Winches

Was hoping for some opinions on winches, I recently purchased a Body Armor hiline front bumper, does anyone know what brand of winch fits best in that bumper? Thanks.

 

I have that bumper with this winch. I’m happy with it, everything bolts up perfectly and I bought the winch for nearly half price. These are allegedly made in the same factory that makes Chinese warn models. No issues with at all so far. A bit overkill but works for my needs.

 

welcome to TW

 

i'm planning on a harbor freight winch for the truck eventually. warn is the Aéropostale of winches.

 

Watch their sales / coupons. I knew their apex winches had great reviews, I just happened to be in there when there was a new open box, that I could tell hadn’t been installed or even tested. Store manager sold it to for something silly cheap (under $300 OTD) and I bought the bumper to install it. Was going to do a receiver mount, but decided I’d probably never have it with me when I needed it.

 

Really appreciate the input, I was in harbor fraght looking at that exact badland just yesterday, I believe I'll get it and I'll probably get the wireless remote too. Thanks again guys.

 

yep, i've been watching. wish i could find a deal like that! best lately is $60 off. if they did $100 off, i'd already have it!

 

Until you get into 4 figures all of them are made in China. Even the ones with high end brand names on them. The ones from Harbor Freight seem to work at least as well as anything else.

 

And here I was thinking Warns were good... What's the selvedge denim of winches?

 

Aeropostale? Maybe ll bean or Eddie Bauer, one of those two started making down clothing. Who cares though really. I have a warn zeon platinum, it’s nice. I don’t really have much to compare it to though.

edit. I’m sure the peeps at Matt’s off-road recovery have nothing but good things to say about the badlands winch.

 

It comes with wireless remote, battery disconnect everything pretty much. No need to remount the controller either. The HF light bar fits perfectly in the front of that bumper and helps keep everything cleaner. Maybe grab a snatch block and a couple dampers. It’s solid winch. There are companies that use them exclusively for off-road recovery businesses.

 

i tend to watch casey ladelle more. MOR only recently started winch outs, so i don't really trust his experience with winches. my impression is the HF winch is the first consumer-grade winch outside of a tow truck winch he's ever used. not a great compare/contrast if it's all he's ever used. 406 garage and dirt lifestyle tend to prefer warn's, ladelle is always giving 406 garage a hard time about it, ladelle always apparently had issues with his past warn's not working when he needed them...

zeons are a nice winch, definitely look prettier than the HF, they were just nicer when there weren't other similar performance options available for 1/3 the price. there's really nothing that the zeon offers over the HF that justifies the raw price difference other than the brand sticker-- line speed, pulling power, and rated capacity is all really similar. it just adds a $1,000 to the price tag.

 

That definitely seals the deal, I was wondering about the controller and light bar too, thanks for mentioning that lol. I've only had one winch on a CJ5 a long time ago, that was a Ramsey, I've been trying to get up to speed since I decided to get the bumper, I haven't put the bumper on yet, I'm waiting until I get all the parts, so far I have the hiline front bumper, the Body Armor desert series rear bumper and a Prinsu roof rack, once I get all the bits and pieces on then we'll talk about a lift lol, nothing to crazy since it's my daily driver, probably a 3".

 

Buy an 80's Warn for $60 and rebuild it.

 

Are you 4x4? If you are, going up to 3" you will leave you with no down-travel if using just a basic suspension lift

 

https://www.calranch.com/12-000-lb-12-volt-dc-electric-truck-winch-black.html

 

anybody use a non attached portable style for recovery?

 

Like receiver mount? I have used one, definitely nice to have. I think having a front and rear receiver would be a must have.

I just didn’t wanna pack one around in my extended cab

 

I bought a SmittyBuilt X20 for a little under 600 dollars with a coupon from 4WP. Haven’t used it yet, but from reviews and YouTube videos it seems like it’s a solid budget friendly winch.

 

for front or back like this style