Winch buying advice needed

[Zandcwhite]

You can get the 12 for $600. Personally, i'd still spring for that difference. But that's just me. You and others will/may certainly differ.

We get the point man, we don't have to keep going back and forth on this.

Show me a 12s for $600 as I can't find it. Steel cable version sure. Cheapest 12s I can find anywhere is $800?

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[Ratbert]

…not to me. I’d happily pay $250 to eliminate all spam.

I finally changed my email address and created a new dummy address that I use when one is required for product/warranty registration or site access (but I never read the contents after I confirm membership/registration/whatever). That email address now gets about 90 to 100 emails per week (and increasing). That’s 5,000+ bullsh*t emails I haven’t had to bother with in the last year, and the number is increasing monthly.

Life is too short to waste even five minutes a week on things that aren’t necessary or interesting/fun. For the same reason, I DVR everything, including sports events and news, because I refuse to watch another TV commercial. On snowy days when I watch a lot of sports I save myself more than an hour of mindless blathering.

On the winch front, I agree with those saying you should avoid the Chinese Warn winches. There’s no sense paying an up-charge just for the Warn label. I’m a fan of the US-made Warn products, and I’ve been buying and using them since the 70s, but they have become stupid-expensive — and unreasonably expensive if you’re not going to be using them a lot.

What email provider are you using where you still get a significant amount of spam? I've had my Gmail account from when they first opened their beta in 2004. Very little spam gets through their filters.

I about choked when I read what you said about DVRs. It took my brain a while to realize that some people are still on cable where a DVR is still a thing.

 

[Whaler27]

What email provider are you using where you still get a significant amount of spam? I've had my Gmail account from when they first opened their beta in 2004. Very little spam gets through their filters.

I about choked when I read what you said about DVRs. It took my brain a while to realize that some people are still on cable where a DVR is still a thing.

Earthlink was the email account that was overwhelmed by spam. I now use Gmail but, to be clear, I consider unsolicited advertising email from Harbor Freight or anybody else trying to sell me or persuade me “spam”. The fact that I bought something doesn’t mean I want a daily or weekly push to buy more. Gmail doesn’t prevent that either. I know because my wife uses Gmail and I see her scrolling, selecting, and deleting email at least twice per week. I don’t want to bother with it.

As to the DVR, we live in a rural area. No TV is consistently available over the air, so we use “Dish”. Until recently we had no option for internet service fast enough to reliably stream video content. We have that now, so we occasionally stream movies and such, but I haven’t bothered to figure out how to access local news and sports events via a streaming service.

Over the years city folks have often expressed amazement when they learn about what we don’t have (or don’t do) living in the sticks. I’m equally amazed by people who can comfortably live stacked on top of each other in a sea of noise pollution and rudeness. I would not do well in that environment.

 

[Ratbert]

Earthlink was the email account that was overwhelmed by spam. I now use Gmail but, to be clear, I consider unsolicited advertising email from Harbor Freight or anybody else trying to sell me or persuade me “spam”. The fact that I bought something doesn’t mean I want a daily or weekly push to buy more. Gmail doesn’t prevent that either. I know because my wife uses Gmail and I see her scrolling, selecting, and deleting email at least twice per week. I don’t want to bother with it.

As to the DVR, we live in a rural area. No TV is consistently available over the air, so we use “Dish”. Until recently we had no option for internet service fast enough to reliably stream video content. We have that now, so we occasionally stream movies and such, but I haven’t bothered to figure out how to access local news and sports events via a streaming service.

Over the years city folks have often expressed amazement when they learn about what we don’t have (or don’t do) living in the sticks. I’m equally amazed by people who can comfortably live stacked on top of each other in a sea of noise pollution and rudeness. I would not do well in that environment.

Crap like stuff from Harbor Freight should end up in your Promotions folder. I'm pretty sure I looked in that a couple months ago, but it's definitely not something that bothers me, especially since I have to explicitly look for it. Maybe your Gmail doesn't automatically do that for some reason?

But yeah, I can't imagine living stacked up like the characters in Ready Player One. No thanks. That's one reason that it's 10 miles to the nearest house behind us. And I'm guessing that there's hundreds of miles of trails between us and the highway that the house is near.

Decent Internet, however, is a necessity for me to do my job. I'm fortunate to be able to work from home.

 

[BDinTX]

I noticed the HF winches have a 5% duty cycle, is that typical for lower cost winches?

Your question got me wondering what the duty cycle is for my Zeon since I was using it pretty hard pulling logs recently.
Email to Warn:
Hello,
Curious as to the duty cycle of the Zeon 10-s winch. The documentation I see online only says “intermittent”. Is there anything more specific? Will the exterior of the winch get warm to the touch?

Response:
As the Zeon is a hobbyist self-recovery winch, and is not rated for commercial use, we do not test for duty cycle.

I prefer to buy American but it’s pretty douchy they couldn’t give some kind of guidance. I expected better.

 

[Zandcwhite]

I noticed the HF winches have a 5% duty cycle, is that typical for lower cost winches?

I think that's common of most winches. That 5% doesn't sound like much, but that's also under full load. That doesn't mean you can't run the winch longer than 45 seconds spooling line in/out etc. or even pulling a lighter load. I don't use force gauges or timers when winching but have also never burnt up a winch either. You'll be able to hear and see that the winch is really loaded up. At that point use common sense as far as giving the motor time to cool between really hard pulls.

 

[Whaler27]

Your question got me wondering what the duty cycle is for my Zeon since I was using it pretty hard pulling logs recently.
Email to Warn:
Hello,
Curious as to the duty cycle of the Zeon 10-s winch. The documentation I see online only says “intermittent”. Is there anything more specific? Will the exterior of the winch get warm to the touch?

Response:
As the Zeon is a hobbyist self-recovery winch, and is not rated for commercial use, we do not test for duty cycle.

I prefer to buy American but it’s pretty douchy they couldn’t give some kind of guidance. I expected better.

This is discouraging. Warn could have provided a good estimate at the very least, as they’ve been building winches for a very long time, and they test extensively during new model development. They also know what it takes to build a commercial/military duty winch. The fact that the Warn guy chose not to answer suggests that their number isn’t great — which would make the extremely high price an even harder sell.

 

[ring_zero]

Project Farm winch review

 

[TheRaven]

Does anyone here really trust the numbers Harbor Freight advertises for their winches? To get that number on that site, they would have had to get it from the Chinese OEM that builds the winches that they rebrand...and they'd have to trust the testing process performed by that Chinese OEM. There is absolutely no way that HF puts that kind of effort into their products, and there's no way the OEM that builds the winches does either, and even if they did there's no way they are doing proper testing to get numbers that are worth anything.

That said, I may be able to get a number on the Zeon winches...it'll be a couple of weeks though. I don't know if they actually do the testing and just don't want to advertise the results or if they truly don't bother...all I can say is that there ARE actual engineers with decades of experience that design their products in house - both the US made and the Chinese made ones. Which is why i'm much more inclined to go their direction when the price difference isn't stupid.

 

[Ratbert]

Project Farm winch review

I'm no winch expert, but it surprised me that winching speed seemed to be one of his primary criteria, where faster was deemed to be better.

 

[Zandcwhite]

Does anyone here really trust the numbers Harbor Freight advertises for their winches? To get that number on that site, they would have had to get it from the Chinese OEM that builds the winches that they rebrand...and they'd have to trust the testing process performed by that Chinese OEM. There is absolutely no way that HF puts that kind of effort into their products, and there's no way the OEM that builds the winches does either, and even if they did there's no way they are doing proper testing to get numbers that are worth anything.

That said, I may be able to get a number on the Zeon winches...it'll be a couple of weeks though. I don't know if they actually do the testing and just don't want to advertise the results or if they truly don't bother...all I can say is that there ARE actual engineers with decades of experience that design their products in house - both the US made and the Chinese made ones. Which is why i'm much more inclined to go their direction when the price difference isn't stupid.

In the project farm testing video the 12k rated warn taped out at 9100lbs. The badland didn't get a proper test as the cheap winch cradle failed. Only 2 pulled more than 10k, the mile marker and zeak which I'd never heard of. So much for the theory of the bigger the name the closer to the rating it will pull? I figure the 13,500lb rated xbull will get closer to 12k than any of these 12k rated winches in the real world. There's always a snatch ring, double line pull if I need more.

 

[Old Jeeper]

My apologies if I posted in the wrong section.

Wifey wants a stubby bumper and winch for her 2023 JLU.

I have poured over lots of vendors and YouTube trying to get the best bang for my $$$, but am not making any headway.

My questions are:
1. Best bang for the buck winch for a novice Jeeper / what to stay away from
2. Should I kill 2 birds with one stone tone and buy a bumper/winch combos?

Thanks, Kleetus

This question has been asked a million times at least and this is what I got to say from someone who has been winching since the early 70s.

What winch do I use? Warn and I have had a lot of them. I trade Jeeps often and generally leave my Warn on the Jeep and just upgrade to the newest model, which keeps me current..

WHY Warn? Pictures tell a 1000 words...

The story: River crossing by trail leader and it did not work for him, too deep, too fast the current and lost traction and was heading downstream.

2 x Full (80 ft) pulls to save another Jeeper being washed down a raging river, saved his life and his jeep.

Winch used: Warn 9.5 TI,

Conditions: Winching UNDER WATER, upstream!

Rope: Masterpull extreme: About $750, in use now for over 20 years., still in warranty and about 30 ft shorter than it started, has done a LOT of pulls.

That is ME!

Recommendation:

I am NOT going to tell you to buy a Warn. Unless you know how to employ a winch under the most extreme and severe conditions why spend the coin when Harbor Freight (and others) have a good ones and it does not break the bank.

FACT: Been on many many trail runs and guess who is about the only guy with a Warn? ME. Most folks go chea (OK) and expect to use the winch on their Jeep not everyone on the run let someone else do that.

STRONGLY suggest you not use WIRE cable, but instead get rope, not all ropes cost $750 or even half that.

It's Christmas and lots of sales so go for it and make you wife and wallet happy!

 

[Blade1668]

Late to this dramatic thread on winches... But I'll throw in some of my thoughts and experience. I've got about 12 different winches, #3 on my Wrangler even. From Ramsey, Mile-Marker, H.F. (pre Badlands) Q-tec, Badlands and others. If the winch isn't going to be used much and weight is not a problem cable if you got to be a kool guy buy that Warn. As noted on cable, it is not stronger, will develop some burs if used and more capable of killing you. Of the top Name Brands in my experience only the Ramsey and Warn 8274 haven't failed on me in past or seen. I converted over to synthetic lines in 90s first on Ramsey 8k winch everyone was sure that plastic rope wouldn't work or last I used the line for about 20 years and replaced it due to the line being stretched out to close to half diameter permanently, I've ran it out almost full length hooked to a old CJ 7 on 38 stuck to fenders in mud dragging my Jeep and the two others that I was using to anchor me. A cable definitely wouldn't have made the pull safely, that was it's initial real use. The Mile-Marker "failed" when letting off load helping cleanup after streak of tornadoes in AL. Replacement Q-tec 9k then it just stopped working brushes failed, no parts available but whole motor assembly. For a $35 part, it definitely got a heck of a long workout before it did. Recovering many 1/2-1 ton trucks, and cars
The winch on my JT is a Amazon special 12k it's been used more often than I thought it would be in almost 3 years still holding up..... reason for it I liked the color of the winch line.. I was just going to get another Badlands. The numbers of Warn winches I've seen failed is very high, that is a hard thing for me to get past especially since I always held Warn in very high regards AKA 8274 but not the rest.
BTW: In many cases you can get a brand new winch with cable cheap and just replace it with synthetic line, I've done that a few times. On "smaller winches" 4wheelers now there I've definitely flogged and killed them. Dragging logs across rocks ect. So for that type of use a chocker chain and or section of cable is good.

At the end of this.... It's your business / choice and money, whatever makes you warm, fuzzy and happy.

 

[TWP5253]

I have the Platinum 12S and its my last WARN product. The Remote is wireless and there is no wired option. The remote drains its own internal battery after sitting in the off position after about one week. My Jeep club, FMCA Wheelers have noted that Warn will at best give you a new battery that does the same thing.. Some members have hooked up a switch to keep it from draining the battery. Warn says to charge it before going out in the jeep.....thanks Warn.

 

[RudeJeepin]

In the project farm testing video the 12k rated warn taped out at 9100lbs. The badland didn't get a proper test as the cheap winch cradle failed. Only 2 pulled more than 10k, the mile marker and zeak which I'd never heard of. So much for the theory of the bigger the name the closer to the rating it will pull? I figure the 13,500lb rated xbull will get closer to 12k than any of these 12k rated winches in the real world. There's always a snatch ring, double line pull if I need more.

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

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