Harbor Freight Badland 12,000 winch

Kflash

Adventurer
Anyone have any comment on the HF winches. They are running a special this week on their 12K Lb Badland brand winch for $299. They list mostly good on their site (other than a little heavy was a positive), but would like to hear unbiased input.
 

High_Country

Adventurer
I'm always after a good deal, or a good value. I do not have ANY experience with that particular winch, however, I have experience with some other HF (including a small utility winch - 3000lb). Bottom line, there's a reason most of their stuff is cheap. That's not to flame them or their products - they have a place and a certain market they're after. But, quality, dependability, reliability, longevity, performance are words not often associated with their equipment. I suppose it depends on how often you plan on using the winch (every weekend, every day, maybe once a year, never - just want to look good) and of course what the consequence are of it NOT working. For instance, is this going to be your only source of self-recovery during your solo trip to the middle of sub-saharan africa or do you always go out with friends and in close proximity to help.

Personally, I chose to spend more on a winch (but not the MOST I could've) to get a better quality unit, made by a off-road company, with good customer service. I know money is money, but for a couple hundred bucks more you could have a pretty decent 12,000lb winch (think Smittybilt, Warn VR, etc).
 

pugslyyy

Expedition Vehicle Engineer Guy
HF is a great place for 'throwaway' tools - something that I need for a project but may well never need again. As High Country says, probably not the place to buy something for long term use or a high-cost-of-failure application.
 

Martinjmpr

Wiffleball Batter
I know money is money, but for a couple hundred bucks more you could have a pretty decent 12,000lb winch (think Smittybilt, Warn VR, etc).

Smittybilt winches are made in China, too. I wouldn't be surprised if they're more or less identical to the chinese made "badland" winches sold by HF. Probably come from the same factory.

Got a Smittybilt XRC-8 on my wife's YJ. We haven't had a chance to use it yet, but the guy who helped me install it is an experienced rock crawler who winches a LOT. His winch? A smittybilt XRC-8 just like my wife's. ;)
 

jeep-N-montero

Expedition Leader
Smittybilt winches are made in China, too. I wouldn't be surprised if they're more or less identical to the chinese made "badland" winches sold by HF. Probably come from the same factory.

Got a Smittybilt XRC-8 on my wife's YJ. We haven't had a chance to use it yet, but the guy who helped me install it is an experienced rock crawler who winches a LOT. His winch? A smittybilt XRC-8 just like my wife's. ;)

The HF and Smitty winches are one in the same, tons of threads on the net about it.
 
my boss has the badlands 12k, i have the smittybilt x2o8 his controller plugs into mine and works. neither us have used them in anger.
 

Revco

Adventurer
I bought a Badlands, used it twice to pull a car onto a trailer. I had a weird gut feeling about its quality, so I returned it, then bought a Rugged Ridge 8500 for the same price from www.4x4outfitters.com. The Rugged Ridge worked great on the trailer, and great on my big Suburban. I also got a Rugged Ridge 20k snatch block off eBay for less than half price. I sold that winch when I sold my trailer and Suburban, but plan to buy another since I got another 4x4. The Rugged Ridge is just a rebranded T-Max winch.
 

mustangwarrior

Adventurer
i have no experience with the HF winch but i bought one of the cheap venom winches off ebay for my atv, 5 years later its still working, never let me down and it has been fully submerged many times, it is alot slower than a warn winch but for the price i couldn't beat it, but when it comes to my vehicle, i would most likely get something with a better reputation, for now i just plan on putting a come along in my jeep for emergency situations
 

High_Country

Adventurer
The HF and Smitty winches are one in the same, tons of threads on the net about it.
I hadn't heard that before. That's interesting - I'll have to look into that. Personally, I purchased a winch from the X2O series (an upgrade from the base smittybilt XRC's I suppose). But, if the XRC's are the same as the badlands, that's pretty wild. I'll have to look closely at one next time I'm in Harbor Freight. I do have some level of increased comfort knowing I bought it from a actual 4x4 store with good customer service, 'no questions asked' replacement, and I've already got good customer service directly from smittybilt when I emailed them with an installation question. There's some value to that 'infrastructure' of support, but it's up to the individual to assess that value.
 

Kflash

Adventurer
HF offers two year replacement warranty. If it breaks-right back to the store. Still thinking about it.
 

Wh1t3nukle

I gotz dis
I have the 12K on my 2nd Gen 1500 for the last year. It's been used less than 10 times. No complaints....thus far. I chose it based on reviews and approximate usage, which was roughly 1x/month. I did get the 2 yr replacement warranty and just figured, hey, if it goes out, get another one. If it totally breaks down, then yeah it can be construed as reflective of the price/quality.

I'm still quite satisfied with it and I just swapped out to rope from cable for the family safety factor.

photobucket-6818-1356643266549.jpg


IMG_20130318_172540_250_zps1df08a40.jpg



If I wheeled more and therefore increased the frequency of usage, then by all means I would have chosen one that commanded corresponding reliability. As of now, when the time comes for that and if this HF is still humming, then it'll get migrated to the rear. Hope that helps.
 

Forum statistics

Threads
185,527
Messages
2,875,534
Members
224,922
Latest member
Randy Towles
Top