I have a chance to buy a used winch, used for 1 year only and looks good.
I'm wondering if winches are generally better to buy new as they are critical components, or if Warn winches are reliable enough to trust being the 2nd owner. Also wondering if the lifetime guarantee transfers to any owner or do you have to be the original buyer

 

Ive seen 20 year old Warns that still perform flawlessly (with proper maintenance)

 

anything to look for when buying a used Warn winch, any potential issues?
I plan on dumping the metal line anyway so that won't be a problem, how about with the solenoid, how could I test a winch before committing? If I get a pic I will post it here first to get some more opinions.

 

You could hook up a portable jump start battery to the winch for testing:



Solenoids can sometimes go bad, not hard to replace for the models that Warn still carries replacements for.