Anyone have any experience with Harbor Freight winches?

I do wonder what is actually failing on a lot on these HF winches. If I had to guess it would be the solenoid or maybe the grease frying and not doing its job. I would imagine a short break in and then grease change and spare solenoid might give some long life for a cheap price.

The remote could probably be hot-wired pretty easy in the field, not that one would want to, but $250 +extras vs $500+ might be a bigger deal for some people. Especially on a budget build of some sort.

For my long term off-roading stuff $500 to be sure +$150 for new line, isn't a massive deal (I bought the M8000 10 years ago for under $500 so I don't think about it anymore). The truck, where I'm kind of planning a side build for a long distance trip hopefully in the next 1 or 2 years and the $800 vs up to $3k, makes a big deal with some of the other extras I would like to get done before heading out. At this point I'm going to design a bumper to hopefully accept any of the winches I'm looking at and worst case scenario, I run my Badlands 12,000lb winch.

And like I said earlier, I haven't had any trouble from the HF Badlands winches and I would love to hear some failure stories, especially those that broke the winches down and found the problem. In any case, I really don't prefer the Badlands winches and was planning to just put this one on my trailer, but I simply have not had any issue with my 1 Badlands winch, so I can't bad mouth it, nor have I used it hard.
 
I have a 12,000# Badlands Harbor Freight winch, I used for awhile until I switched my Warn M8000 back over to my Jeep. I have had no issues with the Badlands, but the finish and the controls aren't as nice as the Warn.

For my 3/4ton truck I am thinking of going with the Warn 103255 VR Evo (12k lb, synthetic line).

If money were no object, I'd probably get the Warn 16.5Ti-Synthetic or maybe a Warn 12S Zeon.

Because I am a bit cheap, I have seen the Badlands Apex on the HF website. For less than the money as the VR Evo, which I'm wary about, I kinda like the Badlands Apex synthetic. In all cases, I rarely use the winch in a way I couldn't otherwise get home, because I stop when my wheels start spinning and I don't try to ram through stuff usually. I have recovered tractors from very precarious situations, but a failed winch wouldn't end my world in most of those situations, but I would rather buy a good quality winch at the price point where it starts to get more into the performance side of the market.

As a note, I really like the TRE safety thimble and maybe I should think about trying to pick up the Warn 12 Zeon with steel cable and then replacing it with the safety thimble with TRE and synthetic line. I just wonder if the Zeon is worth it over the VR Evo stuff, though it looks like the VR Evo has a lot less pull from the first roll. I haven't seen the capacity for the Zeon in the same situation, though I could always use a snatch block. The price difference between Zeon and VR Evo is close to 2x for the 12k lb ranges.

So...
Apex vs VR EVO?
TRE Safety Thimble vs other Synthetic line?
VR Evo vs Zeon?
 
DieselJeep said:
I do wonder what is actually failing on a lot on these HF winches. If I had to guess it would be the solenoid or maybe the grease frying and not doing its job. I would imagine a short break in and then grease change and spare solenoid might give some long life for a cheap price.

The remote could probably be hot-wired pretty easy in the field, not that one would want to, but $250 +extras vs $500+ might be a bigger deal for some people. Especially on a budget build of some sort.

For my long term off-roading stuff $500 to be sure +$150 for new line, isn't a massive deal (I bought the M8000 10 years ago for under $500 so I don't think about it anymore). The truck, where I'm kind of planning a side build for a long distance trip hopefully in the next 1 or 2 years and the $800 vs up to $3k, makes a big deal with some of the other extras I would like to get done before heading out. At this point I'm going to design a bumper to hopefully accept any of the winches I'm looking at and worst case scenario, I run my Badlands 12,000lb winch.

And like I said earlier, I haven't had any trouble from the HF Badlands winches and I would love to hear some failure stories, especially those that broke the winches down and found the problem. In any case, I really don't prefer the Badlands winches and was planning to just put this one on my trailer, but I simply have not had any issue with my 1 Badlands winch, so I can't bad mouth it, nor have I used it hard.
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I've never owned a HF winch. I am a Ramsey fan.

Failures I have personally witnessed in the field are mostly overheating; I suspect. I've seen two just stop working. (Blown electrical component?) Only one of those reported back and said "it was fried". And I heard one crack, let loose a few inches of cable, and seize. (Guessing a cracked worm gear?) You could hear the motor trying to turn but no go either direction. That was a friend of the club I was running with at the time and he met us on the road in route to Hungry Valley. No further info available on that one. As for rumors, I've heard that they overheat very easily.

They could have a failure rate of 1% for all I know. The Chinese are known for sometimes casting parts that should be forged, cut/shaped, and hardened. Don't get me started on Chinese capacitors, resistors, and copper coil winding in Chinese made motors.

I might trust one on a tail hitch rig but not as my go-to.
 
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ejay said:
I've never owned a HF winch. I am a Ramsey fan.

Failures I have personally witnessed in the field are mostly overheating; I suspect. I've seen two just stop working. (Blown electrical component?) Only one of those reported back and said "it was fried". And I heard one crack, let loose a few inches of cable, and seize. (Guessing a cracked worm gear?) You could hear the motor trying to turn but no go either direction. That was a friend of the club I was running with at the time and he met us on the road in route to Hungry Valley. No further info available on that one. As for rumors, I've heard that they overheat very easily.

They could have a failure rate of 1% for all I know. The Chinese are known for sometimes casting parts that should be forged, cut/shaped, and hardened. Don't get me started on Chinese capacitors, resistors, and copper coil winding in Chinese made motors.

I might trust one on a tail hitch rig but not as my go-to.
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I knew there were some good brands I was forgetting.

I do think that all makes a lot of sense. I would suspect overheating is the biggest concern, which won't hurt many that won't extensively use their winch. Like you say though, the chance of poor manufactured parts and low QC is a crappy failure point for anyone that is out and needs a winch and the odds for one of these units to have a failure is probably relatively high.

I did check out the Ramsey winches, but they were a bit higher than I expected. For my truck it looked $2k+. I do like the simple design though. I think with synthetic line and everything, I'd rather stay under $1,500 and if I can get away with the VR Evo series, then that's probably what I'm gonna land on, but on a 8,500 lb vehicle before adding off-road luxuries and bumpers, I'm a bit wary of even the 12k lb winches.
 
What about Quadratec? They have a "Q9000" for $370. I'm sure its not a Warn, but is it complete junk like so many others?
 
I have a friend who has went through 8 of them in a year and a half. He said they are the biggest pieces of junk he’s ever used, and that if it wasn’t for the extended warranty he bought which keeps giving him brand new ones every time they fail, he would never touch them again.
 
Chris said:
I have a friend who has went through 8 of them in a year and a half. He said they are the biggest pieces of junk he’s ever used, and that if it wasn’t for the extended warranty he bought which keeps giving him brand new ones every time they fail, he would never touch them again.
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Are we talking Harbor Bomber or Quadratec? *confused*
 
Chris said:
Harbor Freight "Badlands" winch.
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Ok - I had asked about the Quadratec - maybe not the best thread to do so in, so was confused. From the context, I was pretty sure you were indeed talking about the Badlands, but needed confirmation.
 
Zorba said:
Ok - I had asked about the Quadratec - maybe not the best thread to do so in, so was confused. From the context, I was pretty sure you were indeed talking about the Badlands, but needed confirmation.
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My mistake, I was actually reposting to the OP, since he had asked about Harbor Freight winches ;)

I have no experience with Quadratec winches.
 
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