AZEngineer
Full Access Member
I off road in AZ in the desert and I had assumed a winch would be a luxury. Last week I was out with a couple of jeeps having a great day. Lots of narrow spots and desert pinstripes but overall a great day. Towards the end we were driving up a fairly steep hill on "the easy way up" to avoid 4 ft tall rock stairs and as I came around a corner I had to hug the outside of the trail to get around a boulder that had fallen on the trail. My tires were maybe 12" from the left edge of the road and I was driving maybe 3-5 MPH. Suddenly the left 2 ft of the road gave away and slid down the steep bank of the hillside. The drivers side front and rear tires were basically hanging off the cliff and my truck was high centered front, center and rear. Tried to see if I could gently roll forward and back on the road with the rear locked and that generated a larger slide of the road down the side of the hill. Luckily one of the guys I was with had a winch. (Out of dozens of trips with many different guys, this was the first rig with a winch). He was able to pull me at a 45 degree angle and to get the truck back on solid ground.
SO.....I now need a winch. I've spend the past few days reading all I can on winches and I need some advice.
1) There are Warn, MileMarker, and Ramsey winches that have been around forever, have great reputations, and they will cost me $1500 for a 10-12K load winch with synthetic rope.
2) Lots of chinese made winches with names like Smittybilt, Superwinch, etc that will give me the same thing for $500-700.
3) I expect this to be an emergency winch that gets very seldom use, hopefully never. The intent is to be able to save my ass so I need to KNOW it will work when I need it.
The new Smittybilt X2O Gen 2 12K winch with wireless remote and synthetic rope is $699. Less than half of what Warn wants for a 10K version. If I get the remote on the Warn I'm looking at like $1700. I normally try to buy the best, but wow. Huge range.
From reading the web there are two camps.
1) Those who swear by Warn. Warn does have a great warranty and service reputation. I see very little on Ramsey and Mile Marker
2) Those who say it's stupid to spend on Warn and it's just branding.
What say those with experience?
SO.....I now need a winch. I've spend the past few days reading all I can on winches and I need some advice.
1) There are Warn, MileMarker, and Ramsey winches that have been around forever, have great reputations, and they will cost me $1500 for a 10-12K load winch with synthetic rope.
2) Lots of chinese made winches with names like Smittybilt, Superwinch, etc that will give me the same thing for $500-700.
3) I expect this to be an emergency winch that gets very seldom use, hopefully never. The intent is to be able to save my ass so I need to KNOW it will work when I need it.
The new Smittybilt X2O Gen 2 12K winch with wireless remote and synthetic rope is $699. Less than half of what Warn wants for a 10K version. If I get the remote on the Warn I'm looking at like $1700. I normally try to buy the best, but wow. Huge range.
From reading the web there are two camps.
1) Those who swear by Warn. Warn does have a great warranty and service reputation. I see very little on Ramsey and Mile Marker
2) Those who say it's stupid to spend on Warn and it's just branding.
What say those with experience?
