This may be a dumb question, but... I had occasion to use my Warn 2.5 while it was under muddy water. I have since hosed it off well, and it seems fine...

How well sealed are they? I would assume that a steady diet of this kind of treatment would be bad for the winch, but will once hurt anything? Any need to take it apart to clean/relube?

 

well most winches from warn are water proof or can be submerged and still work on ya but i would try not to run it all the time in the water unless you have too hope this helps.

 

My brother works for Warn (building winches). They keep samples of every winch submerged in a tank. Every so often they will pull one out of the water tank and test it. He has yet to see one that did not work perfectly when coming out of the tank. After the test, they put the winch back in for additional "conditioning."

 

Thanks for the info! Sounds like everything is cool...

 

lucky you... getting free winches? wanna get me one...lol

 

I have an 04 outlander that came with a warn 2500 winch. Last summer, after only 100 miles on it, the winch motor burned out. I had the thing buried many times in some real marshy, muddy stuff.

The dealer took it apart and would not warranty the winch. So I carried the winch to the local warn dealer and they did warranty it, but charged me an hour (around $80) to clean and regrease the thing. They (the warn dealer) told me the 2500 was not waterproof and I must have had some very conductive water/mud get into it. He told me that only the 3000 and larger winches were a sealed motor.

 

That might explain why the Warn 3.0ci/ce series have a lifetime warranty on them vs the 1 year on the 2.5 series.

 

after submerging your winch it is a good idea to run the motor to warm it up and dry it out. My warn 9000 manual recommended that...I didn't read my 2500ci manual.

 

Interesting...

Well, I guess I'll try to avoid taking my 2.5 swimming, and next time I'll opt for the 3.0...

Thanks.

 

but yes it should still work when submerged