this is a lengthly post but VERY informative. i'll post my recent experience and findings. about a month ago a guy at work was upgrading his prarie 650 to a warn 3.0ci winch. the one that was already on it from the dealer when new was a 2.5ci warn winch. this guy has plenty of money and didnt use his 2.5 much at all, just got muddy once and somehow frayed the cable on the first ten feet. the atv was an 04 model, so quite new. i was offered the old winch for a great price and was told the problems; needs new cable, and wont power out for some reason. i figured a cable was cheap and warn shouldnt have a big problem with it at all. sold! i get it home, clean it up, and wire it up to the hilt correctly. so i use the old cable for the testing process, turn it on and winch up the front of the atv about 3 feet to the ceiling. i then push the power out button and "click", it kills the fourwheeler instantly, and will not power out at all. well, i figure that the warn brand contactor box is bad. i didnt realize at the time that it tried to work by "clicking". i observed that the little black box had six screws on it so i decided to see if i could service it or see the problem with it internally. upon cracking the box, it ruined it. THEY ARE NOT AT ALL SERVICEABLE! i was dumbfounded to find that the guts looked great, no visable problems. now, i call my dealer and ask whats going on??? he says that warn have had so many problems with their popular "contator boxes" that they have now for sale an "upgraded" one. i ask if he can get this warrantied some how or way. he replies that warn doesnt help ANYONE out, customer or dealer of any size. so, i fork over $83.00 for this new box. well i install the new and improved conatctor box two days ago and decide to test it again. i must first power out about 8 feet of cable so i can hook it to the ceiling and test it out. in the first two feet moving, i see that the ACTUAL WINCH CABLE IS ARKING TO BOTH LITTLE CHROME SUPPORRT RODS ON THE WINCH BODY!! while moving! i was furrious at this point! i make sure that both main leads to the winch are not touching or arking, then proceed to go internally. i found out that one of this winch manufactures $6 per hour employees has rotated one of the square headed main lead posts internally 45 degrees from the square insulator!!!! THUS CREATIN CURRENT THAT WENT THROUGH THE MOTOR AND WINCH BODY, ARKING WHEN THE ROTATING CABLE(ONE CURRENT) TOUCHED THE STATIONARY WINCH BODY(OTHER CURRENT). it all makes sense now! THIS COMPANIES HORRIBLE QUALITY CONTROL WAS JUST EXPOSED. now for the two other good parts. first, this good deal of a quality warn winch after buying a $25 cable, and a $83 contactor box was like paying retail for this used winch! now for the good part#2.... i decided to get a different brand winch and boycott WARN's junk forever, i looked on the internet at a RAMSEY winch up close and see that THEY ARE THE EXACT SAME WINCH! different color!!!! EVEN BETTER, i found the exact winch (color, shape, specs) without the wearn sticker for $200 less online!!! there is a crappy company making all of the atv midsize winches out there. you might as well go buy one of the $80 2500lb winches and roll the dice. you will probably get the exact SAME performance as the $300 ones!

sorry for the long post but,,,,,,,,,,, man,,,, WARN BURNED ME GOOD.

 

Aside from cables breaking left and right with the plow, my warn has worked great for me for well over a year. My riding buddies have them too, no problems.

 

 

you know you can buy military grade winch cables. .i saw an ad in DW about them being like twice as strong as the original winch cables.

 

You purchased a used winch and had some problems with it. How do you know that a Warn employee made a mistake when it was assembled? Wouldn’t it be as easy to assume it was the person who installed the winch, or your friend made the change on the lug? Is it Warns fault that you did not test the winch properly before you ruined a good contactor relay that is not serviceable? For that matter, why did you not performance test the relay before destroying it? Could it be that you do not know how?

It sounds like the only problems the winch had was a rotated post and a bad drum cable. This is the chance you took purchasing a used winch that you knew had an electrical problem. It was your decision and now it is not your fault? Does this make sense? Warn makes how many winches in a year? How many recall do they have?

Even after all the money and time you spent to correct the problem you removed the winch and purchased another. Now that is what I call common sense. Let’s spend more cash to spite a bad purchase decision. I hope that you had the now one professionally installed and tested. This way the new product won’t be a POS too.

Warn is well known industry wide for the quality of their products. They have some of the finest on the market, but, they come at a price. There is a reason that they are world renowned, it is because they are an industry leader.

I myself own a $200 Superwinch. I didn’t want to pay the money for a Warn. I also do not have the quality of a Warn either.

 

id like to update the post as for the previous member's thoughts. the 2.5ci winch that is the topic here was owned previously by a person who probably does not own a wrench, maybe a screwdriver. he has plenty of money and pays the kawasaki dealer to install, fix everything for him. i dont know abou the people you associate with, but the is CLEARLY A WARN DEFECT! i also thought that maybe a the installer over tightened the lead post to roate it in the insulator, but that is not possible. #2, the contactor box was bad, when i powered out, it clicked and killed the atv instantly. it was bad before i removed it. it's a simple twin solenoid setup, which is a giant powered switch, or relay. this isnt my first rodeo. #3, the problem with your 2nd set is that warn doesnt recall anything! they only had a recall for the other solenoids because peoples atv's were catching on fire when they were parked and not in use. thats kinda hard to cover up. #3, the warn 2.5ci winches are so "world renowned", that a ramsey 2500 is the IDENTICAL winch! how does anyone explain the exact winches online (color, shape, size, specs) for 1/3 of the cost. found one last night for $99. untill you have spent the money, you wont see my point; BECAUSE OF THE POOR MANUFACTURING PROCESS OF WARN, THE SIMPLE SHORTING OUT HAS A CHAIN REACTION, BURNT/ FRAYED MY CABLE AND FRIED MY CONTACTOR BOX. IT IS THAT SIMPLE.

 

my warn winch on my big bear worked great for a year or so then it just stoped working. it works every now and then like it has a short. ive taken it apart and everything and it still dosent work. sometimes i use it and before i can put the cable back in it shorts out so i have to wrap it up around my bumper.

 

see folks, WARN IS NOT THE HIGHEST QUALITY WINCH AROUND. keep posting , i appreciate the info! -bean

 

Compared to what? Superwinch? Ramsey is the only other atv winch manufacturer that is worth a darn and Ramsey and Warn both have very good reliability reputations.

 

my friend put a brand new warn 2.5 on his polaris 700 friday. we went out saturday to play in the water and mud and he got stuck, so he tried to winch out and it didn't do anything it moved his quad maybe 1foot and it couldn't pull it out. i don't know but if you spend over 300.00 on a winch it should pull you out of a mud hold.