20 Best Winch For Jeep Tj (2023 Updated)

Probably more winch than I need but I can’t take a chance on a less robust model….I am using it to raise and lower a 40 tower…works great and eases my mind

Yet to actually use it. But have it prepared and mounted. Did try out the gears and put rope cable on it and tested the brake as best it could since there is no load. Good quality construction. Will be using it to load 2 person sea kayak on top of SUV rack.

Should do the job well. Price was very fair considering it a display or very little usage. Wish I would of discovered this one prior to the other winch I ordered since that one was a single low gear unit.

Gave that one to my brother who’ll find use for it.

Bumper came in and looked good. You can see some imperfections but you really have to look for it. The box said it was for a JK (I have a JLU Sport S) but after speaking with an Extreme Terrain customer support, they confirmed it will still fit.

Also, the instructions are not that clear and seem to be missing some steps but the install video on Extreme Terrain was spot on. Slapping the bumper on was the easy part. Took more time taking off the stock bumper and removing the wiring harness to the OEM fog lights from the stock bumper.

Just a heads up about the fog lights. I have a JLU with halogen fog light. The fog lights didn’t bolt right on as it says in the description. Luckily I purchased LED fog light brackets last year from Mopar for another bumper and was able to use them.

After swapping the brackets out, everything bolted on without issues. Red Rock packs screws, washers, and lock washers for the fog lights but didn’t mention anything about them in the directions or install video.

Placement of the fog light wiring harness was hard to decide. I ended up using some zip ties to keep them together and used another set of zip ties to slip through the holes where the winch sits to hold them in place.

Looks okay but it will do until I get a winch. Overall I’m happy with it and it looks great! It took about less than 2 hours to install.

The bumper looks great, mounted easy. About 2 hours. I would definitely tell other people about this bumper. I love this bumper but I couldn’t give it all 5 stars because it’s missing few design flaws.

When operating a winch on the bumper. I do light fabrication and it’s not hard for me to fix the flaws and this bumper it would pull my Jeep up in the air no problem. Just needs easy strengthening points because when I max out the winch, the winch bends forwards and touches the front and if I were to really pull on it, It entire bumper would probably bend forward quite a bit.

But nothing is perfect in the real world use. I do still love this bumper and there’s nothing really wrong with it if using as light duty. 12k lb winch is definitely max. The powder coating is holding up great.

And the looks are amazing and I was able to use the Mojave factory skid plate underneath it and the factory fog light holes are great too. The D ring mounts are strong and I’ve definitely used them.

I give 5 star reviews because I know people make mistakes and people have companies to run. I’ll take my experience step by step with you. First, shipment was like a week late, not extreme terrains fault that was on Fed-Ex.

The bumper was packed very very well, no scratches dings or dents! The problems started when we began attaching the stinger onto the front bumper. (Mind you, I have been a Jet mechanic on the F/A-18D fighter jet for years so these type of installations are pretty child’s play to me), the holes that the bolts have to thread through to secure the front stinger on were all in the correct spots, but the nuts that were tac-welded on from the underside were not aligned properly.

So the bolts couldn’t thread through. at all. So I had to ditch the bolts that came with the bumper and I luckily found the same sized bolts with thinner ends on them instead of the ones that came, with blunt ends, and I was able to use a 16 inch breaker bar to forcefully thread my new bolts through, because God knows I couldn’t get that type of leverage with an Alan key set.

So boom, an hour later we have a secure stinger. I remove my bumper in a few minutes and then align the new bumper onto my frame rails to start putting on the nuts and washers to secure the bumper. well they sent the wrong size nuts.

Like 3 sizes too small. So once again luckily I had extras in the bowels of my tool box that worked just fine. Lastly I go to start threading the last few bolts for the outer side of the frame rails, and into the bumper.

and the hardware they sent me was one size too large. (FACEPALM). once again. thankfully I keep hardware of just about every size on me. So I have to once again use my own bolts, washers and lock washers.

I finally account for all of my tools and clean up the area, go back and torque down all of the nuts and boom. bumper looks AMAZING! now I have nicer heavy duty silver bolts contrasting the black bumper, looks way better than the hardware they sent anyway, so I’m super happy.

If I wasn’t a Marine who could figure crap out, adapt and overcome problems. I would’ve been furious. I’m used to the Marine corps giving me the wrong hardware and tools and having to safely repair jets for a flight schedule so this was no biggie to me.

but some average joe would’ve lost his mind tonight. I will buy this brand again because they can’t screw up bad enough to where I can’t fix their mistakes, but for God’s sake please pay more attention to detail with the hardware because not one Bolt, washer, nut, or lock washer was used from the kit you sent me.

Some white girl with a Chai Latte is going to run into this problem and leave a one star review but I’ll give it 5 because you still shipped me a badass bumper.

My Mile Marker winch bolted right up to it. The plate bolted right into place around my Smittybilt stinger bumper. I haven’t had to do any winching with it yet. I really like how the raised design gets a little extra air flow to my various fluid coolers.

Looks good, works great but a little hard to install. Directions not real good but if mechanical not too bad. Would recommend if you want to keep your factory bumper.

Very well made product. Fit perfectly, with all supplied hardware. It is made from high tensile steel so is alot stronger than many other brands which just use mild steel. All the paint and welds were excellent.

Looks great. Fairly easy install. Took me a few hours, but I’m sure someone with more experience can get it done in way less. Most of that time was removing the factory bumper/fog lights. NOTE: ensure the bracket/bolt pattern fits before moving the entire thing to vehicle mount.

as I learned from the other comments, a lot of people had to bore out the factory holes. Save yourself some time, go buy a step drill bit and be ready. Step bit ~$20 and did the job really easily. No other issues with the install.

There is a slight bend on one of the top light mounts, which I didn’t notice until after I had everything installed. but a light can still be installed and it won’t be noticed. No need in marking the product down for this.

The shipping box came a bit banged up, but inside packing was really good and saved what looked like could have been a lot of damage. No scuffs/scratches. Shipping was extremely fast. said it would take a few weeks, but I actually got it in less than a week.

I wanted to ditch my factory chrome and plastic front bumper and give my YJ a fresh look. The XRC bumper filled the bill perfectly. The hardest part of this install was removing the old bumper. I PB blasted and WD40’d the original star bolts really good the night before to help loosen up the years worth of accumulated crud and rust.

It still took a very long handled 1/2″ preacher bar and some grunting to break the star bolts free. The bottom mounting bolts are really close to the spring ends on my YJ so I had to get a little fancy with the star bit in order to get to it.

After getting the old stuff out cleaned and brushed the threads and applied a little shot of garage door white lithium grease to help with the install. I trimmed the plastic “Jeep” filler plate to allow for the new bumper to clear it.

(I thought about leaving it out but there was an ugly thin metal cross bar the plastic covered up nicely). The Smittybilt instructions mentioned possibly needing to doctor a weld or two to allow the bumper to bolt up cleanly but I didn’t have that problem.

Just a heads up, the photos show the bumper coming with 3/4″ D ring shackles. It doesn’t (had to call Smittybilt to verify that). All in all I think this is a great bumper that will be exceptionally functional.

I had first purchased the redrock crawler bumper and at the same time order the smittybuilt 12K winch. I first installed the bumper as is arriving first. Once the winch came in I took to get installed and I fit super tight and the wiring push on the grill; it also sat high.

I then purchased this bumper the smittybuilt XRC (originally the one I wanted, but when with the more affordable one) I absolutely love it! It’s more solid, winch and bumper sit lower with more room for my winch.

it’s great!!.

First off, I would say this winch is very competitively priced and good build quality for what you pay. I struggled to get this winch to fit behind the bumper of my WJ jeep grand Cherokee. I spent quite a bit of money on a custom fabbed “hidden” winch bumper that was supposed to allow the winch to hide behind the grill and bumper, but because this winch is so large and not round, it was an extremely tight fit that required me to cut and saw away quite a bit of my grill and bumper area.

Secondly, I had to remote locate the control box. The control box itself is also HUGE with the supplied cover that comes with it. This cover is way to big in my opinion to gain any advantage from remote locating it.

I ended up getting a different cold air intake tube that freed up some space where the stock air box was in order to mount the huge control box in its place. Lastly, after finally getting this thing installed with many hours and hacking away on my jeep, I gave it its first test pull this week under load.

Disappointed to say that the motor will only pull in the rope and will not reverse feed out. This is due to a bad contactor in the control box. I didn’t even get to use the winch once before this defect occured, which is well past the 90 day warranty period of course.

You might ask, how much is a new control box, $193 plus shipping and tax. I can say that while this is a really good value for what you get, the trouble and hoops I went through to make this winch “work” was all for not now that its only partially functional.

Very disappointed because this unit had the potential to be an awesome addition to my Jeep.

I installed this winch inside my enclosed car trailer in July 2019. Last summer and fall, it worked fine through about a dozen car load/unload cycles. In January 2020, I tried to use it again to load my car.

When trying to operate the winch using either the fixed switch or the remote controller, the winch’s electrical contactors made their normal engaging “clack” noise indicating the winch was trying to run, but the drum didn’t budge.

I re-checked the installation (wiring, clutch, power) and found nothing wrong. The next day, the winch worked fine for 2 cycles. Then, over the next several days, the winch intermittently failed to run and then later would work fine.

Summit replaced the winch without hassle. The replacement winch has worked properly over the most recent 8 cycles since the re-install. The size, weight and appearance were perfect for my application: loading and unloading a 3500 lb Mustang.

The unit comes with everything needed to make it work with my Yamaha Grizzly, except the mounting plate. I had to purchase the plate separately from the winch unit package. There are other more powerful winches from Warn but I decided to get the 2000 size because my ATV only weighs short of 700lbs.

I figured that the unit has nearly 3X the lifting power of the total unit weight. I purchased the Warn mounting plate and found out that the bolt holes did not match up with the mounting points on the Yamaha Grizzly exactly, 1/2 hole off due to the crooked mounting points on the grizzly.

I needed to use a round file in order to oval out one of the holes so it would fit. I also needed to drill my own mounting holes for the contactor box to be mounted on. Easy task with a drill and metal bit, 2 holes.

When all was said and done it worked fine. I used a wire splice clip and cut the ignition wire that comes with the grizzly. DO NOT CUT THE RED ONE, USE ONE OF THE OTHER 2 WIRES. If you use the red one, the winch switch will always have power going to it.

When you use one of the other 2 wires, the winch switch will only have power when the ignition switch comes on. This hook up is better so the battery wont get drained. The 2500 power Provantage may be better because it can pull more weight but for my use the 2000 should be good enough.

My name is John King. The only issue was the instructions that came with the box left a lot to figure out for one’s self. Fitting was by trial and error. Good thing there are lots of how-to videos. However, the videos really do not match my application and leave out important details you have to figure out one’s yourself.

Overall the Rugged Ridge Spartan Front Bumper with standard ends and the over-rider hoop is a great look for my Jeep and leaves room for the Licences Plate in the center. I am happy with this product, it is simple, functional, and looks cool.

I am a disabled Veteran I can only work 10 to 20 minutes at a time since my world is in pain so it took me four hours each day a total of 4days days to Remove the old bumper and complete the installation of the new bumper and rewire the fog lights since the original fog light harness was not configured to the new fog light position so I had to modify it to fit and heat shrink the entire wire harness to protect it from the elements.

Note: I nearly paid double for this bumper due to shipping to Alaska. Despite the pain overall I still had fun doing it. Thank you.

This is a fantastic bumper for the price. I originally ordered the Barricade Trail Force HD but sent it back because of shipping damage and manufacturing defects. I decided to spend a little more and get this one instead and this bumper is better in every conceivable way for only 100 bucks more.

This thing is rock solid, the d-ring plates are bolted directly to the frame, the winch plate is a separate heavy-duty piece bolted directly to the frame in 6 places, and the whole thing was packed very securely in the box so there was no shipping damage.

I couldn’t recommend this more for the price, it’s just fantastic. A note on installation time – removing the stock bumper and fog lights is where you’ll spend all your time. Installing this one is quite easy but the instructions are pretty vague.

“Remove stock bumper”, “Install bumper with M8 hardware”, etc – it’s not hard to figure out though. Easy solo install as well, the only tricky part was balancing the over-rider loop while getting the first couple bolts started for it.

XT did a great job on the packaging! The bumper is heavy and well built, fit perfectly on my 18 JK unlimited Sahara. You will need 2-3 people to mount it due to the weight. *****CAUTION***** if you have a tow hitch with the nuts welded, it will not fit.

You will need to remove them with an angle grinder or similar tool. Another thing is the bolts are not long enough to use the washer and lock washer together. I removed the lock washer and bolted on through hitch mount.

There is an extra flat piece of coated metal with hardware to screw in somewhere that came with the bumper that is not mentioned in the instructions and have no idea what it’s for. Other than that, install is pretty much straight forward.

Took a little longer than expected due to the hitch customization, not a big deal, but I am happy with the style and quality. Looks Great!!.

Pros 1. Made in America 2. Easier to wire because the contractor is built in to the motor. 3. Compact and uses less room 4. Very powerful and easy to use. Cons 1. No one made a mount that fit my machine, so I had to do a lot of modifications to make a mount work.

I got this (11540. 10) (w/winch mount) and a small bar over the winch, and the storage ends. Also put a Warn VR8000-S on it. Installation was pretty straight forward, but nothing is ever 100 as the you-tube vids or the printed instructions say.

Took me most of all day, but I am not a mechanic and I was working completely by myself and I did add a Barricade massive skid plate which turned out not be compatible with the RR XHD so I had to remove it and that wasted a lot of time.

Some people claim bolt-hole misalignment or diameter issues but I didn’t have any of those problems. Minor fitment issue was that if I placed the bumper flush up against the frame then the Warn VR8000 winch power wires would just barely kiss the front fascia grill; I did not want that as vibration over the years would result in either pwoer cord insulation rubbing away of the front fascia would have been scuffed.

So instead I reused the stock spacer pieces of metal that came with the stock bumper, they are maybe ~1/8″ thick. This pushed the XHD forward an eighth which cleared the winch power cords away from the grill.

That was great. HOWEVER, this meant one of the forward mounting holes for the over-winch (bull?)bar came to rest right over a small (1/8″ high?) rise/imprfection in the frame. This means that when tightening the screws for the bar that its screw bottomed out (on the rise in the frame) before it was fully seated flush.

Monday morning quarterback says I should just cut the screw short. Duh. But as that was one of the final things to do, at the end of a day, I just torqued it down hard. The result was it raised (warped) the bumper up about a sixteenth of an inch.

Imperceptable to anyone except me who witnessed the sheet metal flex as I torqued the screw. Minor issue. But for the amount we pay for these things I would expect none issues! The bumper has been on for two weeks, daily-driver stuff for wife/daughter mall crawlers, and the powder coat has held up superbly to highway debris.

Have yet to kill 1-3 inch saplings off-road so cannot report on that yet. But it feels solid, is heavy, and mounts tight and solidly. There is absolutely no bend nor flex anywhere in the system (bumper/ends/bar/mount) when I stand on it or lift up on it.

The whole jeep moves, not the bumper. Seems very tough, very quality. No problems with the Warn VR series winch mounting. One more minor problem: relocating the vacuum pump. Seems like you have to decide between either the pump body contacting the cross-member, or the rubber hose contacting the cross-member.

Neither are desirable from a long-term vibrations perspective. Seems the RR-provide relocating brackets are not “stiff” enough to prevent vibration such that one or the other will be subjected to long term rubbing/vibration in its new location inside the cross-member.

I was looking for a non-winch bumper, and there are a lack of good choices. I paired this with XHD Bar purchased here and High Clearance Ends elsewhere. I was surprised how sturdy this is. Heavy, but lighter than some other bumpers.

My bumper, bar, and ends probably come in about 75lbs. Installation was pretty easy, direct bolt on. The package arrived in perfect condition. My box did include an extra set of bolts. Don’t know why.

There are limited instructions, but this is not really hard to figure out. I installed this without help. The one bolt behind the vacuum pump is hard to get to, but that is not the fault of this bumper.

All together about an hour and a half install. I would have preferred standard D-ring mount with this, but that is a small complaint. Quadratec LED fog lights (OEM fit) worked fine in this bumper and took about 5 minutes to install.

The only real quality issue was that one of the bolts on the ends had a bad burr on the thread. I had to spend some time with a file to get the nut to thread on properly.

I purchased the All Terrain Modular Bumper because I wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted the front to look like; and I wanted the option to change up the look a bit if I ever changed my mind. The bumper is very solid, and looks great.

At first, I went without the end-caps; which was a mistake, but the great thing about this unit is you just add them later. However, once you add in a few accessories, you’ll find the price to be as much or more than non-modular bumpers.

Adding end caps and the over rider after the bumper was installed was way more difficult than it should be. I suggest you do everything at once with this unit. Fit and finish are excellent, and it is very heavy duty.

Be careful not to order parts for the XHD bumper that looks very very similar to this one (and they are NOT compatible).