I have seen many comments regarding Gorilla winches and am looking at getting one of them. Has anyone tried one from Harbor Freight? $100.00 list. I know you get what you pay for, but I'm not looking to haul my SUV out of a ditch or yank any trees down. I want it for when I manage to get myself stuck. New rider, kind of daring (probably more than I will be willing to admit!) Pretty much more of an ornament I guess. I just figure an ATV should have one.

Any one got any general guidelines on what one could expect from a winch with a 2000lb capacity versus 3000lb capacity etc. I'm a little unsure what the lb. rating translates to when the winch is attatched to a 500 or 600lb ATV.

 

I have a 3000 lb venom winch (venomwinch.com) on my rancher. I've used it a few times to unstick myself and once to help pull out a rhino - and once to pull up a small tree just to see if it would do it. I've also used it to pull medium trees that I've felled for firewood to better positions for cutting the individual firewood pieces.

Can't help you much on the lb rating - but when I was helping pull out the rhino, the venom showed much more heart than the 1500lb warn that was on the recon that was also helping. Also, if you're pulling someone else out, if they are seriously stuck, then you usually have to tie off the atv to something else or you'll just pull yourself to it.

Rodney