"Chinese" 9500lb winches - owners comments wanted

Warn winches are made in the good ol' USA.
This article is about testing the item not commenting on the source.

Mag comes out every 3 months and we will be continuing to test and write up about the winches for at least 12 months. A lesser period would be inconclusive and meaningless. Give yours a go and then send me some feedback for a later edition.

Yes, but that was static testing. The winch didnt stall which is actually a bad thing.

We are "real world" testing this winch including repeated dunkings followed by winching and other tests.

but someone like brawn pull them appart and water proof them so it will be hard to compare chinese apples with apples ;-)

Leroy

Brawn 4x4 dont exist anymore.
I think ebay and Repco killed their market.
Repco had these winches for $699 with a 3year warranty and we bought our test winch on ebay for under $400. pretty hard to compete with that.

Andrew,
Have you pulled it apart yet.
Is it the one with pop rivets holding the planetry gears together scarey stuff!!

I was last told Brawn 4x4 do still sell there winch but have closed their workshop.
Though I stand to be corrected????

Colin is still around and may be doing stuff from home but Brawn4x4 went into administration.

ACDC - thanks for the promo.

I'm tending not to respond to these questions now, as everyone knows I sell them. My opinion would be seen to be a bit too biased to be any good. Don't want to look like Bill S now, do I?....lol

Besides, we may not be selling them for too much longer - Repco and eBay are killing the market for smaller shops like ours. Once we land them here, insure them, brand them, test a few, etc... they are just becoming very cost ineffective.

We were one of the first to start selling these things on eBay - back when the Chinese winches had a bad name. Look where we are at now..... Prices have almost halved, and people are seeing them as a viable alternative to the overpriced units! I mean - if something pulls at 12,000lb, does it really matter what the sticker says?

Our last 4 are on ebay now - we'll see how they go, and make a decision after that.

We'll try importing some other stuff next - i know 4' Aust. Std. Hi-Lift Jacks are overpriced by a good 40% or so....... Might try them next. Just don't know at this stage......

Cheers,

Chump

Yeep good old Repco know how to stuff up a market place!!

LOL - i say good luck to them!

I've had my fun, and it's time to move on.....

The manual is actually very good with the one we bought.
Written by someone with good knowledge of winches and winching. English as a first language too! LOL

The power!! of advertising!! and guess who pays for it..

Thanks Willem
Thats the reason for the article. Buy a 9500lb chinese winch on ebay for $400 or buy a 9500lb Warn for $2100. Neither are waterproof and both will die if not used and maintained regularly. I want to know if the Warn is worth the extra $ and if the chinese can be relied oin when you really need it.

My winch cost $1200, which, for what it is, is a reasonable price and whereas I feel that the WARN may be a tad overpriced

We actually have 2 "chinese" winches to test. One purchased from ebay and one from a 4WD equipment supplier that has them built to their requirements.

The idea of the testing is to see if they are a good winch and test their durability. Its about giving potential buyers more info. Thats all any test can do.

I have recently purchased a chineses winch,12000 pds, I havent had a chance to test it out properly yet but in the coming months I will be testing it out thouroghtly by experienced 4WDers with 20 years plus experience...as i have stated before on Exploroz I will post a unbiased opinion on this winch..pictures of how we used it,how it performed.I have pictures of the installation which I done myself which bolted strait onto an ARB winch bar,all I had to do was rotate the clutch which I confered with my suplier on how to do,wired it up as instructions and pre trensioned the cable as per instructions...I did have to slightly file the fairlead mount hole which only took about 10 minutes.....so far so good....in the coming weeks...well I'll find out !. I might ad thought I have not got a negative atitude towards this winch I just need to find out the good or the bad before warranty runs out!! .Before I brought my winch I posted on Exploroz to get a clear picture across the board of winches in general...and it was the comment of one poster that promted me to go chinese..anyone interested in reading the information,go to the search bar and type in( which winch).Hope this helps.
JD

sorry type in post ID:28358.
JD

Nice try Brian. I bought the ebay one with my own $$$

LOL...... nothing ventured, nothing gained!

Norm
Are you saying it wouldnt fit in the space behind the bar or it wouldnt fit through the gap?
If its the latter, then remove bar, fit winch to bar then reinstall the bar. Quite common with ARB bars.

Norm

Good luck finding a winch that you will be able to mount with the bar on the vehicle. Spending more money wont help.

Ads

The latter Andrew. Having not installed a winch before and being alone at the time, I decided taking the bar off was just a bit too much. Particularly since it had been on for just a few weeks (installed by ARB).

If you and Crazie are right (have to remove bar to get any winch on), I'll learn as I go; get some help next time and do it. Might wait for the review mentioned on this thread though to see if the Chinese winches are the one to go for. Warn would need to be very good to pay $2,000, compared to $699.

I mounted my winch with the bar on the truck,althought I had to remove thr the bash plate,definately a two man job...and they to mount up in reverse order, to how you would think to mount it..by this I mean temp bolts to hold it in place while you make room to get the bolts you have to address first.....GU ST Patrol with an ARB roo bar..for the sake of a handfull more bolts to remove....so close but no cigar, my experience with mounting my own.
JD

JD,
I've managed to install and remove (for servicing) my Warn XD 9000 a few times. It is a prick of a job and the first time I removed it I almost crushed my chest when I lost the balance of it. It would be a lot easier if I had one of those mini scissor trolleys to raise and lower the bloody thing. It's a case of laying on your back, holding it up with one hand and using the other hand to get the 1st bolt in place. On reflection
it would probably be much easier if the cable was removed first up too. I ended up taking the solenoid box away from the neat little "W" cut-out in the front of the bullbar, as it was just too much of a PITA to have to remove the winch evry time I needed to get at the box to spray a bit of WD40 into it.
Cheers
Roachie