Of all the accessories and mods you can add to your off-road vehicle, few provide the truly secure feeling of having a winch. Even if you're running the most aggressive tires and the toughest suspension, you can still get stuck. When that happens, it's the winch that you fall back on to get you out.

Winches range in size and price, but the primary rule of thumb is to get one that's 1.5 times stronger than the weight of your vehicle. When calculating this, it's important to factor in any extra equipment that your vehicle has that adds to its curb weight. For example, if your vehicle weighs around 5,300 pounds, you'll need a winch that's rated for 8,000 pounds.

Choosing a Winch

Enthuze offers a 10000 lb winch and a 12000 lb winch for trucks and SUVs. Going by the rule of thumb mentioned, these winches are generally plenty strong for most rigs. A common choice you'll run into when choosing a winch is synthetic rope or steel rope.

Both Enthuze truck winches feature synthetic rope. When it comes to choosing between these two types, one is not necessarily better than the other overall, but synthetic rope has some safety benefits over steel.

Synthetic rope is ideal for frequent winching. If you're the type of wheeler that doesn't hesitate to use a winch to get out of sticky situations, a synthetic rope is around 80% lighter than steel rope, which makes it easier to hook up frequent vehicle extractions. Synthetic line also floats, which is helpful if you're winching out of water.

A synthetic winch line doesn't kink due to a lack of kinetic memory. Steel cable can kink, and when it does, its strength is seriously compromised, which could lead to dangerous breakage situations. Synthetic rope also has no burrs or splinters that might pierce through your gloves while winching.

Finally, synthetic rope tends to be safer than steel rope because it doesn't store energy while under load. If something goes wrong and the line breaks, it will simply fall to the ground. On the other hand, a steel winch line stores a powerful amount of energy under load. If it breaks, it will violently snap back and can cause significant damage or injury to anything or anyone in its path.

How To Safely Recover a Stuck Vehicle With a Winch

The most important thing to remember when winching is not to rush. Start by assessing the situation and finding your recovery point. The latter will generally be another vehicle you happen to be on the trail with, or one that shows up to help, which can often be the case in group off-roading situations.

If there's no other vehicle available, you'll need to find something like a large tree or boulder with enough mass to support your vehicle.

Steps to Vehicle Recovery with a Winch

Step 1 - Find something to attach your winch line to if you're doing a self-recovery. If you're recovering another vehicle, you'll simply attach the winch line to the other vehicle.

Step 2 - Plug in the winch controller and disengage the clutch. Usually, this means moving the lever to Free Spool or Disengaged.

Step 3 - Start unspooling the winch by hand. Be sure to wear gloves.

Step 4 - Connect the winch hook to the other vehicle or your anchor point. If your anchor point is a tree, be sure to use a tree-saver strap.

Step 5 - Take the slack from the winch line slowly with the winch controller. Get it just tight enough to hang the winch damper.

Step 6 - Hang the damper in the middle area of your tight winch line. Dampers are sometimes called winch blankets and their job is to deflect the winch line to the ground if it snaps.

Step 7 - Get into the stuck vehicle with the winch controller and start reeling the winch line slowly. Keep the transmission in neutral. Once you feel the vehicle start to move, put it in Park if it's an automatic.

Step 8 - Once the stuck vehicle is free, carefully detach the winch line and spool it back up. Lock the winch into the engaged position, secure the winch hook, and drive away.

10 Winching Safety Tips To Remember

1. Always wear gloves, and this is doubly important if you're using steel cable.

2. Always use a winch damper.

3. Never attach the winch cable to itself or double back on it.

4. Don't stand near the cable while in use and don't step over the cable.

5. Never use a dead tree as an anchor point.

6. Don't winch too quickly, go slow.

7. Don't drive the winching vehicle during recovery.

8. Never connect the winch line to a non-structural point on the stuck vehicle.

9. If you're recovering a stuck vehicle with your vehicle, always use your winch and not the winch of the stuck vehicle.

10. Use the winch's power as much as possible. You shouldn't add your vehicle's pulling force to the situation. If you need a hard jolt to free the other vehicle, you should use a kinetic recovery strap

Additional Recovery Accessories

You should always pack additional gear to assist with winching and/or situations where you get stuck. These include recovery straps, gloves, a tree saver, and a winch damper.

Not all recovery situations will require these extra items, but you never know when you'll encounter a difficult recovery that might require every item mentioned. Tow straps are always useful to have as they can work alone for simple recovery situations where you might not need to use your winch.

When you need powerful winches, recovery straps, or other off-road accessories or tools, you can count on Enthuze for quality parts at competitive prices. All Enthuze products are rigorously tested for durability and reliability before using the Enthuze name.