Chinese Winches

[SkiFreak]

From what I have seen with the majority of Chinese winches, the grease they use is not what I would call "high grade".
Personally I believe that the first thing you should do if you buy any of these Chinese winches is to strip them down, clean everything up, check everything out (Chinese QA is a bit questionable) then reassemble with a good quality high pressure grease.

The Runva winches are probably one of the better Chinese winches, in fact, that is what I use on my truck. However, they are cheaper for a reason.

As an example... on my 17,500lbs front winch all of the bolts that secure the motor and gearbox simply screw into the cast iron. Cast iron is not a brilliant structural material, so it is very easy to strip these threads out if they are over tightened or get put under high loads. I have Loctited helicoils into all of my threads, which makes the whole setup significantly more robust.
I also run the winch rope out on a semi regular basis and check overall functionality, as I consider this part of my normal maintenance routine.

I do not know if any of this is relevant or not to the failure that MAB had with his winch, but I thought I would start a thread where we can discuss this, opposed to hijacking the "FG's For Sale" thread.
After all, a winch is a piece of recovery gear that needs to be reliable, so making it as fault tolerant as possible seems like a no brainer to me.

 

[pugslyyy]

wrt to Chinese products - I've recently been reworking a Chinese-source CNC mill and if it's on the surface it may look good, but anything inside can and will be crap.

Absent a good QA from the purchaser (i.e. a US company and their reputation), if it looks good when put together that's all that is cared about.

I agree that you need to be willing to pull it apart, clean it, lube it, address deficiencies, and bolt it back together - to get a reliable product.

Absent QA, the Chinese market is absolutely cost based (as is a lot of the world - there's a reason that people in third world countries prefer second-hand US products to domestic new).

This is not to say don't order stuff from China (I do this on a regular basis, sometimes products can be 10% of the US cost), you just need to understand what you are getting into!

 

[SkiFreak]

...you just need to understand what you are getting into!

I could not agree more.

I too buy quite a bit of stuff directly from China for my truck. In fact, I just recently received a set of custom made actuators for lifting my camper roof that are nothing short of a dead set clone of the Linak LA36 actuator, minus the price tag. The Chinese companies I have dealt with have been very accommodating, making customisations to their products at little to no cost, which is something you do not normally get from mainstream manufacturers.
In my experience, the actual quality of the gear is generally not too bad, but as mentioned, their QA regularly sucks. I definitely factor this into my buying decisions, as I do the price. It's a bit of a balancing game.

When it comes to recovery gear... you need this stuff to work when it is needed and not to fail.
If using Chinese recovery gear I strongly recommend a full inspection prior to installation and regular testing. Mind you, I think this logic should be applied to all recovery gear, irrespective of where it is manufactured.

 

[pugslyyy]

I could not agree more.

I too buy quite a bit of stuff directly from China for my truck. In fact, I just recently received a set of custom made actuators for lifting my camper roof that are nothing short of a dead set clone of the Linak LA36 actuator, minus the price tag. The Chinese companies I have dealt with have been very accommodating, making customisations to their products at little to no cost, which is something you do not normally get from mainstream manufacturers.
In my experience, the actual quality of the gear is generally not too bad, but as mentioned, their QA regularly sucks. I definitely factor this into my buying decisions, as I do the price. It's a bit of a balancing game.

When it comes to recovery gear... you need this stuff to work when it is needed and not to fail.
If using Chinese recovery gear I strongly recommend a full inspection prior to installation and regular testing. Mind you, I think this logic should be applied to all recovery gear, irrespective of where it is manufactured.

I agree. In my experience there isn't a winch out there that won't benefit from opening it up, cleaning it, and repacking with a quality (and waterproof) grease. It's amazing what you see when you open these suckers up sometimes.

That said, I use a couple of cheap winches for loading bikes and stowing my spare wheel - but for the real deal truck stuff I use time proven gear (Warn, Viking, etc). It's not until you a flogging your recovery gear in less than ideal conditions that you really appreciate the investment.

 

[UpperCrust]

I just got 2 16.5k ComeUp winches for my truck. ComeUp in made in Taiwan (so kinda China). Im pretty excited to get them mounted.

 

[pugslyyy]

I just got 2 16.5k ComeUp winches for my truck. ComeUp in made in Taiwan (so kinda China). Im pretty excited to get them mounted.

Excellent. As others have said, I recommend pulling it apart, cleaning it, packing it with grease, and reassembling. It won't take a lot of time, and you'll feel a lot better knowing that it's been done right!

 

[Alastair D(Aus)]

Agree with statements re stripping down winches and repacking with a quality grease. Would add that using RTV silicone to waterproof joins/flanges is worth considering too.

My habit is to strip any new winch, look for flaws and then repack and reassemble if ok. Over the years I have returned 2 new winches due to finding poor quality parts/finish inside. One was a supposedly better quality chinese one and the other was a Warn. The internal finish in the Warn was terrible, a casting flaw in one of the gears and lots of bits of swarf left mixed in with the grease. I took it back in pieces and had to argue that I had not voided the warranty by pulling it apart. They initially claimed that they should only be worked on by a 'qualified winch specialist' - please!!

Currently I have a Warn 15,000 on the front of my Isuzu NPS and a Runva 10,000 on the back. I hope I never have to use them but as I am getting older I want to show Mr Murphy that I am prepared.

After the initial strip down and repack, I always repack after travelling through water or heavy wet/muddy conditions. All my previous 4wds have had winches and this strategy has worked ok over 40 years. The only failure I had was on a very early Warn hi-mount winch which had seen a lot of use in the mountains pulling self and others out of rivers and boggy valleys. Have grown up now !

I have generally been disappointed at the poor design efforts to make the winches waterproof even the expensive Warn ones. Perhaps the latest ones are better.

 

[pugslyyy]

I have generally been disappointed at the poor design efforts to make the winches waterproof even the expensive Warn ones. Perhaps the latest ones are better.

The new sealed solenoid packs are a step up from the old solenoids, but that's about it from what I've seen.

 

[Alastair D(Aus)]

Agree. I actually replaced the old intermittent switch box on my old Toyota with a new super duper solid state one. It lasted two presses of the switch and left me with 20m of steel cable on the ground. Put back the old one after cleaning up the contacts and it is still there. I am sure the new ones are better.