Winch Questions

ponykilr

Guest
I will probably get some kaka for this, but I want to put a winch on my F350. Probably just going to build my own bumper for it. I have a $299 coupon for the 12,000lb Badlands winch from Harbor Freight. I can get the SuperWinch 9000 at Costco for I believe $399. This isn't a rock truck, but I just want to be able to pull myself out of the mud if I have to.

I really cannot find anything bad about the Badland, it has a higher rating than the Superwinch. The SuperWinch is also supposed to be a good winch for the money.

What say you guys? I have never owned a winch, but I have used one a few times in mud. They really do not seem to have to work super hard in those kinds of situations. I know pulling a buggy up a rock face is hard, but for more laid back uses is the HF winch GTG or just a waste of money?
 
I don't see why not and spend the extra dough on the superwinch to save you the trouble of having to return a winch if the HF one poops out on you. I have never seen a HF winch fail but I think we can all agree that superwinch will have better quality control. Either way keep good care of any winch and don't over heat it and it will last. Use a pulley to relieve some of the load on the winch during heavy pulls. Synthetic lines are so worth it.
 
We bought one of the 299 12k winch harbor freight specials. Used it at Harlan and worked great. Only problem is our model has heli coil style thread inserts into housing for mounting and the inserts that were factory installed were complete junk. After changing them, winch has been great.

After having my $warn and seeing other warns cap out prematurely I will never own another one. I now have a Ramsey 8000. We have a superwinch, a ramsey, a harbor freight and a mile marker. Harbor freight is best bang for buck, and has an aweome spring loaded cable tensioner that makes it level wind when not under load
 
Apparently there are several model numbers. My friend that bought one in greensboro, his has slots to capture the head of a bolt, but the one we got has 4 blind holes with thread inserts. No way to through bolt it

I'm guessing that's the difference in part numbers on the coupon.

Wasn't that big of a deal, just went to Napa and got new metric helicoil thread inserts and changed them out.
 
why not go with a smittybuilt 10k for the same price as the Superwinch? They have had tons of great reviews.

Biggest difference for most of these vs a higher dollar Warn, etc. is speed. The warns also can be easier to get parts for.
 
If you go to harbor freight on their sidewalk sales, you can find some good deals on returned items that tested good. I bought my 12k winch for $70 and its great. Only problem is I don't have the spring loaded cable tensioner so free spooling the cable out it would unravel from the drum and I'd have to undo all the cable. So I just powered it out. Now I have rope on it but haven't really used it. I'm in your boat. I just have it for peace of mind when I'm on the beach or something. But it saved my ass at the Flatt's last time I was there.
 
I've got a smittybilt and have beat on it pretty hard. I pulled myself and another Cherokee hooked to my back bumper for 300 or so yards of straight pulls up a hill, almost all cable out pull it in and repeat. Never stopped and I've used it a bunch since with no problems
 
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