We're guessing that Warn has more 10s than 8s.
Wouldn't the roller fairlead also need to be swapped out if switching to synthetic? Still, even all-in with new fairlead and synthetic line, at that purchase price the buyer should be well ahead of normally available pricing for a similar EVO-S model.
Imagine paying over $1000 for a winch and not realizing you are buying a 50% profit margin product that isn't much higher quality than the $270 winch.
I can't imagine that either, but you think the Chinese built Warn is gonna be a good quality winch? I mean when you have to use the winch, it needs to work and work well and be reliable. Plus I guess most Americans just don't get dealing with China isn't a good thing. Now, if you are just putting it on a mall crawler, well I guess parking the China thing aside, you'd be just fine with any brand winch. For the record, I do believe Warn's American made winches are priced too high, especially if you opt for synthetic rope. Which is why I had to go elsewhere. You might be right about the profit margin on those Warns.
If Warn has a presence at the factory I think they can absolutely maintain a reasonable level of quality. This isn't some brand new winch that's untested. It's likely not professional quality but I can't find anything that says it isn't solid for occasional use. If I was a guide or constantly ran trails it would make a ton of sense to go Zeon.
Even with my last post, I still agree with you to not buy from China when you can. I'm not a mall crawler but I do have 2 very young kids that keep me from getting out as much as I want. With that said, $270 is hard to argue against from Warn, insane good deal.
Agreed, I like to buy American first and then our good allies that seem to make quality stuff and then anyone but China if I can avoid Chinese stuff, but lots of times, you can't avoid everything from China, hence my manual transmission in the Bronco sadly, but when I can I do. I tried to go with Warn first, the Zeon 10 was like $1200, maybe a little less, but that was for steel. I kind of wanted to go with steel, but the issue of weight and safety concerns pulled me eventually to synthetic, but apparently Warn synthetic is made of gold, because the upcharge was $350 alone, literally they were charging more for the upgrade than they are selling the above winch for, how the hell is that. To go from $1200 (steel) to $1550 (rope) was a bridge too far. Trying to avoid China, I had to stay in the Far East. And after a bunch of research, any I could find, which was positive, however, little, I landed with our allies that probably beat on their vehicles as bad as we do, the Austrialians
. I got a Sherpa 4X4 Mustang. I ended up paying about $1287 or so. Having said that, I should have avoided the wireless remote and could have saved a bunch of $$, would have been around $1150. Still huge money, but it did come free shipping from Austraila and was also no tax because of some duty free monbo jumbo free trade stuff. So effectively it was cheaper. I say pass on the remote because the wired set up is 11' long and to me that almost like being wireless. I could have saved more since I bought the Sherpa isolator and fuse as well. But being a better mechanic than an engineer, I figured buying all of their products would make the install easier and be matched exactly to their product. Anyway the Mustang comes with either synthetic or steel. But Sherpa charges the same amount. I figured I'd get a cover to keep the rope out of the sun and dry since that was a steel advantage, better durability. But sadly I bought a cover from China, only because Sherpa wanted $89 for their cover. That was and has been my only complaint so far. Charging that much for a $12 cover, super lame. I've only used it twice now in the field, so far, so good. I do intend to keep it a long time, so hopefully it will be a good purchase. And for the record, I wasn't trying to be insulting saying what I said about a mall crawler and not calling you one. Just saying people that are can get whatever off road gear they want, because they are unlikely to use it. I'll be trail boss in another week again, so there may be another opportunity to see how it works out.
When I installed I did not want steel or synthetic line, I wanted synthetic rope. Synthetic rope allows for use of a "boat tie down" style fairlead. So essentially, when I was shopping I was looking for the cheapest option knowing I was not going to use the included fairlead or cable.
Yes, I've got 30 or more winch pulls on that VR10 over the past year and it has been a pretty good winch. One plus is the winch body is a little smaller than the Zeons, so they give you a little more room around them in the bumper compared to a Zeon.
). But that $269.99 VR EVO10 is one hell of a deal.
