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Harbor Freight Badland Winches??

17K views 18 replies 13 participants last post by  Ross 
#1 ·
#4 ·
If you want a cheap and reliable winch... buy an old used Warn or something that is made in the USA. Get one that "doesn't work" and get a manual and rebuild it... you'll know how to fix it/bypass stuff if you need to(failed solenoid) and you'll save some money doing it.

I scored TWO Ramsey RE12000s for $400. One had a sticky clutch, one didn't spool out.



Made one great working one and I gave the other to a friend when I moved, though with new solenoids and some gearbox seals it would have been good to go.

Those are $1000 winches brand new.
 
#5 · (Edited)
FourWheeler didn't have such good luck with the Badland winch when they did their shootout in the July 2011 issue. The Badland didn't work out of the box and the Summit Racing, Kodiak Bruin, and Bulldog Alpha winches they tested failed at some point during testing.

Here's a link to the article.
http://www.fourwheeler.com/techarticles/129_1107_massive_multi_winch_shootout/index.html

Keep in mind, the moabjeeper 'winches in hell' test was actually only 4 pulls with each winch, so neither it, nor the article above is a long term testimonial for any of the participants. My personal experience with Harbor Freight is that nothing from there lasts very long. Just because products look similar or even the same, doesn't mean that the quality of the components they're made of is the same. I would pass on the Harbor Freight winches, there are others for similar prices that have better reputations.
 
#6 ·
Issue with mags is they could be biased.


With that being said, if you want to get a winch, you can get a 9500# synthetic lined winch from an RC rep on the forums for 430 shipped with a cover.. CAnt beat that.
 
#7 ·
Issue with mags is they could be biased.
That's always a possibility, but there's probably not much bias in "it failed to operate right out of the box. Despite double-checking the wiring between the control box and winch motor, we were unable to resolve the issue and were forced to set it aside for the physical testing."

Besides that, Harbor Freight is an advertiser in this particular magazine, (their ad page is actually in the middle of this particular article and lists this winch for $349.99) and FOURWHEELER still printed that it failed out of the box. I would think that any bias would be to help their advertisers.
 
#8 ·
like pretty much everyone else here has said, i wouldn't trust a harbor freight winch for wheelin, maybe for a car hauler or around the farm jobs but for the price they want for that you could buy a new rough country or rugged ridge winch that you know was built for the purpose you intend to use it for, and still have a couple bucks left over
 
#11 ·
LOL!

You do realize they're all the same POS made in China winches right?

There's Warn... and then there's everything else.

Ramsey is high up there too, but only certain series of their winches are higher quality US made.
 
#10 ·
#14 ·
Get a Warn & own peace of mind

Keep checking amazon too. Even tho I live 2 miles from Warn, my m8000 was shipped from AZ (via amazon) for $430 (great rebate).
 
#15 ·
Using a 20% off coupon I got my 10# hf winch for $240 last year. works great. been used about 6 times.

Once to pull a xj that was sitting vertical on its front bumper. It was slow but got the job done
 
#17 ·
Though i currently have a 12k pound warn sitting on the shelf i've had for about 3 years and have always been undecided about what vehicle to put it on, I will play the Devil's advocate! Though my only working experience with warn is through ATV's. They had a promotional deal for several years buy a new quad get a warn winch for free or very little money. I purchased alot of quads during this time (no wife and 3 less kids at the time). Everytime it came down to needing or depending on the warn to get me out, it failed ( meaning wouldn't work) usually a solenoid but have had gear problems with them also! None of these were over worked, and most weren't even used for several mos. after purchase! But i never had a single Warn ATV winch that would make it longer than 3 times of dire need.
On with the ATV groove of things i switched to Rule and ended up keeping the same winch thru multiple atv's and was still working after going thru 3-4 cables and multiple quads, when i finally let it go with one of the sales!

The first large winch i bought was a Superwinch 9500, though it never seen any offroad use ( it was mounted on a trailer), it did see heavy use on a weekly basis such as pulling crew cab 4x4 dually's up on a 3ft tall gooseneck with locked up brakes! This winch lasted several years and never had a problem as of the time i let it go with the trailer! I have had a handful of Ramsey' in the 8000 plus range, one used for trailer duty and the rest were off-road use! Can't really complain as i would buy another, only failures seemed to be from abuse!
I did just recently aquire a 2002 Tj with a non-working Chicago winch, yet to look into the problem as i sold the Jeep to Dad same day i bought it, but i was told it needed a solenoid?

Anyway, my point is that Warn has one hell of an advertising campaign, and i believe alot of their problems are overlooked! I would not own the 12000lb unit, i have now had i not took it on trade! I think people tend to go with the flow and if all they hear is how good Warn or etc..... the are not going to say much when it fails, and if they do it's easily overlooked!
 
#19 ·
Warn has been around for a long time. These cheaper winches have not. They come and go, change name, whatever. Keeping this in mind you would think there would be more horror stories about Warn just because of how long they have been in existence, yet the bad stories are few even compared to winches that have only been out for a much shorter period of time.
 
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