Winch alternatives? Input needed

[MossJenks]

A come along or hand ratchet device will be wasted money. Hi lift jack will work but what a pain in the butt. In 05 with like 200 miles on my brand new rubicon TJ I got it stuck up to the frame in a muddy/boggy obstacle alone on the trail. 3 hours of digging and a couple hundred mosquito bites I gave up and left the thing there and hiked out. My daily driver, no top or doors, left over night in some freaking forest in Wisconsin. I bought 3 10,000 lbs hand ratchets like what’s pictured above and 5 20’ straps. I broke all of the ratchets pulling that thing out. I got it out but it took breaking all 3. My next purchase was a bummper and winch. I’ll never do that again. Aside from all of this, if you go out with multiple vehicles a simple tow strap will do the trick for less than $50.

All of that is a big "it depends". Every recovery is different. I've never seen a Wyeth-Scott actually break except for the safety handle bending by design. I've seen all sorts of gear break including electric winches. And of course winches aren't helpful at all if there is nothing to winch from. I'm a member of a volunteer group here in Colorado that recovers 4x4s in remote areas - we burn out several electric winches every year. Often it's not a defective product but just a result of.long hard pulls.

In the example above maxing out 3 10k winches is a 30k lb pull. A 12k lb winch ain't gonna do that.

We get recoveries all the time that another vehicle with a strap are useless on. There is no magic all-situation recovery device.

Edit: oh sorry, actually there is: a ham radio along with the license and skills to operate it.

 

[Industrialwrench]

I don’t have the TJ, traded it in for a “family” car (08 srt8 challenger still got it). I didn’t use any force multiplier to gain 30k in pulling power. I bought multiples because they were inexpensive, my friends doubted that they’d work, and I thought I’d be able to use them at work after the pull. And just so people know, you can absolutely get 30k out of a 10k winch. You just need to understand multipliers and what they will do to your line and anchor points.

 

[jhguth]

Probably cheap come alongs, I don't trust those things either, they constantly break and the cheap ones are so flimsy I've even seen the sprockets pull apart and get the cable caught making it impossible to release tension.

A good more power puller isnt going to break though, neither would a quality tirfor style winch, in both cases if you really overloaded it you'd break a shear pin (which are like $2 so you should have spares to re-rig and try again after more digging)

 

[4FL]

Back in the day, a high lift jack and some straps is what I used, either use the jack as a winch, or used it to lift the truck to assist getting it unstuck.

A friend had a hitch mounted winch, had a front hitch also to mount it, pretty damn useful, I was going to go that way until life events happened and exited out of the off-roading scene.