

The director of engineering at Jeep said it best when asked why they chose Warn as a factory option for the wrangler: Warn is an American brand that builds and assembles the factory installed Warn winch in the USA just like the Jeep Wrangler. Warn has the same values as Jeep and has been a long time supporter of the Jeep community.

 

[zouch]

Warn 10S.

because like with any insurance, i wanted it to just work when i needed it, and wasn't willing to take a chance on some lesser item.

10K was the same as the 8K but with different gearing, so the weight was the same, just the line speed was a little slower (which was what i preferred).

 

[Whaler27]

My winch is not plastic. When I tore down my 1 year old winch, to do maintenance. The main issue was poor assembly. I corrected and feel confident it will last a good long time. Anything Chinese is a crap shoot. But I know better not to check with maintenance.

”Housing” was poor word choice on my part. I should have said “trim”.

I agree anything Chinese is a crap shoot.

 

[YBABRAT]

”Housing” was poor word choice on my part. I should have said “trim”.

I agree anything Chinese is a crap shoot.

Ah, the contactor controller cover. I had no intension to use its stock location. Even if I wanted to use the plastic housing as a complete assembly, it would not fit under the hood. So plastic or alloy it would not be any benefit to me. I did note that the plastic cover as being cheap. That cover doesn't belong on my jeep.

 

[BAKNBLK]

Been thinking of that same winch. what is your experience or thoughts on the winch?

Its very light, build for competition so far never let me down. I have a extra 50' of line in case I have to reach out.

 

[Whaler27]

I have had multiple Warn winches over the years on multiple rigs. i have never had a problem with any of them except for my old 8274 which gave out. I took it to Warn Milwaukee, OR repair center. Not only did they find the problem which was a solenoid (that had gone bad after 30+ years of abuse from my father wheeling his CJ hard before handing me the keys) they replaced the solenoidfor free along noticing some wear on the gears which they also replaced, they cleaned up the entire winch and basically handed me back a completely rebuilt winch that will last for another 30+ years all free of charge.

I also appreciate Warn because they give back to the off road community and more specifically they support and donate money fighting to keep trails open.

harbor freight does not support any off road programs. The owner of harbor freight has never once donated to tread lightly, blue ribbon coalition, or any other off road programs.

According to Tread lightly and Blue Ribbon coalition Warn is always one of their largest annual donators and trail program contributors.

The Owner of harbor freight donated money to a politician who recommended selling public lands to private interest. That is not what I want my money supporting.

The director of engineering at Jeep said it best when asked why they chose Warn as a factory option for the wrangler: Warn is an American brand that builds and assembles the factory installed Warn winch in the USA just like the Jeep Wrangler. Warn has the same values as Jeep and has been a long time supporter of the Jeep community.

I have always been proud that Warn was an Oregon company. My family has supported them forever and, with one exception, the winches have never let us down. Then we bought a SxS that came with a lightweight Warn-branded winch. It was a POS. That’s when my research started and I learned that Warn had exported a majority of its winch production to compete in the price-point market. That made short-term business sense, because the great reputation that took decades to earn produced explosive sales of cheap winches… Most buyers thought they were buying the real thing. But this switch brought a sharp increase in failures and a sharp depreciation of the Warn reputation, with lots of people reporting failures of the Warn (not really) winch. For me, this is like when Sears started selling cheap Taiwanese “Sears” tools in addition to the great quality (then) Craftsman tools. Many of us assumed that if Sears sold a tool it was backed by the Sears quality and guarantee. We were wrong. The crappy Taiwanese tool broke, they weren’t replaced by Sears, and they trashed the Sears brand.

** For the youngsters, for all of my dad’s life and most of mine, if a Sears tool broke, you could take it back to Sears, leave it on the counter, and walk out with a new one. No paperwork, no delay, no explanation required. They even honored that promise with a Craftsman tape measure that had been left in my truck tool box that leaked and created a sludge of dissolved flares and rust that seized the tape measure. As a result, Sears had 100% loyalty from my family, and we bought everything there — tires, batteries, tools, clothes, bikes, appliances, etc… Until Sears violated that trust to make big short-term money selling crap they wouldn’t warranty. That was the end of Sears. I hope the Chinese winches aren’t the end of Warn.

 

[roaniecowpony]

I run Engo. I had a great customer experience with them several years ago and for my light usage, they've never let me down. Based on a quick search, similar price point to the Badlands winches.

The YouTube influencers seem to love the Badlands winches, but I generally keep to the rule of thumb that if I think my life may ever depend on a tool, it will not be from harbor freight.

Starting with jackstands

 

[Apples491]

I think I’d opt for the Badlands over the cheaper Warns. They are both Chinese and designed to be lower price-point, but the Warn charges a big premium for the plastic housing and Warn name.

I’ve been a Warn guy for almost 50 years, and I still have faith in their ”heavy duty“ line. I have a Warn Zeon 10S on my JL and it’s big brother on my F350, but if I was trying to stay cheap and I didn’t plan on emergency use, Badlands seems like good bang for buck.

Matt’s Recovery uses Badlands. Of course, he shows up at recovery jobs with about six or seven of them, so he’s not relying on a single tool for self-recovery, but there’s no arguing that they can’t pull when they’re working.

Both MORR and Fabrats have had issues with their HF winches. There has been more than one video where they couldn't get a winch working for one reason or another. But you're correct. MORR is a business, first and foremost, and if the winches weren't performing, I'm sure he would replace them with another brand.

Not all Chinese winch manufacturers are made equal. They can keep to a higher specification and variance policy. Warn, Superwinch, Engo all may have their manufacturing in China but it's to their manufacturing standards. That might be true of Badland, but I don't have a high confidence in that.


EDIT: scratch everything below. I was digging in more. Badland is a house brand of HF and whatever badland-winch.com is, it is not the official site for the brand. HF has the manual and warranty docs listed for the Badland winches and it all points back to HF, not whatever that site is.

EDIT 2: Really? Only a 90 day warranty? All other arguments aside, I'd rather buy a Smitybilt/Engo/etc that sport an actual warranty for a little bit more. Engo has a lifetime mechanical and 1 year electrical.

Plus, the whole company feels sketch to me. Their website reads like it's ChatGPT generated. It links back to Amazon, not even HF. It literally has AI generated images on the site



Oh and when you look for their corporate office on Google Maps, it's a residential neighborhood.



Not really building trust.

 

[roaniecowpony]

Well the lack of proper lube and moisture sealing.

The gear and motor assemblies are mated to the main body without a good seal. If using some sealer, I recommend making a fine rope of butyl tape to fit in the lip. It won't harden over a few years for easier removal of components for maintenance later.

The incased bearings on each assembly are dry. you can carefully pry the seal cover to remove and get to the bearings. For better life I used high pressure high viscocity white PTFE grease. I think its like $30 an ounce. Any grease that it is replacing must be throughly removed. I did the gear assemblies as they too were light in lube. If not willing to use PTFE grease. Valvoline or RedLine synthetic wheel bearing greese. As for power cables... in using the given lengths, they are metric sized, and smaller core than 4AWG. I prefer to use 2AWG if running same length of cable to battery.

Sounds like a good place for Hylomar sealant.

 

[YBABRAT]

Sounds like a good place for Hylomar sealant.

I guess it will do... but the big issue is making a good fit within the housing ends. If I had the time to search for a proper o-ring, I'd use them. Butyl is firm enough to make a thin rope or o-ring without leakage.

 

[wibornz]

So I agree with what you said. I can add that all my Harder Fraught winch problems were with the contactors so far, or corrosion.

However, I'd be real leery about recommending Smittybilt anything made in the last couple years. WheelPros bought TAP from Polaris way back in 2022 and things went to shit. It went to shit so bad towards the end of Polaris owning them almost nothing was in stock (cashflow issues against inflation and costs of importing cheap chinese shit) and it persisted after WheelPros bought them and then rebranded as Hooptieagain/Hooligan/Hoonigan/whatever but got ten times worse as they ran out of cashflow. Shit never came back in stock for the most part right up until Hooligan filed for bankruptcy in 2024. Last year (2025) some stuff started trickling back in (Teraflex, Falcon, etc), some are OKish (Smittybilt) and some are pretty much dead (G2, Rubicon Express, Poison Spyder). I'm guessing they're only bringing back the profitable (read: easily made in China at the same places as other stuff they buy made in China).

My fear of Smittybilt is that of all my friends that have bought one in the last year I've had to tear apart for all the same shitty issues as Harder Fraught.

Good to know.

 

[roaniecowpony]

I've had a Warn Zeon 10s for about 7 years now. It's still working or was, when I last used it about August.

 

[Flip]

Question regarding Warn winch when ordering.

If there is a problem with the winch while under warranty, who covers the cost of the return shipping?

Sponsored