Winches are unique in many ways. When considering getting a winch for your dozer there are 2 main things to be VERY cautious about! 

- Does the winch FIT?

This is critical because each winch is specifically built to fit a matching serial number tractor for each manufacturer. (CAT, Deere, Komatsu, etc) The core winch might be the same, but that doesn't mean it will fit. One of my least favorite phone calls is when a customer calls asking for mounting parts to fit a certain winch to their dozer. Almost without fail, the answer is always a long list of parts to convert the PTO, mounting brackets, and controls are either No Longer Available, or so costly to replace it didn't make financial sense for he application. To avoid getting stuck with a winch that doesn't fit feel free to call us with a serial number and we can help. We also specialize in complete rebuilds that are built specially for your dozer. 

- Does the winch WORK?

 As you can see on this video, just making sure the winch fits can be just the start. We buy a lot of winches, and most of the time we are told, "it was running when we took it off the tractor". I can say from experience these winches rarely run correctly when they arrive here. Sometimes the damage is minimal, but more often the damage is significant and  the winch was removed because it wasn't working. Pitted gears, worn hard parts, or cracked teeth can cost thousands to repair. Planetary gear reduction hydraulic winches like the Carco H140, H110, and H90 can cost over 1/2 the price of a new winch to make repairs. I've received calls from contractors who paid a lot for winches at auction, and had to spend so much getting the winch to work again they could have simply bought a brand new one with warranty instead. There are a limited number of people with winch testing ability, but there are even fewer companies with the ability to load test winches. The result is that the best way to limit risk of a used winch is to have a trusted specialist rebuild the winch to factory spec, and bench test the winch to make sure it functions correctly. We can offer Good Used take offs occasionally, but unless we rebuild the components of the winch like clutches or Hyd. Motors, there is no way to know if the winch will actually pull like it's supposed to.  

Best advice we can give is to use extreme caution when buying used winches, or let us take the risk away with a complete rebuild to factory spec. Contact us if you would like a quote.