Which Winch will Winch? (Lol)

I've run my old style Badlands winch for about 5 years, only use it to fish out my 4 wheeler mud bike, about 10 times, has never failed me, was like $280. It's always used in muddy, wet, crappy conditions, quick rinse off at the house. Lives in rainy Florida weather and heat, I recommend this cheap winch.

 

I agree totally. I had a Warn on my 2018 Taco and never used it. It's time for me to buy another and I'm seriously considering the Apex 12000 synthetic for $500. I'm not a big off roader but I want a winch if I do.

 

The control pack on top of the Apex winch can be removed and relocated to the side. That's what I did with my Warn

 

For those of you with a hidden style winch mount, is it hard to access the clutch lever? It seems pretty inconvenient to reach down the space between the radiator and the grill to flip that clutch lever, especially if you're up to the bumper in mud. Warn Zeon Platinum has wireless clutch release, which is sweet, but is a ~$1200 option over a basic VR Evo.

 

I was seriously into hard-core Rock Crawling up until 20 yrs ago and have seen numerous winches with smoke coming from burned up motors . I've had no issues with Warn and my favorite was the Warn 8274 . I even had a newer Warn XD9000I winch and never had any problems

 

I have a Warn Zeon 10-S and it fits with plenty of room. I can't imagine the HF winch is much larger.

 

Well seems like the stock group 24F 'Taco battery is only 582 CCA. The Harbor Freight winch requires a minimum of 650 CCA. Guess I better not be doing any heavy pulling until I get a better rated battery in my truck.

Going to be probably looking for a bit stiffer springs for the front too. Something to take the sag back up once I get the winch in. Going to be an additional 150 or so pounds after all is said and done with the winch and the Hiline bumper. I do want to wait on that though, I want to see with my own eyes how much sag develops.

 

I'd imagine it would be pretty hard to get to the lever with a slimline bumper. I made a lever for myself to get into my ARB

 

They do require proper care and some protection from sunlight like another user said. At the end of the day Id say you've had some pretty bad luck

 

I was worried about this as well and after two recoveries over the winter, one recovering someone else (dirt/rocky road) and the second a self-recovery (deep snow). After both I realized that I don't really need the wireless controller that I'd been considering. I was able to reach down behind the grill to hit the clutch with no issues. Now if I were stuck in deep mud, that's probably a different story, but as of now the few recoveries I have had to do with my BA4x4 Slimline Bumper were easier than I expected.