Winches...

[JeepLab]

key with winches is minimum weight with enough pulling power to get your rig out of whatever you get it into. A pound heavier, and you are doing yourself a disservice.

[KaiserBill]

key with winches is minimum weight with enough pulling power to get your rig out of whatever you get it into. A pound heavier, and you are doing yourself a disservice.

I disagree with minimum weight. I find that the real factor is calculating your weight of the vehicle fully loaded with the winch on the front and then get a winch that will fit the 1.5 to 3.0 times this weight factor for a single line pull. Because once you have that set up using a snatch block (or blocks) will only give greater potential for winching power under adverse conditions.

One of the last things you want is a winch made of light weight materials that fails while your truck is being recovered. Light weight components often fail you when you need them most. So, if you are 10-20lbs heavier than the lightweight option-- I would take the heavy model with beefier components and forget the 10-20lbs extra in weight. But that is just me.

You also have to remember I'm using 5/8 inch diameter wire rope with a length of 300+ feet. Most other winches for trucks or SUV's that weigh in less than 300lbs have only 90-120feet of wire or synthetic rope on them. Which makes doing a triple or five line pull almost impossible. I like to know that if I want to do a 4 block five line pull I can if I want to.