I have had two of them and the last one is junk it's a 2500 lb that came on my 06 outty.It has been sent in and still isn't fixed.

 

A problem thats related to all winches is the amp draw they take, most of the time the battery and charging capacisity isn't rated high enough to operate the dc motor of the winch. Every electricican understands ohms law as ur voltage goes down, ur amps increases, what that means running a winch on a low or discharged battery will harm the winch motor. If you would set up a simple volt meter to ur battery you would see a big drop in voltage as you operated ur winch, and if you would also hook an amp guage at the same time you will see the amp draw increase as the volts decrease. When you increase the amp draw to any dc motor you are harming and overloading the motor, the windings and insulation of the fields or the armature are only designed to handle so many amps.
Water getting into the winch is a different story, the most important thing is to find out if there is a water drain and a vent on the winch, or if its a sealed unit.
All you need to do is do a little maintance by removing the winch, taking it apart, grease both sides of the planetary gears and reseal the rubber gaskets on the head and gear ends of the motor, most of the time its only the motor mounting bolts are loose.
You can also purchace a waterproof cover, or make ur own from a Zip Lock Bag

 

Good point regarding battery. Warn recommends a minimum battery capacity of 12 amp hours for the new 2500 pound and 3000 pound winches.

If I recall correctly, the 500 Foreman and 650 Rincon have a 12 amp hour battery. The EFI 680 Rincon has an 18 amp hour battery.

Since voltage droop is predictable given a known load on a battery of known capacity and supplied wiring, I would imagine the windings would be designed to hold up as long as the battery is at least as large (capacity wise) as specified... but problems could result from not enough battery or undersized wire...

As I understand it, the 2.5 ci and ce are not totally sealed, but the 3.0 ci and ce are. The new rt and xt25, and the rt and xt30 are all said to be totally sealed, with a nice braking system.