Winch? Do all cheap winches not free spool?

O

Olean NY Jeeper

New member
I had a smittybuilt winch, it never would free spool. I had to use controller all the time. My buddy got a quadratic winch. it is very hard to free spool it. Is this typical? If I bought a cheaper warn model would it give me same problem? just want a winch that free spools easier.
 
My smittybilt xrc8 freespooled. However, the grease is garbage and gums more than greases, making freespooling almost impossible over time, especially in the cold. Find some writeups on how to replace that grease with some quality stuff and you may find you have a freespooling winch again.

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Another great reason to not cheap-out on recovery gear. Imagine your in the mountains, 12,000ish feet in elevation, enough to really make you winded just climbing a small hill. You're trying to attach your winch cable to an anchor point and..... awe man it's starting to rain and it's getting muddy. You've almost got your cable connected..... now it's stuck. Back down the hill..... Wife asks if everything is okay.... this is the moment when you really need your winch to work for ya. Nope! You decided to save a couple hundred bucks.... good thing too, you're gonna need that cash for off-road-recovery fees... starting at say, $600 just to get the tow-truck to you, then the tab really picks up.... no thanks!


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JeepJeep75 said:
Another great reason to not cheap-out on recovery gear. Imagine your in the mountains, 12,000ish feet in elevation, enough to really make you winded just climbing a small hill. You're trying to attach your winch cable to an anchor point and..... awe man it's starting to rain and it's getting muddy. You've almost got your cable connected..... now it's stuck. Back down the hill..... Wife asks if everything is okay.... this is the moment when you really need your winch to work for ya. Nope! You decided to save a couple hundred bucks.... good thing too, you're gonna need that cash for off-road-recovery fees... starting at say, $600 just to get the tow-truck to you, then the tab really picks up.... no thanks!


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Well said. To add on to that..... The following month, you notice your wife keeps coming home late. Come to find out, she's banging the tow truck driver....who just happens to have a Warn winch on his tow truck and his Jeep.
 
WJCO said:
Well said. To add on to that..... The following month, you notice your wife keeps coming home late. Come to find out, she's banging the tow truck driver....who just happens to have a Warn winch on his tow truck and his Jeep.
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Hahahaha😂

It's half past f'it with the CAPS lock on!
 
I have had no issues with my Smittybilt winch, although I take impeccable care of it as if you don't, you end up with a gummy winch that won't free spool.

That being said, if I had to do it again (knowing what I know now), I would have bought a WARN.
 
Warn is always a good winch choice. That being said, I have a Superwinch that free spools just fine. I've only used it a handful of times and take good care of it though. I will be upgrading to a Warn in the future, but I'm not in a real hurry since I only use it a handful of times per year.
 
My Smittybilt 10,000 H20 winch free spools. It spools out do fast that if you're not careful you'll tangle the winch line.

My Smittybilt XRC 9.5 also free spools but it does require a little more pull.

I was told, by a Smittybilt rep, that the difference is the type of braking the winch has.

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WJCO said:
Read your heart out: https://wayalife.com/showthread.php...-quot-Top-end-quot-Smittybilt-winch-questions

If you were in a hospital bed waiting for a pacemaker, would you want the cheapest US made one, or the best that the Chinese had to offer? No offense to Bruce Lee (I think he's Chinese)...
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My Smitty built works great. I have never had a Warn due to the cost. As long as I spool in carefully, the free school goes out pretty good.


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Kenthejeepguy said:
My Smitty built works great. I have never had a Warn due to the cost. As long as I spool in carefully, the free school goes out pretty good.


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You bring up a good point. I have a synthetic line. I make sure to zig-zag it back and fourth as I wind it onto the drum. After I use it, I pull the line back out and zig-zag it back on. I believe if synthetic line is wound on the drum like cable is, it can slip in between the lower wrap and get pinched.


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WJCO said:
Read your heart out: https://wayalife.com/showthread.php...-quot-Top-end-quot-Smittybilt-winch-questions

If you were in a hospital bed waiting for a pacemaker, would you want the cheapest US made one, or the best that the Chinese had to offer? No offense to Bruce Lee (I think he's Chinese)...
Click to expand...

Thanks, I will check this out. I know I will never buy a another smittybuilt. I used it dozens of times and it didn't fail me but I never could free spool it. I started with steel, went to synthetic. no matter how careful I was to keep line neat I never could free spool it. I had to use controller to let out line. Very annoying. I know it could free spool, i hooked it another jeep and backed up and it free spooled but I never was able to manually do it despite the fact u am over 200 pounds.
 
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