Smittybilt Winches on backorder

[Mishra42]

So I ordered a Gen3 12k Smittybilt winch over the 4th and apparently it hasn't shipped because there's a national backorder. Should I wait it out, any other winch options to explore? I'm mounting to a Rough Country high winch mount.

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[0ne]

Well, Badland from Harbor Freight of course!

 

[4x4TruckLEDs.com]

We sell WARN if you are interested. Just message me the Smitty you were ordering so I can look at comparable WARNS

 

[Mishra42]

Well, Badland from Harbor Freight of course!

how reliable are they? Harbor Freight stuff seems like it's always good enough to use once, but not great for the long term

 

[4x4TruckLEDs.com]

how reliable are they? Harbor Freight stuff seems like it's always good enough to use once, but not great for the long term

I would buy a Harbor Freight to have in an enclosed trailer or in my garage. I would not trust it mounted on my truck externally though. Harbor freight is cheap for a reason. I'd rather do a well known/reliable winch brand that designs winches for vehicles like WARN or Smitty

 

[HighVelocity]

My Superwinch 10k has been good so far.

 

[cynicalrider]

Superwinch and Engo are definitely good alternative brands.

 

[0ne]

how reliable are they? Harbor Freight stuff seems like it's always good enough to use once, but not great for the long term

I only mentioned it in jest because it would match your Bronco model and I’ve seen a few mentions of it on here. See other comments but do some research on Harbor Freight and/vs Smittybilt because my quick search brought some results suggesting both are made by the same manufacturer.

 

[Snacktime]

Smittybuilt was the cheap china winch 10 years ago and directly competitor with Harbor Freight. Just seems that people still can't get past the Harbor Freight logo? I would buy Harbor Freight over Smittybilt just because of the warranty and how easy it is to swap stuff at Harbor Freight. In fact I have an older 12,000 Badlands early model winch that I trust for my needs. If I was doing recoveries professionally I would go high end warn for parts and service.

I would watch this video and look at how the winches twist when they fail. I would look for a model with a better frame. Also watch how many amps they pull.

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