What winch do you use?

How many of you believe a winch speed is important, or do you believe the winch speed is unimportant? When you say it is or is not important, feel free to include why you feel that way if you like. :)
It may have some advantages and disadvantages. If you don't know what you're doing it might be a disadvantage since things are happening faster than a newb can compute what to do or not do. So it may be a safety hazard. It would likely be an advantage in a race scenario, like King of the Hammers, though most in America use regular winches (I think). I've heard that it's much more common in the race scene in Europe. I'm all ears, interested to learn.
 
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On winch speed I'd assume it's really doesn't matter if it goes fast because it's a lot safer going slow. I'd take a slow safe recovery over a fast hazardous recovery any day.
 
Probably has to do with gearing, the faster it goes the less pulling power it has. The slower it goes the more pulling power it has. I believe the goal is to find a winch that has a happy medium between the two.
 
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1. Superwinch.
or
2. WARN.

Look for group buys to save some coin... Hmmm anyone on here affiliated with Superwinch or WARN- I could use an upgrade from my old ass WARN. The rest are just inferior imitators that'll leave you stranded when you need it the most.
 
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An old Jeeper that I have gone wheeling with a few times bought the same X20 that @Chris and I have for his XJ. It was a huge upgrade to him from some other Chinese winch that he bought from Quadratec, where he had told me numerous things that were wrong with its design (wouldn't freespool out until he changed the hard grease, brake inside the drum burned it several times, etc).

The only complaint he has had with his is identical to my issue, where the wireless button crapped out - he's a retired electrical engineer, so he fixed it on his own, and led me to investigate my identical problem with precision. Root cause is likely from being exposed to the elements. The button isn't waterproof, but it is an easy swap with a cheap waterproof switch on Amazon (I'm wiring mine to a switch in my cab tomorrow, there are two female ~16-18 guage electrical connectors inside the winch's electrical box that are easy to access).

Any hoot, the few times that I have been out with him (mainly in 1-2' of snow and ice), he has gotten himself stuck. He has 31" KO2's and not a lot of clearance with his diffs. I have seen him beat the living shit out of both the winch and his Dyneema line. He is usually out there by himself, and he trusts the winch to get him out of the situations that he gets himself into (he emails me the next day with his stories lol).

When mine breaks, I'm going Warn for sure (I will need something industrial though for other reasons). Hopefully it doesn't break too soon though, on a budget for the moment and I am not planning to upgrade until at least mid-Spring.

Yep, same thing everyone else l know with this winch says. Replace the switch with a waterproof one and you’re good to go.
 
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The speed of the winch actually is very important.
On winch speed I'd assume it's really doesn't matter if it goes fast because it's a lot safer going slow. I'd take a slow safe recovery over a fast hazardous recovery any day.
Actually a faster winch speed is more helpful than someone new to winching would realize. But even the fastest winches under load are not so fast they would create a hazard for the operator. The reason for wanting a faster winch speed is to avoid snarling the winch line into a birdsnest like can happen when the Jeep suddenly lurches forward while you're winching. It can lurch forward as you clear the obstacle & are coming down on the other side, it can lurch forward if you're on a long difficult stretch of the trail during short stretches between obstacles when the Jeep lurches forward under its own power. Whenever the Jeep can suddenly/unexpectedly move faster than the winch can keep up with, a winch line snarl/tangle is likely.

And some winches, especially the lowest cost highest winching capacity are geared so low that their winch speed is mercilessly slow to the point they're agonizingly slow. Which is just one reason Milemarker's hydraulic winch line, which was popular in the late 90's early 2000's, more or less died out... stores no longer stock them because they don't sell. One big reason for that loss of favor, in addition to how difficult they were to install, was their agonizingly slow winching speed.

Warn noticed the speed issue in the late 90's and started designing newer winches with faster speeds. About the first winch they did that with was the HS-9500 which really changed how better quality winches were designed. Warn figured out that faster winch speeds for offroad use were more important than was previously recognized.

So when comparing winches, don't "poo-poo" the under load retrieval speeds unless you just don't really plan to use it much when on the trail. Because not many recoveries that require a winch are just a quick short pull.... many (most?) require a long winch pull and not all of the winch pull may keep the winch under load. Make sense? :)
 
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The speed of the winch actually is very important.
Actually a faster winch speed is more helpful than someone new to winching would realize. But even the fastest winches under load are not so fast they would create a hazard. The reason for wanting a faster winch speed is to avoid snarling the winch line into a birdsnest like can happen when the Jeep suddenly lurches forward while you're winching. It can lurch forward as you clear the obstacle & are coming down on the other side, it can lurch forward if you're on a long difficult stretch of the trail during short stretches between obstacles when the Jeep lurches forward under its own power. Whenever the Jeep can suddenly/unexpectedly faster than the winch can keep up with, a winch line snarl/tangle is very likely.

And some winches, especially the lowest cost highest winching capacity are geared so low that their winch speed is unmercilessly slow to the point they're agonizingly slow. Which is just one reason Milemarker's hydraulic winch line, which was popular in the late 90's early 2000's, more or less died out... stores no longer stock them because they don't sell. A big reason for that loss of favor was their unbelievably slow winching speed.

Warn noticed the speed issue in the late 90's and started designing newer winches with faster speeds. About the first winch they did that with was the HS-9500 which really changed how better quality winches were designed. Warn figured out that faster winch speeds for offroad use were more important than was previously recognized.

So when comparing winches, don't "poo-poo" the under load retrieval speeds unless you just don't really plan to use it much when on the trail. Because not many recoveries that require a winch are just a quick short pull over the top.... many require a long winch pull and not all of the winch pull may keep the winch under load. Make sense? :)

Thanks for this quality information.
 
I have a Warn 8000, Warn 16.5, and on my TJ, a Warn Xeon 10,000 rope winch. Warn winches have never let me down, and in Alaska, I use them a lot. Also have a Warn 2,000 winch on my 4-wheeler.
 
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Never owned a winch, and new to the jeepin world. In fact, just ran my first trail with my first TJ ever two days ago! Saw an ad in the newspaper for a winch at (dont shoot me down) Harbor Freight. It gives its speel about being better than a similar Warn 12000lb winch. Would I be crazy considering one of those?
 
Never owned a winch, and new to the jeepin world. In fact, just ran my first trail with my first TJ ever two days ago! Saw an ad in the newspaper for a winch at (dont shoot me down) Harbor Freight. It gives its speed about being better than a similar Warn 12000lb winch. Would I be crazy considering one of those?
Yes, at least if you wheel hard enough to need it more than rarely.
 
Never owned a winch, and new to the jeepin world. In fact, just ran my first trail with my first TJ ever two days ago! Saw an ad in the newspaper for a winch at (dont shoot me down) Harbor Freight. It gives its speel about being better than a similar Warn 12000lb winch. Would I be crazy considering one of those?

Those Harbor Freight winches ate bottom of the barrel garbage. I know a local guy who has gone through three of them before he finally decided to be smart and stop buying them.

In no reality whatsoever is a HF winch better than a Warn winch.
 
I use an Engo SR9S with a TRE safety thimble on an elevated Warn plate . I have not needed it as of yet, just played around with it and worked as expected.
 
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My go to is the Warn M8274
I like that its the fastest line speed that warn offers and it has 150ft of cable. Its rebuildable and reliable. It’s been along for a long time so it’s easy to find parts for and it carries with it a following so there are plenty of upgrades for it as well.

Makes long pulls quick and effortless.
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My go to is the Warn M8274
I like that its the fastest line speed that warn offers and it has 150ft of cable. Its rebuildable and reliable. It’s been along for a long time so it’s easy to find parts for and it carries with it a following so there are plenty of upgrades for it as well.

Makes long pulls quick and effortless.
View attachment 37220
The M8274 has been around a long time. A friend of mine scooped up every one of those things within miles of here and drove the price right through the roof for used ones. He was snagging them off the front of old logging crummies, trailers, out of barns, out from under work benches... Basically went nuts. Drove over to Clackamas and picked up a bunch of parts to fix'm up. Made a killing selling them on ebay. Dork never offered to sell me one.

I'll probably get an Engo and call it good.
 
Never owned a winch, and new to the jeepin world. In fact, just ran my first trail with my first TJ ever two days ago! Saw an ad in the newspaper for a winch at (dont shoot me down) Harbor Freight. It gives its speel about being better than a similar Warn 12000lb winch. Would I be crazy considering one of those?
I have this winch with the wireless remote . I have used it about 3 yrs for various uses and haven't had any issues with it at all . Can't beat it for the price .
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