Interesting winch problem

kaiser715

kaiser715

Doing hard time
Joined
Jun 1, 2006
Location
7, Pocket, NC
So...I got a Warn VR 10,000 on my Rubicon. Got it in 2015.

A few weeks ago, I went to use it, and it would intermittently not power out. Power in worked OK. Cleaned and tightened all the connections with no change in behavior.

Used it a couple of days ago, it would run for about 20 seconds, then stop. Give it a minute, and then I could start it again, and get about a 20 second run out of it, and it would stop The solenoids were clicking when I worked the switch.

Both times I of course had the engine running.

Yesterday, the battery died. As in couldn't even jump start it dead. Put it on the bench charger for a while, then tested. Showed 120 CCA.

Put a new battery in today, and now the winch works fine. Although the old battery had no trouble at all or signs of failure, it could spin the starter just fine, but couldn't start the winch.

I was about ready to pull the winch off and dig into it.
 
Wonder if you had 1 bad or shorting cell in the battery, was enough for the starter but not the winch?
 
Check the winch relays.
 
Well that’s good to know, had the same problem with my m12000 totally rebuilt with new solenoids and still same problem. Went to start the truck the other day, dead as a hammer and the battery ain’t that old
 
Lizooki said:
Check the winch relays.
Click to expand...

Agreed. I came here thinking he was going to say he figured out that the contactor was shorting internally and killing the battery... Looks like the VR 10 uses four solenoids, but they can fail similarly.

Edit: watch for sparks when connecting the winch leads to the battery, or put an ammeter in series with the winch. If the winch is drawing power without the remote connected, the contactor or solenoid(s) are bad.
 
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The VR series has issues. A friend had his in to Warn twice. I believe he has a thread on here about it.
 
BTW, this was the shitbox ChryCo OEM battery. Meant to replace it from day one, but never got around to it.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk
 
5 years on the under powered stock battery, yeah it was due. There is a TSB saying that a JK battery should be 750CCA, not the crappy 640CCA battery that was stock.

Of course, try to get Mopar to upgrade that stock battery, yeah, right.
 
cranbiz said:
5 years on the under powered stock battery, yeah it was due. There is a TSB saying that a JK battery should be 750CCA, not the crappy 640CCA battery that was stock.

Of course, try to get Mopar to upgrade that stock battery, yeah, right.
Click to expand...
Uh....my stock battery was 600 cca. 2015. Never looked before, was surprised to see it was that crappy for the size.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk
 
kaiser715 said:
Uh....my stock battery was 600 cca. 2015. Never looked before, was surprised to see it was that crappy for the size.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Wonder when they made that change. My 12 had a 640 CCA. The Service Advisor pointed out the TSB as he tried to upsell me on a factory 750CCA battery. I went to Advance and got a 750 CCA AGM battery for $150 and put it in the Jeep on the dealers back lot. This was part of a starter replacement that I had the dealer do, so I didn't get any push back on doing the battery install.
 
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