Why buy an Engo winch...

Why Buy an Engo winch..





From the very beginning prior to having my own winch I heard good things about Engo, the main thing being great customer service. Seemed easy to say that would be the winch company I’m going with. As I did 11/30/16 with a hook up at Southeast Overland. Fast forward 3 years later and I’m even happier then ever with my purchase from Engo.

My 10kS winch was put to work a lot over the years.. moving trees off forestry roads in Virginia, getting unstuck from the deep snow of the White Mountains NF New Hampshire, saving a family in a F250 with box trailer on a forestry road in Wyoming, locally helping a contractor get his skid steer out from being bogged, and testing recovery gear like the recovery ring for safer application for winching.

The last photo in sequence is where my winch died, trail 20 Rausch Creek offroad Park in Pennsylvania. I blame myself for death to the winch.. It was a very stressful situation to say the least. After a few hours of trail damage and self winch recovery I came back around on the trail to winch my buddy. I went from being in front of him to now behind him. Lack of rear recovery points we looked to snatch him from the front with the recovery ring. My winch line was up against his door wrapping around the fender and head light, he said he didn’t care but that didn’t sit well with me, so I moved the tree saver higher and higher till it cleared over the hood. Ready to winch everything was in motion... then disappointment set in.. My winch stopped pulling and my buddy was still stuck. I didn’t realize till we talked about it hours later I setup the line in a way that had too much stress on the winch. The setup with the tree saver too high wanted to pull the front end of the truck off the ground instead of just a forward motion.

Now home days later it was time to diagnose and fix the winch. My first thought was that the solenoid was fried given a little research. Ordered a new solenoid and replaced it, still didn’t work.



What I should have done from the beginning was call Engo. I’m not sure how Engo operates behind the scenes but every time I called them a guy named Joel answered the phone and called the shots to rectify the situation. So on the first call to them I explained what happened and we discussed a solution, ended up ordering a new winch motor. Relatively cheap I’ll add but a little steep on shipping given the weight. When it arrived I temporarily wired everything together and it worked! Thanx Joel for the advice, customer service and being easy to talk to.

Before installing the functioning winch back in the bumper I took apart the gear box to clean it up and regrease everything. To my surprise right off the bat some muddy water came out. Upon further dissection I found out one of the gear sets in the assembly had two seized smaller gears. I cleaned everything up best I could and even soaked the gear set in PB blaster for a couple days. I was able to get the small gears to move but barely and with force. So I got back on the phone and called Engo. Joel picks up, I said hey and explained we prior talked about my winch and ordered a new motor, now I have an issue with the gear box.. After a brief talk he said “are you the original purchaser?”, “when did you order it”, “we’ll send you a new one”. I had to repeat him out disbelief.. “your gonna send me a new one!?”. So no hiccups I explained exactly how I purchased it from Steve at Southeast Overland, through FB messenger, with PayPal. Joel asked if I picked it up or it was shipped to me. SEO is in South Carolina, I told Joel it was shipped to me. Joel responded “then we sent it to you, I’ll find the invoice for proof of purchase and just send some pics via email of the gear box and corrosion”.




5 days later Joel is a man of his word.






After everything is reassemble I’m excited to get back out on the trail and push the limits. I can’t thank Joel at Engo enough for all the help he had given me calling from New Jersey all the way to Washington, personally picking up the phone after two or three rings (never missed a call) and supplying expert advice. The level of customer service I received is unfathomable for business nowadays. I’ll always remember how good they were to me as a customer and will continue to spread the good word about Engo.

 

Very cool. I also had great customer service from Engo when the solenoid went bad on my Tacoma's winch. That led me to replace the shittybilt winch on my 4runner with an Engo

 

Sounds like they have great customer service for sure. Do you have any experience with their "5 Ton Sand Tracks?" They're similar to Maxtrax and almost at a third of the cost. Wondering if they hold up to use or not.

 

Another Engo/Joel fan here..

My first winch line snapped a few times under high load in an extremely stuck situation. After being recovered by a tractor and getting home safe, I called Joel and he asked for some pictures of the winch line and then sent me a new one. My first synthetic line was blue and the new one is grey. Not sure if there were any other issues with the blue lines or if I had somehow compromised the integrity of the line myself.
Because of my experience, my father in law now has an engo 12k winch on his wrangler. (A little overkill lol)


I should add that I bought the winch around 8 years ago, the line issue was probably 6 years ago, and the winch (and line) are still working great.

 

No personal experience with them.. I have TREDs

 

Always great when a company can provide replacement parts to service a piece of gear instead of just expecting you to throw it away and spend hundreds on a new one.

 

Thanks Brother, great write up! I'll keep all of this in mind when the time comes to shop.

 

Great Write-Up - thanks for sharing. I’m in the market. Its been about a year since the last post, and I’m curious which engo winch you’d choose now for your taco if you were getting one today? I have my eye on the 10k lbs srs synthetic with aluminum hawse. THANKS!!

 

Very helpful...thanks!

 

Stoked to see this post. Inspires confidence in my recent purchase of an Engo SR10 winch.

As for customer service, I called them to find out the max pickup current of the contactor. That is the max amperage the coil will need to close the circuit. Wanted to know to see if I could avoid two relays on my in cab winch controls. (BTW going to run a switch on a fused relay to be robust and safe). Joel picked up on my first call. Even though he didn't know the answer to my question, he didn't come up with a BS one nor treat me like some idiot barking up the wrong tree. Seal of approval given