Winch Covers

[trailjeep]

Who actually uses a winch cover? I have the Smittybilt winch and cover. The cover faded and tore after 8 months. Should I get a better cover or just leave it off?

 

[HiHood]

That depends on where you live. Where I am, there's so much DIRT you really have to keep things enclosed. I went to use a Hi Lift jack once and ended up cussin at it instead because it was so full of dirt that it didn't work anymore. Had I've had a decent cover, it would have worked out a little better for me instead of crawling around in the hot desert dirt with a bottle jack. A winch is a little more expensive and complex than a Hi Lift jack, don't think I'ld want to buy a nice one just to lube it with dirt.

 

[jps4jeep]

I didn't use one for about 6 years, then my winch failed big time. It's a warn 9.5ti, water had gotten past the seal for the planetary gears and rusted the internals together, seizing the engagement cam, froze the winch in the engaged position, causing me to have to line in and line out, burning the motor out very quickly. Warn wouldn't warranty the winch. so now I have a Superwinch epi 9.0 and I use a old spare tire cover to cover it with some bungi cords, it's what I had and it works perfectly fine.

regarless of where you live, I say take the extra caution and cover it.

 

[Turbogus]

Great idea Johnny, thinking I'm going to go with a neoprene one on my Superwinch though

 

[trailjeep]

I am ordering the Milemarker soft vinyl winch cover today. Thanks guys.