Harbor freight winch

[tonnydoodles]

Badland (harbor freight) winch

Against my advice friend of mine got an 9k winch from harbor freight, his rational was that a 9k winch on an samurai was a no brainer, fast forward 3 months and 2 pulls with the winch and it failed! Even worse it failed under no load at all! Solenoid box works fine it clicks, but winch doesn't move in either direction, I moved the drum by hand and the motor worked, pulled about 3 feet of cable and motor stoped again, we took to the local store manager said we had to call costumer service, we called them got the run around, they told us an district manager would call us in 48 to 72 hours, one week later no call, we call again, now they said that the warranty have expired, and they can't no longer honor it, at this point my friend asks if he can order a replacement motor, costumer service guy says that they don't have any available due to high demand, he then offered to give him the phone number for the national hf headquarter, he called, got the same story, a district manager will call you in 48 to 72 hours, another week and no call, called again demanding to talk to someone in charge, and the guy told him that he wasn't going to honor the warranty because it was past the 3 month date, so now were on a campaign to spread the word about harbor freight, the low price aint worth the cheap crap and horrible costumer service, the only way these companys will learn to respect the consumer is if we spread the word, sorry for the long rant.

 

[Yellowkayak]

Thanks for letting us know that was the winch I was going to buy!

JJ

 

[tonnydoodles]

Save your money and buy something else, northern tool is selling super winch tiger shark 9500k for less than $400, I'm planning on picking one up for my bandeirante ( fj40) soon, it got great reviews.

 

[TerryD]

Yes, thank you! I've been on the fence about a 12k one for my K5. I'm just going to save my money for a Warn or Ramsey now.

 

[tonnydoodles]

The worse part of the whole deal is that harbor freight stalled him until the warranty ran off, the winch broke right before the 3 month mark, costumer service stalled him for 2 weeks or so, then claimed the piece was out of warranty, again buyer beware.

 

[bfdiesel]

Sorry about your luck. There is old saying "you get what you pay for" winches are one of those items that it is especially true for.

 

[tonnydoodles]

Sorry about your luck. There is old saying "you get what you pay for" winches are one of those items that it is especially true for.

Not my winch, but a close friend, I work on his Sammy all the time, I agree with you a 100%, you get what you pay for.

 

[Jonathan Hanson]

This story points out why I always urge those on a tight budget to buy a used Warn rather than a new knock-off Chinese product made to a price point. The biggest problem with the cheap winches is wildly varying quality control. I've heard guys claim their $350 Harbor Freight winches have performed perfectly for hundreds of pulls - and perhaps some of them have. But others fail either right away or at the worst possible time - like, er, when you need to winch something.

 

[jsmarine]

The worse part of the whole deal is that harbor freight stalled him until the warranty ran off, the winch broke right before the 3 month mark, costumer service stalled him for 2 weeks or so, then claimed the piece was out of warranty, again buyer beware.

Even if they stalled for 2 weeks, you put in the claim before the Warranty expired, right? It shouldnt matter if they stall for 2 weeks, or 4 weeks, you still made the claim before the warranty expired.

 

[tonnydoodles]

Every time he tried to file a claim, hf pushed the issue to someone else within the company with promises to call back in 48 to 72 hours, they never called we waited then called again, same thing, last resource was to inform hf that we were going to post our experience with them in every board that we knew of, they're answer was that we went ahead and did what we had to do, so we're making a point to inform potential buyers not to buy this item from them.

 

[dr350jja]

winch tests

In the winch "shootout" test, conducted by Four Wheeler Magazine, the Harbor Freight winch failed, right out of the box. Not even able to test it! Interesting...
http://www.fourwheeler.com/techarticles/129_1107_massive_multi_winch_shootout/

 

[4xdog]

As my Dad used to say... "we're not rich enough to afford cheap tools".

HF has it's role -- cheap, disposable tools. A piece of recovery gear is not the time to get cheap. Lesson learned, eh?

Don

 

[I Leak Oil]

These HF winches and other similar units are for people who want to say they have a winch, not for people who want to use their winch.
Only thing I'm surprised about is that people are still surprised that they are garbage.
Jonathan Hanson has the best piece of advice for someone who can't or doesn't want to spend money on a new one.

 

[Stumpalump]

Do a search in your area for electric motor repair shops. They don't replace electrical motors at farms and in industrial parks they get them fixed. I knew a guy in AR that could rewind, modify and get an electrical motor to do anything you wanted for just a few bucks. Bring him the whole winch and get solinoids and everything checked. It will be better than new.

 

[BigSwede]

As my Dad used to say... "we're not rich enough to afford cheap tools".

Heh, reminds of when I was a kid, my Dad got bloody knuckles trying to use a bargain wrench...my mild-mannered father threw the wrench across the garage and snarled "I am THROUGH buying cheap crap!"