How to Use a WARN Winch

What is a Warn Winch?

This tool is so powerful and it is prone to misuse. The sheer power of most Warn Winches is prone of cutting the corners and can even jump hastily into a vehicle recovery situation, doing either is a really bad idea. As a matter of fact, rigging your winch quickly or improperly can result in serious injury.

In order to avoid such accidents in using this tool, below are the tips and some personal instruction from an experienced Winch user, which are useful to improve your chances of completing a self-recovery winching operation safely.

This is a very basic tip. You should be sure that you have the right winch accessories like heavy-duty gloves, plus a hook strap, snatch block, D-shackles, choke chain, and tow hooks.

Checking your mounting system is very important. Your winch or WARN is only as strong as your winch mounts. You should only choose a winch mount that's been tested at least at the full capacity of your winch.

Double checking is not enough, but triple-check your equipment. I know, you’ve spent a lot of time selecting a WARN winch that can handle the load of your vehicle. Take your time in purchasing equipment to use with your winch, such as the snatch block, tow hooks, and winch cable, so you can inspect them well. Every piece involved in the winching operation must require strength to handle the load without failure.

Patience is a virtue in winching. Moving a stuck vehicle with a winch is not so quick as you think. It's better to accept this fact than to try to overcome it. You’ll need to stop and start the winch a few times to keep the motor from overheating.

Use a tree strap????

Being an off-road driver, you know and accept the fact about the environment and the reality. You strive to leave the trail as you found it. It only means that you need to avoid damaging trees and other plant life whenever as possible. When anchoring to a tree, use a tree strap and not the winch cable in attaching the tree's trunk. This would keep you from slicing tree trunks and damaging your winch cable.

Don't hook the winch cable by itself. This is related to the point above, but you don't need to attach the winch cable by itself. You'll just weaken your cable and setting the stage for a winch cable failure.

Plan your attack, Bwahahaha…..

Set up the winch so that the cable is perpendicular to the front plane of your vehicle. Indeed, not all the time you have a suitable anchor point situated in exactly the right place. In this case, use a snatch block, choke chain, and second anchor point to make the adjustment. You would run your WARN winch cable through the snatch block to the main anchor point. Attach a choke chain to a second anchor point and also to the snatch block. The choke chain and second anchor point would hold the snatch block in place directly in front of the stuck vehicle. The snatch block then would redirect the winch cable to the primary anchor point that's off to the side somewhere.
Choose only safety over convenience when it comes to using your WARN winch. It is necessary to get your vehicle out of a stuck situation, you don't want someone to get hurt in the process