I have a '14 350 DRW and put a Ranchhand front bumper on.....what are most of you guys using for a winch?

 

This will make the die hard off roaders winch with laughter, but I have been giving some serious thought to picking up one of the Harbor Freight 12K winches.


They have some serious positive reviews with one of the greatest negatives being that they tend to winch slowly. Which in my eyes is not a bad thing, it gives you time to watch everything that is going on around you safely.


But for an on Sale Price of $294.99 and given how much I would either need it or use it slides it in there just at the bargain price point.

 

Funny, you say that. I am thinking about the same winch for mine when I get the grille guard on. HF winches were voted the "Best Deal in Winching' by Off-Road Magazine last year. The brake worked as good as any of them and was as fast and reliable as any tested. So yeah, I;; give another one a chance, I already have a 10k on my 18ft car trailer and absolutely love it!

 

We put a harbor freight winch on my friends 6.0, I think its a 14,000lb? either way its their biggest one. Works great..has excellent reviews everywhere. And it has a warranty so if it breaks, just drag it in and get a new one.

 

There is a lot to consider with a winch - what is your intended purpose for it - how will it be used? How much are you going to rely on it? Are you going to need it when out alone, or are you taking your truck along with others that have similar set ups?

Don't put too much faith in the capacity ratings - typically they are only first wrap ratings. You may find you are winching a lot closer in. Consider at least one block (pulley). This will decrease the load on the winch, the electrical system, and give you more pulling "power" (just at reduced speed).

In terms of the intended use - from my perspective, I wanted a winch that had a lot of power and that I could rely on when on a solo trek, but I don't have any intentions of burying my truck to begin with. What I am looking at a which as is a "recovery device" - if we slide in to a ditch on a mountain road or get in to some deep snow - it is a way out aside from shoveling. I am not going to be rock crawling or going up any real steep grades where the winch is doing all the work - it is just a back-up/in-case-we-need-it device. Some may say that would be a good scenario to get a Harbor Freight winch for, but I wanted to get something I could really rely on. I ended up with a Talon 18.0 with the synthetic rope. I've been using steel lines for a few things in recent years and I am trying to steer away from it because of the workability of the rope. I hate handling steel cables. For stationary guy lines on portable towers it is fine and works well with clamps, but for running lines in winches I do not like it - Amsteel is a lot more user-friendly.

You can get some pretty high end winches - if you look at the worm gear drives and hydraulics they get expensive fast. The Talon I got is a planetary drive with a lot of HP. It should do the job and seems to be a "middle of the road" pricepoint.

Check out superwinchexperts | Superwinch sales, winch reviews, comparison, winch free shipping for some good pricing. So far they are great to work with (I got 2 winches and a few accessories and they've handled each round great).

 

I had the smaller Warn Powerplant on a 4 door Wrangler JK and loved the versatility in it. I could air down on trails and fill all four tires back up at the end of the day. You can run air tools if ever need be and the obvious.....winch yourself out of a jam. I just bought my 2014 6.7 SRW CC (traded Jeep in) and will be purchasing the bigger Powerplant winch with the 12K Lb rating. It's no cheap date, but for what I would use it for, I know I can rely on it to work every time.

 

I'd like to get on but I have a Fisher plow frame on the truck so I wonder if it would be in the way. Or so I can still hook up the plow with it on.
Any truck owners with Fisher plows and a good winch on the front.?

 

Check out the Warn 'Hidden' mounting systems. Hides the winch in the stock bumper between the frame rails. You'll have the room for the plow up front but I don't know how the plow mounts to the frame or where at. Warn customer service would definitely be able to tell you. I would think this would work especially if the plow mounting hardware attaches to the outside edge of frame member, as the winch hardware mounts to the inside. You might just need longer bolts.

 

Actually the harbor freight badlands winches are designed by a Warn winch designer. There was a big writeup on it years back in FourWheeler magazine, if I had the money to get my winch bumper a Badlands winch will be mounted to it

 

And i hada 3k Warn winch mounted to my atv and i had all kinds of problems with it. Post studs corroded, in/out switch broke twice and finally the motor burnt up because of all the mud and water that got into it. And i think it was weak also, my cousin has the same atv as me and only has a 2500lb superwinch and it's never had a problem, has a much nicer in/out switch and again to me seems to have WAY more ***** than my 3k Warn

 

I have a warn zeon 12 and some ****** blocks. Probably could have used a bigger one but I got it because it was fairly new (to me) at the time and looked cool...... I have had it 3 years now

I use it quite a bit (just pulled a trailer out of the ditch last weekend) and it works good. I am getting close to the point where I know if I need the ****** blocks BEFORE I start to pull

 

This.


Note whatever winch you get, it's performance will be limited by your trucks alternator output. The truck uses 100A just to idle. High idle mod won't help much either. I have tested/measured, see my winch thread if interested. I have a HF 12k because of my intended limited use. I wouldn't choose it for a permanent mount in a wet climate.