What winch do you have?

[bcupton]

Just purchased a HF Badlands 12k synthetic rope. Haven’t gotten it installed yet. Gotta buy a winch plate first. Going with Metalcloak. All the YouTube stars that I follow use them so why not get it. And it was only $400.

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[wreck99]

I have the Badland Apex 12k winch. It's served me well so far in a few recoveries.

 

[Loud Lyle]

Superwinch 12K Really happy with it.

 

[WXman]

APEX

 

[UniqueUserName]

Warn Zeon XD 12-S.

10-S wasn't available when I ordered.

 

[Speed331]

Have had a Badland Apex on my 2 door for several years now. No issues with the weight and has always pulled like a champ when needed.

 

[wibornz]

I 100% would not run a badlands winch. Why, because I have seen 6 of them fail out on the trail. You know when you need them the most. I wheel with people from all over in all kinds of situations.

All winches have the potential to fail, but you should buy recovery equipment that is the most likely to not fail when you need it the most.

I will give you your best personal example of Badland winch performance that I have. my long time friend Bill bought a Badlands winch. I helped him install it. The winch was $299. He bought the remote control for it. $39.95. and he bought the $129. synthetic rope and added the $99 extended warranty.

So total cost of the winch was 568.97 + 6% sales tax.....$603.11. Then one night the winch turned itself on and pulled and pulled until the positive cable got hot enough burn itself in half and turn the winch off. He was lucky that it did not catch his Jeep on fire. It did torque the Warn winch plate a little bit. Then he used the warranty to get the winch replaced and bought another Badlands winch.

Are you following me here? Install a winch, burn it up, uninstall the winch, then get another winch, pay another $99.99 for the warranty on the 2nd winch and bought another winch rope. $129.99. Then install the 2nd winch. But wait there is more!!!! We are from Michigan and we are on multi month off road wheeling adventure. We are camping out east of Los Vegas by Lake Mead. I get stuck by Lake Mead, It looked solid, it was not. Total price now is $846.99.

It was not. We unhook the camper and turn the camper around by hand and pull the camper our.with his badlands winch. No problem. Like I am not like horribly stuck, Bill hooks his brand new never used Badlands 12,000 pound winch to my Jeep, it will pull it about 6 inches then it turns off. Wait about a minute, then it would turn back on and pull my Jeep about 6 inches and turn off again. Repeat this process for about 3 hours. This should have been a few minutes to recover.

So when we got home, he bought a Warn 12,,000 EVO winch on sale for like $700. Then we uninstalled his 2nd Badlands winch and reinstalled his new Warn winch that came with a synthetic rope and a remote control. Bringing his total cost for winches to around $1550 fro finally get a good winch set up. This is the perfect example of the buy once cry once reason to not buy a badlands winch.

I say if you want a winch, just save up a couple more months and buy something that is not a badlands winch. I know other winches fail to, but I would say you are far less likely to experience a failure from some of the other companies that offer winches. I suggest Warn as we have always had great luck with them. Almost nobody runs Badlands winches in Alaska.

Just know that a winch only has to used once to save the cost of the winch if you have to hire someone to come and recover you and your Jeep. Your Jeep can easily cover enough distance off road in an hour that it may take you a day or two to walk out.

Buy once cry once. Winch brands that I have seen hold up to the test of time and use are Warn, Smittybuilt and SCAR.

What you're doing off road wise today, may not be what you're doing next year.

Things that you never see a Badlands winch doing. They winched over a mile of get out of this. The Jeep is on 37s and the Toyota is on 40s.

Sometimes winching looks like this.

or this

At the end of day it is your money and it is your decision on what you depend on to save the day for you or potential someone else.

I say buy a badlands winch for your car hauler trailer.

 

[Terrymo]

Warn Zeon 10s

 

[3TV]

I completely agree with Wibornz. I have personally seen 3 Badlands Apex winches fail. I've never seen a Warn winch fail, although I'm sure it is possible.

This is from just last November. My friend in his Gladiator with one-ton axles and 37s could not make it up this ledge. He tried to use his Badlands Apex 12K winch, and no surprise, it didn't work. I had to pull up behind him and use my Warn 12K winch and a snatch block hooked to a tree in front of him to pull his Gladiator up the ledge.

 

[wrath]

...

Buy once cry once. Winch brands that I have seen hold up to the test of time and use are Warn, Smittybuilt and SCAR.

...

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.

 

[Whaler27]

I have an EVO VR10 with synthetic rope. Yes it is expensive, but there is good things about it if willing to tear it down and do some preventive maintenance, before installing. If left alone it may crap out on you. Though you cant beat the remote controller for ease of use. I chose to mount the winch controller remotely, which is not common to see on a JL.

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.

 

[Maverick909]

I’ve had my badlands for a couple years now. Used it a handful of times. It’s always done the job

 

[Traveller128]

Have had a Badland Apex on my 2 door for several years now. No issues with the weight and has always pulled like a champ when needed.

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.

 

[swampflyer]

Warn 9.0Rc, picture before I installed the syn rope.

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

 

[YBABRAT]

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.

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.

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