I have a 2008 renegade 800x with a warn winch and plow. All was fine until the second s ow of the year. In the middle of plowing the winch stopped holding up the plow. The rope will go in and out but once the plow is about an inch off the ground it just drops. The winch will also free wheel if I move the switch. I've let out a few feet of rope and pulled on it hard to see if it would hold and it does...any ideas as to what might be wrong?

 

I'm wondering if it's completely switched back to the winch position or not. I once put mine on freespool to pull a buddy out and when I went to switch it back to winch it didn't seem to fully click in. Ended up having to use a tow strap. I made a "wrench" with a piece of PVC pipe that I cut a notch out of the end on each side big enough to get over the switch you grab. By being able to get a good grip on the pipe I have been able to switch between freespool and winch very easily. Worth a shot. Warn has a pretty good customer service department too.

 

The winch is a Warn XT15 model and I took it apart today and all of the gears are fine in it. The only thing I can think of is the spring in the spool switch is too weak to push out the small metal piece that locks the spool for when you are trying to wind the winch. It will spool it up just fine if you're holding the rope by hand, but under a load it seems to pop out.

 

Yeh we have had a problem like this with a Land rover, the cable could come out even though he thought it was in the winch position, turns out it was because it was not slotting in correctly from freespool, make sure its properly engaged.