My buddy and I were out yesterday and I hooked onto his '07 Yamaha factory-installed Warn 2500 lbs winch to get out of a hole (a deep, deep hole) and when he first started pulling his winch was very weak and then it went into freewheel mode. We were messing around with the "wheel" on the right side that selects freewheel or engaged mode but couldn't get it to engage. The motor was running fine, we just couldn't get it to engage.

Anyone seen this? Any ideas before he has to bring it to the dealer? I couldn't find any old posts addressing this issue.

Thanks.