Re: Electric Winch Choices
I've had several Power Winch brand winches and all have been ok, but I do prefer to just use a manual winch since its often faster. If you open up a power winch however, there's not much there, the motor is held in place with a radiator hose clamp and it's not much more than a power window motor or small starter motor.
I've not had the opportunity to open up an Dutton-Lainson or other brand. A buddy went the Harbor Freight route and its ok so far, but I wouldn't expect much for $30. I suppose if the motor in that dies, a better one could be retrofitted.
I'm not too fond of the Power Winch cable set up, nor what they charge a for it.
The truck receptacle was over $30, plus the cord, another $20, and two plugs were $15 each. All in all it cost a little over $80 plus tax to mount the winch and wire the truck to power it. They wanted $80 for the install kit and it didn't include the truck end receptacle. The winch was about $179 and didn't come with the wiring kit.
One big down side to having a power winch of any type is that the tow vehicle must be wired to power it, meaning that if you don't use the same vehicle to tow your boat all time, you might have to wire several vehicles or carry a battery along and a spare power cable. I have three trucks which I use to tow my boats, depending on where I launch and which boat. I'd have to wire all three truck, and still if a buddy towed that day, I'd have to rig his truck too or carry a battery. I tried using one of those jump boxes, they don't cut it on the larger winches, only the smaller models. The bigger winches really draw some amperage.
