Thanks for the testing - HF does have that reliability issue, so it’ll be interesting to see how it plays out as you use it more. Please keep us updated! Thanks again for the write up.
I'm looking forward to the review. My dad has one on his jeep and we were looking it over the other day. Looks pretty nice. I really like the tensioner on it. Wish my 8274 had one.
As for heating up in testing. I keep my pulls to 30 seconds or less. I can wait for a few seconds between pulls to allow the motor to cool. Besides, all that juice is running through the solenoids which get hot as well. You have to remember that at full load they pull 400+ amps. That's a lot of juice to go through a set of contact points and the duty cycle of most switches or solenoids is not 100% at full load. More like 10% on solenoids, or less.
As for heating up in testing. I keep my pulls to 30 seconds or less. I can wait for a few seconds between pulls to allow the motor to cool. Besides, all that juice is running through the solenoids which get hot as well. You have to remember that at full load they pull 400+ amps. That's a lot of juice to go through a set of contact points and the duty cycle of most switches or solenoids is not 100% at full load. More like 10% on solenoids, or less.
Influencer I
This is a tough one for me. I am in the market for a wench (my wife says we need one). I have been exploring off road for about a million years and I have only REALLY needed a wench one time in the snow when my vehicle slide off the road. I don’t like to admit this but the “Badlands” name associated with Harbor Freight brings up memories of cheap Chinese junk tools that fail soon after purchase. Harbor Freight has come a long way in improving the quality of the things they produce and the price point of this wench is very attractive. A quick search on Amazon and you find a bunch of wenches with good specs. The thing that keeps bringing me back to the Badlands wench is the great customer service that HF has and they do stand behind what they sell.
Here is a very detailed write up on the Badlands winch from a post I found on another site.
Look at Post #92 by Mandrake.
This was very helpful in my decision to get the HF Winch
Pros and cons on Harbor Freight's 12,000 lbs Bad Land winch
Look at Post #92 by Mandrake.
This was very helpful in my decision to get the HF Winch
Pros and cons on Harbor Freight's 12,000 lbs Bad Land winch
What do you guys think of the other badlands equipment? I was going back and forth. Like Mark D said I have a visions of cheap when thinking of Harbor Freight.
The garagejournal.com has a great Harbor Freight pass/fail thread that may interest you guys. Not everything there is junk, but it is a gamble unless you read threads like this, or the pass/fail thread...
James
James
These seem like a terrific value but when Warn gives a lifetime warranty and Smittybilt’s is 5 years, HF’s 90 days doesn’t fill me with confidence.
Just to throw fuel on the fire:
Warn's lifetime warranty covers defects in materials and workmanship for the life of the winch, on the machanicals, and 7 year on the electrics, non-transferrable. 'Defects in materials and workmanship' is a phrase open to interpretation.
The Warn VR series winch is made in China. The Badlands winch is a direct design copy.
Today, there are a shrinking number of American-made products, even the ones with American names on them. I only buy chinese when there isn't an American-made alternative. If I'm forced to buy chinese, I for damn sure don't pay a premium for an American label on it.
Warn's lifetime warranty covers defects in materials and workmanship for the life of the winch, on the machanicals, and 7 year on the electrics, non-transferrable. 'Defects in materials and workmanship' is a phrase open to interpretation.
The Warn VR series winch is made in China. The Badlands winch is a direct design copy.
Today, there are a shrinking number of American-made products, even the ones with American names on them. I only buy chinese when there isn't an American-made alternative. If I'm forced to buy chinese, I for damn sure don't pay a premium for an American label on it.
Member I
I like my Badland 12,000lb winch. I had a Smittybilt XRC 12,000lb, it was a noisy winch that made a growling noise that made me uneasy that it might be a unreliable. I felt in the back of my mind that winch could give me issues on the trail. I pulled the Smittybilt from my truck & bought the Badland ZXR. I changed out the wire rope & roller fairlead on the Badland winch to Master Pull 7\16" x 75ft. Classic synthetic rope & Factor 55 fairlead
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Influencer II
So I have a Warn Zeon 12S Plat up front and HF 12K with an amazon special Synthetic Rope in the rear. I have had 4 pretty hard pulls on the HF.
Couple of thoughts here.
1. It's slow.
2. It seems to draw more current than the Warn.
3. The Bluetooth remote is finicky, and it likes to "overrun" - that is it pulls about a full second after you let go of the button. The hardwired controller doesn't do this.
4. I am getting a good comfort level with it but I am trying to keep the duty cycle low. 15 second pull with a 2 minute rest. The manual advises 45 second pull, and a 15 MINUTE rest at full load.
5. The solenoid box is poorly sealed and there is a youtube video called "Waterproof your Badlands winch" - Do all of that.
Overall, I want to get something with a better warranty but I do not regret buying this and it has already paid for itself with time and aggravation the rear winch has saved me.
For the record I have used my rear winch more than my front, so if you are considering doing it, you will be very happy.
Under truck mount
Rear Bumper
Front winch as an Anchor on this muddy hill, and the HF pulling out the 4R.
My Zeon putting in WORK.
Lemme know if you have Questions!
-Michael
K2QZ
IG:@medusathetundra
Couple of thoughts here.
1. It's slow.
2. It seems to draw more current than the Warn.
3. The Bluetooth remote is finicky, and it likes to "overrun" - that is it pulls about a full second after you let go of the button. The hardwired controller doesn't do this.
4. I am getting a good comfort level with it but I am trying to keep the duty cycle low. 15 second pull with a 2 minute rest. The manual advises 45 second pull, and a 15 MINUTE rest at full load.
5. The solenoid box is poorly sealed and there is a youtube video called "Waterproof your Badlands winch" - Do all of that.
Overall, I want to get something with a better warranty but I do not regret buying this and it has already paid for itself with time and aggravation the rear winch has saved me.
For the record I have used my rear winch more than my front, so if you are considering doing it, you will be very happy.
Under truck mount
Rear Bumper
Front winch as an Anchor on this muddy hill, and the HF pulling out the 4R.
My Zeon putting in WORK.
Lemme know if you have Questions!
-Michael
K2QZ
IG:@medusathetundra
Overland_Mike,
I'm curious of the amp draw you mentioned. What gauge / quality cables are you running to the rear?
Also, do you have any pics of how you mounted the rear winch?
I'm curious of the amp draw you mentioned. What gauge / quality cables are you running to the rear?
Also, do you have any pics of how you mounted the rear winch?
Influencer II
I have a group 31 battery that is mid-cab under the truck. I have 4/0 gauge to the front battery to it and then real 2 gauge from the rear winch cut off to the mid battery. (The HF 2 gauge doesn’t quite appear to be the best quality) Based on the charts I’m light a gauge on the rear winch but it’s only an 8 foot run.
The rear winch is mounted “feet first” meaning the “bottom” of the winch is actually the facing backwards and it’s where the cable is coming out.
It’s bolted to some 2x2x.250 spacers to push it back from the bumper plate so the cable angle isn’t so extreme.
You can barely see the spacer here.
My 2 cents. Yes they are very affordable. They may or may not work I have seen reviews saying they work great and I have seen reviews saying they are not fit to be a paper weight. If you want to gamble and take the chance of it maybe working when you get stuck I say go for the gamble. I spent about $75 dollars more than the cost of a badlands winch and got a superwinch that I know for sure when the time comes it will work for me
Enthusiast III
Current update:
Remote failed, got a replacement but having problems with it as well. Drum not holding tension when cable wound, select lever has rusted bad enough a hammer is required to get it to turn. Winch still operates with wired remote but I feel a upgrade coming on next spring. I am going to save it to mount on a trailer figure it can live out it's lifetime on that instead of my Jeep. Lol. I figured it would have issues at some point but it was cheap enough at the time to get the work done.
I use a 5000# HF winch on one of my trailers for winching logs up on it. The original cable was total crap and any bend seemed to break strands and make a lot of fish hooks. I went with a synthetic line and have been winching up a lot of very heavy logs with no problem in a year and half of use. most of the chinese made tools are usually made off of a good design but use cheap parts to reduce cost, for example, warn may use a solid copper wire and the HF series will use a copper clad wire, which is cheaper but prone to failure at a faster rate. most of the problems with HF electric tools is that the insulation on the winding is crap and breaks down fairly quick creating an insane amount of heat. HF is hit and miss. i bought a rotary hammer from HF 20 yrs ago and abuse the hell out of it, leave it outside in the rain, etc and just used it a few months ago to drill 150 holes in a slab for anchor bolts. i paid $40 for it and then had a bosch rotary hammer that was $600 and was nothing but trouble...guess most of buying anything now is a crapshoot, but for something like a winch that will be used for recovery in a remote area and is pretty important, i would def go with a better brand and use HF for less critical use
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I know that this thread is about the HF winch, but someone said that Amazon has a number of Budget winches also. I had one of these, the 13,000 XBull. I had it on the front of a 1 ton 4x4 Chevy service truck. I used it a lot in a 1.5 year time span. I used it to pull my tractor, pull cars and trucks out of the ditch when it snowed, pulled my wife's car up the driveway in deep snow, used it to drag all kinds of heavy stuff around the property and it never skipped a beat.
My only issue with it was the wireless remote had a useful range shorter than the winch line. It had 100 feet of rope, but a wireless range of about 60 feet. Not a huge issue, but slightly annoying.
One thing to note about synthetic winch rope, it fades in the sun. UV light will degrade the rope. You must keep a cover on the winch to keep the rope from degrading. I kept all but the last few inches covered and there was a marked difference in the color, started dark blue and faded to very light blue. I have to assume I lost some integrity of the line because of this.
My only issue with it was the wireless remote had a useful range shorter than the winch line. It had 100 feet of rope, but a wireless range of about 60 feet. Not a huge issue, but slightly annoying.
One thing to note about synthetic winch rope, it fades in the sun. UV light will degrade the rope. You must keep a cover on the winch to keep the rope from degrading. I kept all but the last few inches covered and there was a marked difference in the color, started dark blue and faded to very light blue. I have to assume I lost some integrity of the line because of this.
EXCELLENT point! I didn't think about that and the other day I got looking at the line and it is breaking down being out in the sun exposed all this time. Too late for me, but hopefully someone else will read this and protect their line after install. Mine is faded and getting a powder on it from UV degradation.
