recommendation for a good quality 12k winch?

I've been meaning to buy a winch for years now. This past week, my dually stranded the guy borrowing it. We ended up pushing it on my gooseneck trailer with a tractor. So I'm finally gonna buy one. I plan on welding a receiver tube onto the trailer, then mounting the winch to a plate on a receiver hitch so I can use it on more than the trailer. I'm willing to pay for quality, but I don't want to pay for hype.

Does anyone have a winch they use a lot and have a glowing report?

Are you going to go with at least a 2.5"sq or 3"sq receiver?

Not a 12k but I would pay good money for a Warn M8274
before I would take any electric 12k for free.

I have a Warn mounted on a bracket like in the picture. Welded a receiver on the
trailer. It is real slick.

I run an M8000 warn on my tilt gooseneck. While I love them
for vehicle recovery, I don?t recommend the 8274 warn as it
can be more fussy to use the brake letting heavy rolling loads
down when working on your own.

The 8000 lb with a shorter than normal cable for less wraps on
the drum or a snatch block will drag anything onto the trailer
and have a better line speed than the cheap 12k.

harbor fright has the best for the best price have 2 12,000 and our fire dept has 2 on our grass trucks

Warn or Ramsey would be my preferred choice, but Superwinch is also good for the money.

Harbor junk does have the best price on a 12K winch, period. Now if you look past the hype, you might find that Harbor junk 12K
is good for about 3 inches. It seems every wrap of coil on the drum equates to a different pulling strength. You can research the
various strengths of power on the Warn Winch and take into account that it is also possible and advisable to incorporate a snatch
block on the cable and blocks in front of the tires to lock the pulling vehicle into place when winching, especially off road.
I have a Warn 12K that I have mounted on dual 2" receivers. It has about 125 feet of 3/8" cable and taking into account the
varying pulling power of the winch at various distances or wraps of wire, I utilize the snatch block to double the pulling
capacity. Cinder blacks in front of the tires keeps it from sliding and another set up of dual receivers on the back bumper gives
me the option of pulling from the back. I also ran a 2-0 cable inside a garden hose to the back of the truck to hook up for the
winch and jumper cables when needed.

I too have a old 8000 Warn, just power in.
Has a brake. Came from a 60's Ford Bronco.
It is faster with a snatch block and more
powerful than a new 12000. Made a frame
with handles to go in a 2" receive. Also
has a battery holder. Will work alone. I
have a receiver on my gooseneck. But I
never take it. I'm going to make a 12' pipe
so I can push my dead tractor on the
trailer.

I have Harbor Freight 12000 winch, Junk according to some. It has never failed to do whatever I wanted to winch. Mine hooks into my two inch receiver in the rear of the truck. I have the big cable plug in wired to the back of the truck. I also have a receiver on the deck of the trailer. Same plug in works when winch is on trailer. I've pulled logs up hill when gathering firewood. Pulled logs out of brush piles. Pulled tractor and baler out of wet spot in hay field after they got mired. Pulled cars and pick-ups and tractors up ramps onto trailer. So you buy what you want, but that Harbor Freight junk will perform as well as whatever you buy in the 12000 lb range. Of course this is just my opinion and experience. I will replace it with the same if it ever fails. gobble

I have a Harbor Freight 12,000 winch on my hydraulic tilt bed trailer and I've pulled some pretty good loads on with it,also have a snatch block to double line what I'm pulling if its heavy and also slows the pulling speed in half.I'm sure a Warn winch would be better quality but I can buy 4 or 5 HF winches for what 1 Warn costs.

What ever you do buy use good heavy power
cables.

If your just going to use it every now and then I think the HF Badlands winch is a good one for the money. Usually with coupons they are around $400. A good Warn 12,000 winch starts out at a grand and goes up from there.

I have a Warn winch on one trailer and it has been good for 20 years. I also have a HF 12K one on my tilt trailer. It has been there for 3 years now. I winched a dead JD 4640 on with a snatch block with no problems.

Either of these winches take POWER!!! Do not think a pair of jumper cable ends on long cables with work very well. I have a pair of deep cycle 1000 CCA semi batteries in a box two feet away form the winches. I then run a charge wire to the truck with a 30 AMP circuit breaker in it. That will easily keep the batteries toped off if you use the trailer much at all. The circuit breaker is so the truck does not blow a fuse when you use the winch. The charge wire will try and carry the amperage for the winch when in use. So you either melt the wiring or blow the power supply fuse in the truck. My truck has a 40 amp fuse in the charge wire circuit. So I go a little under that with the winch circuit breaker.

I have 2 of the older warn 8000 winches as one person earlier commented....both are great and use very little power as in I don't even hook a line up to the truck...one good full charged battery will pull several heavy machines onto the trailer..one has a manual band type brake and the other has a ratchetineg type of wheel that holds the load...this one is easier if by yourself...I have had one warn with the auto brake and it would use up a battery with one in and out use of it(no free wheel unspool feature so power out only)...the warns are a little faster so I always use a snatch block and I bought a cordless remote on ebay that makes it easy to run the winch and steer the machine when im alone..they are to heavy for me to lug around so both are permantly mounted ..one on each trailer and if you look they can be found very reasonable and will last a lifetime...the older one we have used for over 30 yrs with just solenoid replacements neccesary

Got one...agree 100%.

I cheaped out and went with a HF 12K it works as good as any other I have owned. I do like the remote control they offer for it and it comes with a cable tensioner a big plus... I need to cut at least one are two raps of cable off it it comes with to much cable...

The last one I had I made it portable the new one I did not. I never needed it before other than on the trailer it was mounted too...

we just bought a 17,500 lb smittybuilt winch haven't had time to put it on as of yet we hope it will do as good as the 8,000 ramsey its replacing