I know Harbor Freight sell some junk and some of it has lasted me a long time. Has anybody spent the $70 for this? For that much, it is tempting to get one for the rear , especially if you don't intend to use it much. It might be built by the same company in China that make the Polaris winch. Just put a different name on it.

http://ww2.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=95912

 

My Polaris winch is only used on occasion but it seems to work well.
It did mess up when I first got it and would just "click" when the button was pushed but I tightened all connections and its been good since......knock on wood.

 

Add another to the Junk chinese polaris winch club. 1st one lasted maybe 3 rides, then winch quit. Would make noise & showed 12 volts across terminals so not contactor. Still under warranty so dealer swapped out. 2nd has been doing fine for almost 3 years now. It has seen alot of use too, pulling out of mud, plowing.

 

I also had this same problem, I took the thing apart. I was smart enough to tape the power end of the unit so the springs and contacts would not fall out. What i found was a gear that was broken, and a spring that was twisted up. The gear has teeth on one side,and (2) metal blocks on the top. The block broke off, so when the gear above it compresses the spring and is suppose to engage the gear w/ block on it. I called the dealer, and was told that alot of the 2.5 winches are junk that where placed on the 07 500/800 2x deluxe models. I asked them if they would oredr me parts, and was told they only send them out for service, not supply parts. I e-mailed warn , and this was the replie " if the winch that has a polaris sticker on it, is all black, it was NOT made by warn"

 

<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: max49

I know Harbor Freight sell some junk and some of it has lasted me a long time. Has anybody spent the $70 for this? For that much, it is tempting to get one for the rear , especially if you don't intend to use it much. It might be built by the same company in China that make the Polaris winch. Just put a different name on it.



http://ww2.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/Displayitem.taf?itemnumber=95912</end quote></div>

I have one of these. The remote part is crap, but the winch seems OK. The remote circuit board seems to be very voltage sensitive. I ran mine for about 10 minutes and one of the capacitors in the remote board exploded. I just wired a toggle switch to the relay box and it works fine. It pulled my dead car up my driveway with no problems.

 

You can also add me to the Junk polaris winch club as well. For starters Warn winches are made in the good ol United States and no where else, so when I asked the dealer if the winch I was getting they gave me that same bull on its made by warn for polaris, so I bought it and took it home, opened it up and started to instal it and noticed a small sticker that said made in china, I was not very happy, and after reading about them on other fourms I figured I am going to end up buying another winch, either a warn or a mile marker at some point I would just run this winch until it takes a crap. Any way I will only be using it for snow plowing and light work around the farm. My problems all started when we got a good pounding of snow in the last week, and I was using it around my neighborhood plowing out all of my lawn care customers and a few others that did not feel like shovling(can't say that I blame them) I was just finishing up my last drive way, and the steel cable came out of the factory instaled crimp and it shot up into the spool, but not before I spooled it in, and it got all tangled up in a big not, that was a fun task to get it cleaned up. I recently got a amsteel blue line and hope that it will fix the winch problem for now. I am not plesed with the line of bull from the parts department when they tried to tell me it was made by warn. I was pleased with my sales man, and I under stand that he dose not know everything about every winch, but the parts guys do that stuff every day, and install them every day, I saw that dam sticker, I find it hard to believe they did not see it either. I love my new ATV, but the winch is another subject.