I just bought a new trailer and am interested in getting an electric winch to load my car onto it. The main reason for this is I don't want my tires throwing the wood ramps out from under the car. I have no issue with taking a couple extra min. and making sure nothing bad happens. (we've all seen the CGT video.) I'm sure a couple of you are using winchs and just wondering what model your using and if your happy with it. I've been looking @ the Warn 1700 but would love some first hand knowledge.

 

I use "winch in a bag." Gotta love the name. 2500 lb. Got it from costco online. 1700 lbs sounds underpowered. Warns are known to be very good, so it might be able to do the job, but even my 2500 feels a bit underpowered pulling a 2500 lb cup car onto a trailex with 11' ramps plus race ramps (in other words, pretty slight incline). Does the job though and clamps right on to a marine battery that I bring with me. Trailex uses the 3700. I'd imagine this thing pulls like no tomorrow, and if I can find someone who can tell me how to rig it to a battery with clamps rather than actually having to wire the thing permanently, I'm in (i'm not very electrically oriented).

Winch is great, but I'm not sure why you need one. Cars like the GT and Cup cars have very digital clutches. You wind up the engine and dump. Very hard to slip it and drive slowly up the ramps (although some do). Is this what the Viper has, or is it more of a street clutch that you can simply creep a bit (such as in traffic)? I used to drive my GT3 onto my trailer all the time. Much easier IMO.

Either way, good luck and enjoy the trailer.

 

thanks for the imput. this will be for my viper and a couple other cars. ( Lamborghini SL, new acr, C63). I mainly concerned with the clearance on the sides. only couple inches on each side to work with. Also scared of spinning my extended ramps out from under the car. lots of tq @ very low rpms

 

Nice stable. I hear you about spinning out the ramps. Definitely need more than the 1700. The MB weighs around 3800# (just looked it up - don't know if this is correct) and you'll definitely want more for the others as well. If you go to the Warn site they have a few online stores that sell their winches. One of them sells the 3700 for mid-300s. Someone's got to be able to rework it to splice in some alligator clamps and make it essentially portable. Let me know if you figure it out. (For some reason I'm assuming it's an open trailer. If not, this really isn't even an issue.)

 

Ended up picking up a Warn 3700 and the portable mount which should work a great when moving from trailer to trailer.

 

I did look into some race ramps. The ones I saw were about $400. I spent that on the winch and spent $30 on some wood to make ramps.