I originally wanted a Smittybilt XRC10HD winch. It is the only other air compressor and winch combo on the market besides the Warn,except its HALF the price. Well, the problem turned out to be it really isn't "on the market". Let me explain. I originally placed an order with 4wd.com. After a month had gone by and the winch hadn't shown up in the mail, I called to see what was taking so long. They said it was on backorder and the expected stocking date wasn't for another month. I canceled my order figuring I could get it somewhere else that had it in stock. I called around but nobody had it... and I posted my frustration on JKO. RMD Offroad emailed me and explained that they were taking preorders, because the winch hadn't arrived from China yet, so nobody had it. You would never know that from all the sites selling the product. James was in direct contact with Smittybilt, so I placed an order with him. Every few weeks I'd check in with RMD, but the arrival date just kept getting pushed back. Finally after 5 months, I had had enough of Smittybilt's so called arrival dates and I canceled my order. Absolutely rediculous! Come to find out that the winch was still in "research and development" and all these people were out there selling it like they had it sitting in their warehouse. Nobody seemed to think it was a problem to just keep giving you false arrival dates. Finally I decided to spend the extra money and get a product that was actually for sale! Besides, its American made, not some knock off being reverse engineered in a factory in China. I ordered the winch and it was at my door no more than 3 days later!
Anyway, installation was a breeze. Everything comes totally assembled, you just bolt the winch in place and connect it to the battery. This winch has an internal air tank so you don't need to mount one somewhere under your jeep. The air compressor is powerful and it can keep up with air tools or airing up big tires without an external tank. That's a nice advantage over the smittybilt which needs a 2.5 gallon tank - where was I going to put that anyway!?
Before installation:
Back of the unit
I was able to slide the unit between the winch hoop (brush guard) and the front grill... BARELY. Good thing, otherwise I'd have to take the bumper off, install the winch, and reinstall the bumper.
Here is what my battery is looking like already.. good thing I did the auxilliary fuse box previously.
After the winch was installed:
I was amazed only these 4 small bolts hold the winch onto the bumper. I was expecting some beefy 3/4 bolts, but these are tiny, maybe only 3/8 or smaller. The back bolts were tough to tighten because of the frame cross member.
