I don't see where Warn lists the weight of your bumper, but how much of a drop in the front end did you notice when you hung that bumper and winch on your truck? I'm guessing the bumper is around 200lbs, and the winch is around 80lbs.

 

no noticeable drop as I have 6K springs up front. You are about right weight wise. Remember I am in a 450

 

Thanks for pointing that out Scott. I had missed that you were in a new F450. I honestly don't know the difference in spring rates between the F350 and F450, but I hope more winch users come on here and provide their experiences too. I may even slide over to the 1999 to 2016 Super Duty and Offroad & 4x4 forums and point knowledgeable members over there towards this thread.

 

You made me do my homework!

I went looking for how to determine what springs I had, and it turned out to be super simple......and something I've looked at multiple times. The door jam sticker clearly states I have 5600# front springs. Too funny how easy that was.

 

So maybe a bit of a drop, but probably not much to notice it

 

I have a 12K winch on a cradle that fit's a 2" hitch reciever. I put a hitch on the front of my truck with a quick connect plug so I can use it on the front of my truck, rear of the truck and I use it on my flatbed trailer. Get one with the synthetic rope, lighter and far easier to manage. Also I highly reccomend putting a Detroit Truetrac in the front axle and a Detroit locker in the rear if you don't already have a locker back there, they will make a huge improvement in situations like that.

 

On my prior 1/2 ton truck I had 9500 lb winches on the front (permanent mount in front of bumper) and rear (in a cradle). I was the recovery vehicle for my club. I did have a situation where I needed to use both front and rear winches at the same time when pulling a guy out when there was snow on the trail. That recovery got me a full page write-up in a national auto magazine. My 15 minutes of fame!

A cradle mounted winch is a heavy mother. There are 12k rated cradles. That's going to be even heavier that what I had. The cabling required to get power to the rear bumper is going to be quite expensive. I used the Warn kit for that.

A 12k winch is what I would use on my F-350 if I were going to put a winch on it. I have had my truck chained up on all four corners twice and got around well. I would have felt a bit more confident if I had brought the 9500 lb winch in the cradle (using a spare battery stored in the bed).

I would be reluctant to perform an off-angle recovery using a cradle mounted winch. That's a lot of force to put sideways. I have done off-angle recoveries with the permanently mounted winch and it worked just fine. ****** blocks are incredible.

 

Thank you 00t444e and HRTKD! Exactly the kind of real experiences I wanted to hear. Good to hear satisfaction with a 12K winch. As I've considered a hitch mount more, it's just not in the cards for me. While I was athletic and a power lifter in my younger years, my back and knees took too much punishment in my 28 years in the USCG and 8 years at sea. I am still plenty strong enough to move hitch mounted winches, my back is too subject to injury that would lay me up. As it was, digging out my truck during my stint in on that snowy mountain road landed me in my trailer on meds for 36 hours. So, fixed mount on the front bumper is the way I need to go.

Definitely going the synthetic rope route. Right now the Badlands 12K is really looking good against the Warn. It's specs of lower max current, faster full and no load winding speed, lighter weight, and having both wired and wireless remote control speak loudly in its favor. The weak 90 day warranty sucks, but the cost of a 2 year extended warranty still keeps the Badland price at half the Warn. The Warn warranty is longer (lifetime), but my pouring over reviews has left me questioning how good the customer service warranty support at Warn really is.

Bumper choice is actually a little harder for me. Iron Cross looks good as do a couple others. I've got time to ponder this while hearing experiences from other members on here.

 

I can see the allure of a portable winch. Just a few years ago...well maybe 10 , I was all over the idea of a winch that would live in my bed box, that I could then hitch mount front or rear. I'm 45, still plenty strong, but no damn way am I doing that. All that stuff I did when I was younger is coming back with a vengeance. Moving a heavy cradle mounted winch is not something I'll ever consider again. To be smart, it's fixed winches for me.

As to the size, I figured 12k range with ****** blocks would be plenty. But my pickups just get heavier and heavier, and the trailers I tow the same. Yes ****** blocks can work wonders, and I have many, but the old saying of "there is no replacement for displacement" still applies. If you look up the specs most of the heavier rated winches do better as far as amp draw and line speed for a given load. Having said that I kinda don't see that line speed is all that big of a deal. As long as I get out, or get the thing out, a few minutes isn't a real issue.

Your 3rd want is what it is. If you can find a mounting solution that works for you go for it. I want the big beefy bumper due to all the Deer and the few Elk close calls I've had. Figure it's only a matter of time till I connect with one. Oh my lord, and the Giant moose I zipped past one night gave me chills.



So personally I'm just setting up my pickup with a winch right now. I have extremely limited experience in winching, but I've read up some and I'm going to be proficient at some point. Right now I'm just trying to overkill all my purchases to leave myself some headroom and or to supply a margin of error.

I have a Warn M8274-S on wife's 3.0L Wrangler Diesel.
A Warn Zeon 12 I was going to put on my wheeler project
And I just got a Warn 16.5ti that will be going in the front bumper of my F-350

I have as of yet decided what line I'll use on the 16.5ti, originally I wanted to use synthetic on everything. Then I thought I would base the decision on what type of line to use on how much of a PITA it would be to respool it. Still up in the air.

I've seen enough videos and reviews to know the Badlands stuff can work and sometimes even outperforms domestic product. I still can't do it though. I thought about a Ramsey but the specs on the Warn and minimal price difference won me over.

 

Am I missing something here?why is the tern ****** block deleted when we are talking about winches and legit pulley systems?? Do we have to be that sensitive when we clearly not talking about a crude term for female anatomy.??man up. We are talking winches.

 

What do you mean?

 

The 12K winch on a cradle that I have with synthetic rope isn't that bad to move around at all, maybe weights 75 lbs.

 

A few more points...

A truck has to be buried pretty deep in mud to need a winch rated for a lot of weight. Unrolling all the winch cable until the last layer on the drum is where you get the greatest torque. Run the winch too much, such that it over heats and you'll melt the synthetic rope.

I won't have a winch without synthetic rope. The lower overall weight, safety, flexibility and ease of deployment just makes too much sense.

I had Mile Marker winches. One of them had a problem that it would never free spool. It went back to Mile Marker (under warranty) but still never worked.

I had a long phone conversation with Warm a few years ago when I was planning my system. I asked why they didn't make a 12K permanent winch mount for my truck and they said that their engineers limited the winch mount to 9.5K because they didn't think the frame of the truck could handle any more than that. Something to keep in mind, however, this was for a 1/2 ton truck not a Super Duty.

 

well I guess that nasty word was blocked by the forum. Gee I didn’t know they were so sensitive 😤

 

What nasty word?