I often see people mentioning the receiver hitch mounted winches and how great of a concept it is, and yet, in 30 some years of playing with 4x4s, I've yet to hear of a single person that _actually_ runs a receiver mounted winch saying that they LIKE the winch set up that way.
I tried it once years ago, and while it DID seem like a great option as, like many, I figured I could use the winch in the front OR the rear of the truck without having to buy two winches. It continued to see like a great option the first time I popped it in the front receiver, and did a test by respooling the cable in the driveway.
I quickly reversed that thought the first time I needed that winch....in sloppy, cold, snow covered mud. That thought came to me right about the time the throbbing in my leg started to subside after losing my footing in the mud while walking the winch from the bed of the truck to the front, my backside hit the ground, and 200 pounds of Warn winch and mount landed on my right thigh, lol.
I also have one of the HF 10K winches...and there is absolutely no way, no how, that it's going to pull anything even remotely close to a 10K load. I originally had bought it as a cheap trailer mounted winch, and it eventually had found it's way on to the front of my Suzuki Vitara (same thing that was rebadged as the Chevy Tracker from '99-'04, after the Geo brand went away). It struggled to pull that 3K pound SUV up a small short, smooth hill. I pulled cable only because it was covered in loose gravel, and there was a short section at the bottom before a 100 foot drop off to a lake, with a similar drop off to one side. I likely could have driven up it, but was concerned that if I got loose, I may not be able to stop before dropping off, so I pulled cable to be safe.
Had I been in a full size truck, there's no way it would have pulled that hill single line, and I'm not even positive that it would have worked double lined. On the other hand, my neighbor has one of the Smittybilt 9K winches on his Jeepster on 37s, and it has worked surprisingly well, more so considering it's a $300 winch as well. It's slow compared to the higher end Warns, even a bit slower than my Warn M12000, but for most people, it's still plenty fast enough.
