REDLINE217

Wow that might be my next buy

largo

I know we have to try out new items as they are available, but I must add that I have been in the manufacturing industry for over 40 years, and I have yet to see any product that can be manufactured 50% less than the leading supplier without going to China. Nothing against China, as I have been in charge of several of our plants there, but you must keep a vigalent eye on them or the quality will go to heck. Also, the very fact that a winch is an item that will never be used until something has gone wrong, and usually in a far away place. Is the savings going to matter then? Remember the old axiom, "Quality is remembered long after price is forgotten." Good luck and I do hope these never cause you an issue. For me, I never purchase any winch other than WARN.

dcharge74

Winchdepot.com is still around. I think they are somehow affiliated with 4wd.com, who also offers the same warranty on their winches. My warranty was $60, so I think it price varies as to the winch that you buy.

mpkelley20

These winches look very similar to the Smittybilt and Rugged Ridge ones. I am pretty sure they are all basically the same with some minor differences...yes, all made in China but I haven't seen any evidence of a higher failure rate than a Warn or Superwinch or other brand.

One thing that seems to be a difference is in the thickness of the rope. The Rough Contry states 3/8" thinkcness where I know Smittybilts use a 21/64" (so the Rough Country is thicker). I don't know how any of that goes into the rated pull strenght since they all claim similar numbers.

I bought the Smitty XRC10 synthetic winch because of cost and decent reviews that I read. while I haven't used it a lot, it did prove very capable yanking people out of some nasty 3 foot snow on my last trail run. Never gave me an issue and we did some tough pulls. Hopefully it will be reliable!

If I was in the market today for a winch, I'd jump all over the 9500 pound synthetic Rough Country. Awesome price.

BearInTheWoods

I know some folks may shy away from these winches and those like the Recon because they are made in China, but aren't the Warn winches made in China as well? I hate buying stuff from China just like most others but looka t Apple, they have their stuff made in China. I just can't justify spending well over $1000 for a Warn when I can buy one of these or a Recon for a fraction. If it breaks, I'll rebuild it just like some have to do with Warn's. Hell, I've had to rebuild Warn winches for 4 wheelers several times.

Enclocal

I think choices are good, but I can't justify paying the price of a WARN with steel cable and without accessories like a wireless remote and so on... I'm all for supporting "MADE IN THE USA", but the WARN prices are rediculous in my mind for my amount of usage. If the pricing was more competitive for comparable model, it's a no brainer to pay a few extra $'s for a WARN.

Until then, I'm happy with my chinese winch.

largo

I wish I had the thread that showed the difference in Moab of all the major winch suppliers, and how after a couple of days there were only two winches still operational, Superwinch and Warn, and the Warn eventually came in first. This was a JK project. Don't get me wrong, you buy what you can afford or what you feel is a good deal. I was just saying, when you come to recovery gear, I will see time and again threads saying only purchase ARB straps, etc. Then they will put those o a winch costing 1/2 the price of a known brand. Strange. I fault no one in buying whatever they are comfortable with, but don't downplay a winch that has been around as long a there was a Jeep.

Enclocal

No down play here, I'm looking out for #1 (myself) with my budget in mind and I'm trying to get the most for my pennies and amount of usage. The debate will always continue like debates over other mods. I'm not endorsing any product, but I will say that I didn't buy a WARN because of the price.

nthinuf

The article was called "Winches in Hell". A quick search will bring it up.

It isn't all-inclusive, but they managed to gather a decent selection of winches to test. There were some surprises, and some good opinions on other brands, but this is my favorite quote.

Enclocal

I have that article bookmarked and I did take the article into consideration when I made my purchase.

Notice at the top of the article...
Date Added: 07/01/2007

Of course, many of the winches on the market now were not evaluated at that time. However, The Chicago Electric 9000 (Harbor Freight) made top 3 in that article, I had a $399 coupon for their 10k version and chose to go a different route.