Winch buying advice needed

[Zandcwhite]

He did the test on the outer most wrap. Warn and most major winch manufacturers base their ratings on the inner most wrap.

He tested them all the same though, disproving the idea that warns rating should be trusted and "lesser" manufacturers shouldn't. The Evo has been proven in tests like these to be mid-pack as far as budget Chinese winches go, but some are still in love with the red W.

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[Old Jeeper]

I've always been confused by the hate for steel cable. You don't have to wash the sand out of it, don't have to worry about the sun killing it, it's stronger, can drag it over the rocks at Moab, and a lot of times it's cheaper... Especially because you replace it less...

You got one thing RIGHT!

Nothing you said outside of that applies MY Rope which is 20 years old. Yes it is shorter now than it was then by about 30 feet or so.

I send it in every year to have it inspected and repaired which typically involves them cutting some of the working end and cleaning it up. Does not cost me a dime and they ship it back for free.. My rope IIRC is rated at 26,000 lbs

I suggest you go with something a grade better than the typical clothesline rope I see on many winches.

For whatever reason I always seem the GO TO GUY to do extractions. Maybe because I KNOW how to extract something besides my crotch rope.

 

[cosmokenney]

Let me narrow that down for you. Smitty Bilt or Badlands. The popular Warns are for people who want to come to this forum and boast how much better their Warn is because it is a USA company. But the truth is, their Warns are made in China like everything else in this god forsaken country.

 

[Ratbert]

But the truth is, their Warns are made in China like everything else in this god forsaken country.

Unless, of course, it's made in the USA.

 

[Terrymo]

Unless Warn is mistaken

Good Morning,

Both the Zeon & Zeon Platinum are made/assembled in the USA.

Thank you,

Ruben Lopez | Technical Service Representative
Warn Industries, Inc. | 12900 SE Capps Road | Clackamas, OR 97015
(503)722-3076

 

[Camaroboi13]

Unless Warn is mistaken

Good Morning,

Both the Zeon & Zeon Platinum are made/assembled in the USA.

Thank you,

Ruben Lopez | Technical Service Representative
Warn Industries, Inc. | 12900 SE Capps Road | Clackamas, OR 97015
(503)722-3076

With Chinese parts, we get it.

To the OP, buy what you can afford, period. Expensive winches are not necessary. I plan on using mine once or twice a year. My wife’s Smittybuilt is 5 years old and we’ve used it three times, two of which were to pull tree stumps. Hell I bought the winch on my gladiator because the line was blue and it matched my accents. To each their own.

 

[Terrymo]

With Chinese parts, we get it.

To the OP, buy what you can afford, period. Expensive winches are not necessary. I plan on using mine once or twice a year. My wife’s Smittybuilt is 5 years old and we’ve used it three times, two of which were to pull tree stumps. Hell I bought the winch on my gladiator because the line was blue and it matched my accents. To each their own.

I got no dog in this fight, as you said buy what you want.

 

[Whaler27]

Project Farm winch review

Thanks for sharing this link. The testing was interesting.

My only complaint is he tested only the Chinese-made bargain winches. (Though some were very expensive for the performance they provided.) I’d be curious to see if there’s a significant difference in the performance of the high-end ”hobby” winches by Milemarker, Superwinch, and Warn, at least some of which are made to higher specifications in the USA..

Also, although it would be boring to watch, it would be useful to know if the performance of all of the winches declined over a series of six or eight 6,000 pound pulls with minimal rest between pulls.

There’s a misconception that the Chinese are incapable of building quality products, but the stuff we’re buying isn’t designed/intended to be durable: it’s intended to be cheap, sell in large numbers, and maximize profit for retailers like Walmart and Harbor Freight.

When I was a kid most Americans thought the Japanese were incapable of designing and building quality household products. My dad, a WW2 veteran who saw the worst of it, referred to 1960s Japanese products, including knives and kitchen products, as “Jap Crap”, most of which was poorly built copies of American stuff, but their WW2 military ships and aircraft were impressive. (It took the US years to come up with an answer for the “Zero”. ) Japanese knives and swords have been world-famous for hundreds of years. The Japanese were perfectly capable of manufacturing the very best of most things. Of course, the American view of post-war Japanese manufacturing changed dramatically… Honda motorcycles, small engines, and cars changed the starting in the mid-sixties. Even my dad was buying Japanese machinery by the time he was in his 60s, including a 1986 Landcruiser which ran forever (and outlived him!).

The truth is, the Chinese, like the Japanese, are capable of engineering and building durable, highly sophisticated, machinery. The crappy winches we see are built to specifications and a price-point provided by the American retailers who contract for the manufacturing. The joke’s on us. Again.. I suspect the winches the Chinese are mounting on their military trucks are plenty durable...

 

[Ratbert]

With Chinese parts, we get it.

To the OP, buy what you can afford, period. Expensive winches are not necessary. I plan on using mine once or twice a year. My wife’s Smittybuilt is 5 years old and we’ve used it three times, two of which were to pull tree stumps. Hell I bought the winch on my gladiator because the line was blue and it matched my accents. To each their own.

You're hopefully aware that Warn makes a higher-end winch.

 

[Camaroboi13]

You're hopefully aware that Warn makes a higher-end winch.

Well aware, really don’t care. Been doing this a long time bud, been an ASE certified mechanic since 2009. You can pop open any winch and find made in china parts all over it. It is what it is. You have your preferences and I have mine. That’s why I started my post off by saying buy what you can afford.

 

[JLfromCA]

Warn winch with synthetic line ?

 

[jeepingib]

Just for those who are interested. Northridge4x4 and Warn have extended the sale to the end of the month. So you can buy a Warn Evo 10 for only $419.00 with a $150.00 rebate, knocking it down to 269. Yeah, it's the Chinese cheap one, and it's a steel cable, but that is dirt cheap.

 

[TheRaven]

With Chinese parts, we get it.

The vehicle you drive fits this description too. That doesn't seem to be a problem for you. As has already been covered - China will build what it is asked to build. So ask China to build cheap crap and that's what you'll get. But ask China to build a quality product and you'll also get that...only difference is, it'll cost more. Not a difficult concept to grasp but yet so many just don't get it.

To the OP, buy what you can afford, period. Expensive winches are not necessary. I plan on using mine once or twice a year. My wife’s Smittybuilt is 5 years old and we’ve used it three times, two of which were to pull tree stumps. Hell I bought the winch on my gladiator because the line was blue and it matched my accents. To each their own.

You assume everyone here is just like you. I'll be the first to admit that I too fit into this category...but I don't assume everyone else does. Some members depend on their winch for their life and/or livelihood...which is why this thread turned into a discussion.

The truth hasn't changed - if you need your winch to work all the time without issue then you need a Zeon. If it's too expensive, keep saving or watch for sales. For everyone else it's just a question of - how much misery do you want to deal with when your winch breaks? If you want a disposable winch that you just replace every time it breaks, then buy the cheapest option Amazon offers. If you don't mind waiting three weeks for a reply from Ningbo Winch Co in China and then another month for parts to arrive then buy any of the many rebranded Ningbos. Personally I like the idea of calling "Jennifer" in Clackamas Oregon and having parts shipped out the same day.

Again - when we are looking at the "budget" winches, the question is not "which one's not going to break?"...because the answer to that is "none". The question is "how am I going to get it fixed?".

 

[Zandcwhite]

The vehicle you drive fits this description too. That doesn't seem to be a problem for you. As has already been covered - China will build what it is asked to build. So ask China to build cheap crap and that's what you'll get. But ask China to build a quality product and you'll also get that...only difference is, it'll cost more. Not a difficult concept to grasp but yet so many just don't get it.



You assume everyone here is just like you. I'll be the first to admit that I too fit into this category...but I don't assume everyone else does. Some members depend on their winch for their life and/or livelihood...which is why this thread turned into a discussion.

The truth hasn't changed - if you need your winch to work all the time without issue then you need a Zeon. If it's too expensive, keep saving or watch for sales. For everyone else it's just a question of - how much misery do you want to deal with when your winch breaks? If you want a disposable winch that you just replace every time it breaks, then buy the cheapest option Amazon offers. If you don't mind waiting three weeks for a reply from Ningbo Winch Co in China and then another month for parts to arrive then buy any of the many rebranded Ningbos. Personally I like the idea of calling "Jennifer" in Clackamas Oregon and having parts shipped out the same day.

Again - when we are looking at the "budget" winches, the question is not "which one's not going to break?"...because the answer to that is "none". The question is "how am I going to get it fixed?".

Now you're recommending the zeon, which a platinum 12s will cost $2500 and always have a dead wireless remote and no corded option for when you "need it to work"? It's a known issue and warns answer is "charge it before every wheeling trip"? A week in moab and even if you haven't used the thing the battery is dead. Why wait 3 weeks for parts from China when I can replace my winch 6 times for that money and it gets delivered next day, likely quicker than Jennifer from Oregon can get you parts? A winch is a machine, if you think the $2500 winch is made of magic indestructible parts that make it 100% reliable you do you. Warn won't even give you a duty cycle if you ask them, so how are you going to know you're over working it? It would be wiser in my opinion if you felt you needed ultimate reliability to buy 2 budget winches (Evo if you're a die hard warn guy) and carry a spare in my opinion.

 

[TheRaven]

Now you're recommending the zeon, which a platinum 12s will cost $2500 and always have a dead wireless remote and no corded option for when you "need it to work"? It's a known issue and warns answer is "charge it before every wheeling trip"? A week in moab and even if you haven't used the thing the battery is dead. Why wait 3 weeks for parts from China when I can replace my winch 6 times for that money and it gets delivered next day, likely quicker than Jennifer from Oregon can get you parts? A winch is a machine, if you think the $2500 winch is made of magic indestructible parts that make it 100% reliable you do you. Warn won't even give you a duty cycle if you ask them, so how are you going to know you're over working it? It would be wiser in my opinion if you felt you needed ultimate reliability to buy 2 budget winches (Evo if you're a die hard warn guy) and carry a spare in my opinion.

Sorry man but you are nuts. Zeon's have proven themselves over and over and over. You keep picking out short-lived or single example issues and trying to disprove the entire lot. You have a place to stand when discussing the Evo line, without a doubt. But you are flat wrong on the Zeon.

FYI - only the Zeon Platinum uses the wireless-only remote. The regular Zeon comes standard corded, and it's cheaper.

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