Why are these winches so cheap? Am I missing something?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...tem=4562630946

 

Probably Chinese.

 

I personally wouldn't buy a winch called the Winch 9500, same as I wouldn't buy a car called the Car 9500. Also - shipping is near $80, so they make up some of the cost there. Looks potentially junky to me...

 

So how bad is that for someone who will probably only use it 5-10 times a year?

 

These suckers usually weigh 50-100 pounds and I have seen shipping from 50-100 bucks universally. I wish there was some site that reviewed winches or something.

 

Sometimes if you go to Google Search and just enter the name ( Winch 9500) you will get all kinds of hits including rating's from people who have them or have tried them. Mike

 

what is wrong wtih chinese?

 

Yep. For most of us, picking one of those with the better specs is just fine. They do what they are supposed to and all that. The REPs from Ramsey and the Electric winches from Milemarker (the ones that are such bargains) are the same winches they sell at Harbor freight, from China. Only problem with em is if you do ever need a part you probably can't get it. Beware the ones with 1.8 horspower for example.

I have one of those like in your link. I paid $365 shipped for it. For that price I will take my chances. It isn't a "winch 9500" nor is there such a thing. These winches are generic and can be found with a lot of different company names on the box - never any name on the winch.

Just remember that if you look around you can buy a Warn M8000 for about $500.

 

I like Chinese food.

 

Nothing as long as you realize how chinese products are made and consider what you are buying. Ihave some knowlege of having products made in China, and fighting with them over patent and copywright infringements.

They will rarely engineer anything - you bring them a product and they will copy it, quickly and cheaply. If you want a high quality product and carefully supervise the manufacturing, you can get a very high quality product and cheap too. If you want low price and only low price (or don't pay close attention when they spec their production) - you will most of the time get a beautiful looking product made with inferior materials, often with good tolerances etc too, just poor materials. (Pot metal instead of cast iron for example - hard to see under the paint which is probably excellently applied) It might not hold up for many uses.

So the "problem" with buying Chinese is not knowing if you're getting a good product or a POS until after you own it. They never EVER have a manufacturer name on them, and the importers stick their labels on the boxes, so that doesn't identify them either. Warranty parts are essentially non-existent, etc even if there is someone to contact for warranty who will respond.

 

and to top all that, as if it weren't enough, their human rights violations are enough for me to avoid Chinese products at all costs. Tienamen Square, the murder of newborn infants on a daily basis , the lack of any kind of judicial system, the use of what is essentially slave labor to produce these wonderfully inexpensive products , the invasion and occupation...oh, excuse me "liberation of the people" in Tibet and inprisonment of any sort of intellectual there, and lately the threat of the use of nuclear weapons against the U.S. if we consider interfereing with their invasion and occupation...ooops, there I go again, "liberation of the people" of Taiwan...

I could go on and on. I'm NOT a bleeding heart type, I just refuse to have anything to do with that sort of culture, however old it may claim to be, or it's current products. Their hypocrisy, if nothing else, is enough to nauseate me...

 

This is a thread about one winch...Just does not look like it's very well built to me and in alot of cases that means Chinese nowadays. Craftsman or snap on when it comes to tools...Warn or another make I know is good when it comes to wenches.

 

Wow, That sounds just like buying some of American products today, Ford, Chev, Chrysl, Etc... Mike

 

That box looks like the same boxes that Cummins "Industrial" tools uses...They give you a one year replacement warranty that actually works (just takes a while) and they're stuff is actually pretty decent, just put together wrong. For example I have one of their air ratchets and the gear set that turns the head was just set together so the gears didn't fit completely into one another, I took it apart pressed the gears all the way in and put it back together no no probs at all with it. Htat thought kinda scares me with regard to something big like a winch though...

 

We have the same winches in Europe too. Here the sticker says KEW (Kawasaki Electric Works) and they are also about half the price of a Warn.
A friend bought one a year or 2 ago. Hasn't failed him so far.
I have to admit that the remote looks really cheap. Which it probably is.

 

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=40764

 

A good winch is worth its weight in gold in the middle of no where.Spend the money and get a good one,Ramsey,warn, or mile marker.Cheap insurance.I wont put a cheap one on my atv much less my truck.

 

They said all this once about Made In JAPAN!!!

 

yeah, but it's common knowledge that a lot of chinese stuff is JUNK. japanese quality has been very good for the last 40 years at least...

 

my policy in life is "cry once, or cry everytime" you can either cry once and pay the bigger bucks, or go cheap and cry everytime you use it. just my $0.02