Im looking to buy a winch for my 700. I was wondering how the 2500 lb viper winch compared to the 2500 lb warn? I dont plan on using the winch very often and i think i can save around $100 if i go with the viper. Is this a good winch or should i shell out the extra $100 for the warn? Do they both fit on the bike and look the same after they are installed?

 

Many people will say that the viper winch worked fine for them. I prefer the Warn because of the proven reliability. (I have had a "no-name before, and wasn't happy with it.)

 

Warn is the ultimate

 

i feel you get what you pay for. go w/ the warn, ive had 3 w/ good luck and alot of use w/all of them pulling everyone esle out lol,

 

Warn and Ramsey are your top winch brands, although I understand Rule makes a top quality winch that’s also waterproof. I’ve had two SuperWinches, they both sucked. Out of half a dozen Warn winches I’ll have to agree, proven reliability.

You say you don’t plan to use it much so why not save some money and buy a cheap one? No offence to your logic but I feel the exact opposite, unless you’re just mounting it for looks and NEVER expect to use it. My winch is my last hope for extrication from whatever predicament I’m in. If it can’t get me out, I can’t get out. At that point I want it as big and strong and reliable as it can possibly be, I’m not thinking about the “good deal” I got on an off brand. When I’m stuck bad enough to disengage that spool and haul out that rope I want a BIGGER winch, not a cheaper one.

Would you embark on an ocean voyage with only a toy inflatable donut for a life raft? This is what gets me about those $19.99 250 piece tool kits people carry in their cars for an “emergency.” Tell me, when is a tool most likely to be abused or misused? When it’s an emergency, you don’t have the right one and you’re tying like hell to make something work with what you have at hand. Is that when you want to be carrying a hammer that the head breaks off of or a socket that splits or a screwdriver that snaps in half? Not me, my best tools ride with me in the truck because that’s where their reliability is most likely to be tested. (okay, sorry for the rant)

There’s another issue you need to consider when deciding on a winch for your 700. That machine has been pre-wired at the factor for a Polaris Warn winch kit. I’ve installed several of these and I can say without reservation “sweet.” It’s simple and well designed and most importantly it all but eliminates the weakest link in most winch installations, wiring problems. For years I’ve wired my winches without the solenoid to KISS (keep it simple stupid) and vastly improve reliability. The factory pre-wiring combined with the Polaris winch kit has proven to be extremely reliable. I wouldn’t consider anything else.

 

Thanks guys, I ended up buying a 2.5ci polaris warn off of ebay for $329. Installation wasnt that bad (considering id never messed with a polaris). The night after i installed it, my girl and i went riding about midnight and burried it (not on purpose, the mud hole didnt look like a mudhole. oops!). i hooked to a tree and started pullin and the winch started bogging down like it was going to stop and the battery icon started flashin on the display. So i stopped pullin, revd the engine, and then it pulled me out very slowly but it still sounded bogged down and i was scared it wasnt going to get the job done. Do they always bog down like that? And a 2500lb winch should pull a 700 out of mud no matter how sticky, right????? Anyway, the $329 winch has already payed off. It saved me from a very long walk and from a possible very pissed off girlfriend!!

 

No, just because you have a 750# machine and a 2500# winch doesn’t mean it will pop you right out of every hole. First of all you have to consider the “suck factor” of the mud you’re in, which adds a significant amount of drag to the extraction equation. Second, there are right ways and wrong ways to winch. The biggest mistake I see most people make when they choose an anchor to winch to is it’s too low. This is especially common when using a tree for an anchor point. Sure, the strongest part of the tree is nearest the roots but (in a perfect situation) you want your winch to be mounted as low as possible on the machine and the anchor that you’re winching toward should be as high as possible. This pulls you up and out of the slop. Winching to a low anchor does just the opposite, it forces the front of the machine down into the stuff you’re trying to get out of.

Somewhat unfortunately the winch mount position on the newer Polari is already high. That’s great for keeping it up out of the slop and being able to reach it when you’re sunk in the mud but it’s not in the ideal place for the most effective winching geometry. With the winch mount position already high that means the anchor point your rope goes to needs to be even higher. We’ve been in situations where we’ll stand on the front rack of another quad to get the hook as high into a tree as we can reach.

99% of the time when we’re winching we’re sitting on or standing next to the machine running it in low at the same time we’re reeling in the winch rope. This does two things, it keeps your revs up so the charging system is trying to compensate for the current draw of the winch and the combination of the winch and wheel traction is far more effective than either one separately.

We also carry a ****** block to double the power of the winch, and we’ve used it.

 

I agree with Floodrunner about the ****** blocks. Get one. I own 4 machines total, 1 has a Warn 2500# polaris edition winch,my two company owned machines have Gorilla Winches (with synthetic rope),my 4 machine also has a Gorilla winch (all 2500#). And honestly I use ****** blocks with my two trail machines and have never had any problem with either. They both seem to work for me. They are all about 1.5 years old.

 

kj330, How would you compare the Warn 2.5 to the Gorilla 2500 lb. winches? I'm talking in terms of speed, smoothness of operation, reliability, power, etc. I'd like to hear some more about those Gorilla winches.