WARN 86245 VR8000 8,000 lb Winch

The winch has failed, it now has very minimal pulling power (not enough to even skid my rear tires on gravel) and stalls out after a brief period. This is despite an ammeter reading which indicates it is pulling over 400 amps. It failed after only the 6th use, all brief low stress pulls in snow, while using a snatch block and nearly all the rope off the drum. Vehicle weight was under 5,000 pounds during each recovery.Left me stranded, had to self recover using a hilift jack which took many hours.

Only 4 stars because it's not USA made and some of the features aren't as "robust" as it's American made counterpart. Examples being the power connectors and the plastic control unto housing. Other than that, it had been functioning fine and hasn't given me any operational issues.

Installed the winch and used it a few days later....worked flawlessly! I did get a kink in the wire ripe, but that was likely my fault as i could not pull straight ahead out of the hole that i was in! Very happy that i spent the extra money for it!

Thought it was made i the USA but made in china not happy, if I would have known this I would have bought the Smittybuilt.

I'm pretty happy that it works at all, considering what a pain it is to install. It would be really cool if Warn could figure out a way to not have to run a 2nd ground wire to the UNDERSIDE of the winch motor, the battery ground is already hooked up, but then you have to hook up a ground lead from the control pack to the same spot. I think it would be better also if the control pack mounted over the spool instead of off to the side where it is a pain to bolt the bracket onto the winch body. And for anyone that has never installed a winch on a 2007-2014 Jeep Wrangler, good luck with the battery terminals. I bought aftermarket battery terminal lugs designed to handle accessories, they all have bolts or studs that are 5/16" to 3/8".... well, the 3/8" studs will NOT fit anything you need to hook up, so pass them by. And the stock positive batt cable has a 1/4" hole in it, SMALLER than the negative terminals 5/16" hole ....WTF?!? SO I bought some universal marine-style terminals from O'Reillys with 5/16" studs on them and drilled out the stock positive cable to fit. The Warn cables have 5/16" holes in them. The MIL-SPEC terminals from NAPA that were recommended by some lunatic on a Jeep forum have 3/8" bolts only for your accessory hook-ups, which will fit NOTHING on your Jeep, and MOST paired sets of pos/neg marine-style terminals will have a 5/16" stud on the neg, but a 3/8" on the pos. Hope I saved someone a few hours of searching & frustration.

Install was good and works well so far but I cracked the plastic cover for the electric control box some how during the install process. Metal would have been better but would add to the price. Worked well after install so far. Only one full length test pull so will have to see over time

Great value wench. Mounted perfectly to the front of my F-150. Haven't really had to use it yet except for just testing it out to make sure it works, but everything looks and sounds good so far.

I received my warn winch sooner than expected. Great job. Winch is working great. I'm thinking about getting a wireless controller for winch.

As to be accepted with a warn winch, built strong and durable. You pay for what you get.

Awesome, would have 5 stars if the instructions were more helpful! Top box hits on Smittybilt 76801 XRC light mount, I will make an adapter to move it back I guess :-(