Winch Motor lifetime

How long should an electric Winch motor last?

That is a question that has been on my mind during the last week. I bought my branded winch in spring 2007. It was used a few times that year, once or twice a day about once a month at the most. The winch failed at my club's Summer Bank Holiday weekend in 2008 at just over a year old. I replaced the motor with an up-rated version. That worked fine for about 14 months and has failed.

Other members of my Club have had similar premature motor failures even with top branded winches.

How long should an electric Winch motor last? Is my expectations that they should last much longer than a year unreasonable?
Should I expect winch motors to be a consumable replaceable items like wheel bearing and filters ?

Martin Spamer said:

How long should an electric Winch motor last?

That is a question that has been on my mind during the last week. I bought my branded winch in spring 2007. It was used a few times that year, once or twice a day about once a month at the most. The winch failed at my club's Summer Bank Holiday weekend in 2008 at just over a year old. I replaced the motor with an up-rated version. That worked fine for about 14 months and has failed.

Other members of my Club have had similar premature motor failures even with top branded winches.

How long should an electric Winch motor last? Is my expectations that they should last much longer than a year unreasonable?
Should I expect winch motors to be a consumable replaceable items like wheel bearing and filters ?

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I used to get through a winch motor roughly every 3 years on my truck. That was using it around 5-10 times a day 7 days a week and for between a minute and 8 hours at a time.

It all depends on how you look after your winch and what you do to aid it. Are you winching for long periods? Are you submerging ir? Do you use snatch blocks to minimise the strain on the motor?

ratty said:

It all depends on how you look after your winch and what you do to aid it. Are you winching for long periods? Are you submerging ir? Do you use snatch blocks to minimise the strain on the motor?

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Very light use by comparison to yours. I use the Discovery it was installed on once or twice a month at club off road events, normally pay & play at KORC, Frickley, Parkwood etc. Nothing like a winch challenge. The winch getting used perhaps every other event, to recovery myself and maybe one other. Say an average of once or twice a month for either self recovery or another club vehicle. The vehicle was mud running, wadding etc. However when the winch was stripped, cleaned and resealed with silicon when the first motor was replace and once in the intervening six months, there was no significant signs of water or dirt ingress. I always tried to use it sympathetically, often using a snatch block, with engine running and driver assistance being the norm. The first motor did show signs it had failed from overheating of the plastic insulation for isolating the brushes. It's not just mine but I would say most winches in the club have seen similar short lifetimes regardless of use, abuse or brand.

Martin Spamer said:

Very light use by comparison to yours. I use the Discovery it was installed on once or twice a month at club off road events, normally pay & play at KORC, Frickley, Parkwood etc. Nothing like a winch challenge. The winch getting used perhaps every other event, to recovery myself and maybe one other. Say an average of once or twice a month for either self recovery or another club vehicle. The vehicle was mud running, wadding etc. However when the winch was stripped, cleaned and resealed with silicon when the first motor was replace and once in the intervening six months, there was no significant signs of water or dirt ingress. I always tried to use it sympathetically, often using a snatch block, with engine running and driver assistance being the norm. The first motor did show signs it had failed from overheating of the plastic insulation for isolating the brushes. It's not just mine but I would say most winches in the club have seen similar short lifetimes regardless of use, abuse or brand.

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Some of our trucks have got 12v superwinch huskys. If they are used regularly they seem to go on forever. If they see only occasional use they seem to play up more often.

I used to use 24v huskys. I found them to be far superior to anything else with an electric motor. The 12v versions never seemed to have the same grunt as the 24v ones.

We've never had a problem with come-up winches or superwinch x9's that we have fitted to a couple of our vehicles.

Both myself and my boss bought cheap Chinese winches off ebay for our landys. They both played up when trying to winch out under loead. His freed up after a few uses. Mine hasn't.

It seems strange that no matter what winch you and your mates are fitting, they are all burning out.

seems like a user operator failure rather than winch failure.

my warn xd9000i apart from a solenoid problem which i replaced with an albrite,has been faultless..a snatch block is essential if you recovering a vehicle that is well n truely stuck its not a good idea to use a straight line pull as the strain on the motor is imense,a snatch block will half the load.

goodwinch do a dvd which will give ya quite a few pointers on safe winching.

might tend to agree with landyman, it seems strange yers all gettin burned out winches in 12 months, try different aproach to pulling / recovering using the least force unless really needeed,

Would the periods of no use be to blame then?