Gents

for those who are not wheeling hard, and are rarely ever in a position of needing a winch.. what kind of winch can be had for a tolerable amount?
If I spend another 600 on the truck wife will disembowel me.

I would look at Harbor Freight on sale.

ZXR 9000 lb. Truck/SUV Winch with Remote Control and Automatic Brake

Happy with my Smittybuilt with synthetic rope. Used it to pull out my friends power wagon and another person's XJ so far. Haven't had to use it for myself yet.

Smittybilt XRC 9500 - Best Smittybilt 9500 Winch Prices & Reviews | 4WP

There's a newer gen3 I think.

Is the $600 budget for just the winch or everything? Like mounting plate or bumper + coils to compensate for weight? (if thats the plan too)

My advice to you: Don’t go cheap on a winch. The times you need it you really need it. Save the extra money for something good. Also I would err on the side of extra capacity. I’m running an 8000lb winch on a very heavy rig and often find myself using snatch blocks to increase pulling power.


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Just an option:

12000LBS Pull Strength

In this topic someone installed an Apex Badlands winch.

thank you all! researching further.


no, just the winch; the hefty bumper and updated suspension are getting installed right now.
which is why another 600 will get me dealt with

FWIW I've had a variety of winches over the years. Today's cheap winches are better than the most expensive Warn 20 years ago was. I still have an 8274 on my FJ40. It works - but it's broken more times than my Harbor Freight cheapo winch on my utility trailer.

I have a Superwinch 9500 on my 4Runner that IIRC was around $450 with synthetic rope on sale a few years ago. Kinda right in the ball park of what most of the import Chinese planetary winches are now. It's pretty rare for any of them to have major failures anymore.

If you're not using it often - I think any of the generic ones would be fine. Harbor freight, XBull, Smittybuilt, Superwinch - probably pretty similar internals for all of them. I'd go with synthetic rope though as a minimum. It's just so much easier to use and live with. Easy to splice if you break or cut it. And less weight. for example I think you'd be just fine with something like this: Amazon.com: X-BULL 12V Synthetic Rope Electric Winch 13000 lb Load Capacity: Automotive

Thanks to Chicom electric motors, ALL winches are disposable these days.

Harbor freight are really the ones you can use 2-3 times before they shit the bed.

I had one on my farm truck that died after 3 extractions.

".... and I make it a point never to deal with my wife".

A lot of Jeep guys are running Badlands winches after they spent all their money on Grumpers. Generally OK reviews, but some barely work out of the box and others last a while. Quadratec has their own line of winches as well, so it might be worth looking there.

A Winch is like a gun in that if you ever need to use it you will wish to bought the very best.

That said, while I have a Warn Zeon on the 4R, I have a Smittybuilt 9500 lb for use on the pickup just to get me unstuck when plowing.

I just installed the Ironman 4x4 9500lb. winch on my Hefty bumper. They are pretty new, but I figured if it's good enough for the Australian outback, it should be good for whatever I need it for. It's right at $599 on their website with free shipping. Usually ships same or next day.

Monster Winch 9500LBS 12v Electric (Synthetic Rope)

OP, HF has a sale right now

ZXR 12000 lb. Truck/SUV Winch with Remote Control and Automatic Brake

9K or up for a 4Runner.......and my HF has been great.

Does the winch have power in/ power out line feed? I have purchased a 3500 and plan to mount it to my flatbed trailer. can I make a short pigtail to plug into my trailer plug on the truck that will run the winch? will this winch pull a vehicle up the ramp onto the trailer?

Thank you