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Showing off my Superwinch EXP Lemon

Excited to get my EXP 10,000 Synthetic a few months ago. Mounted it (took forever....several bolts included were trash so local shop had to make some others) and it looked freakin great. Function checked it on Thursday for an Offroad trip Sunday. Made a horrible clutch/gear noise at end of powering out. Also leaked some type of oil from beneath the cover under the clutch handle. I took a video and pic and emailed the customer service email on their website that night. Haven’t heard back from them Yet (Monday now). On Saturday, the unit wouldn’t even turn on. No power at all. Checked all connections with meter. All is well. No power. Sunday, powers and lights up again. Smh. I certainly wasn’t going to depend on it though.

Fast forward to today. First thing this morning the local shop that ordered it for me called Superwinch. Spoke with Jason. Jason said to call him and send him emails with video/pics. I did. He didn’t even say “sorry” or “hate this is happening”. Just said they’d have to review it. Told him it had obvious issues and just wanted to return for refund. He basically said that wouldn’t be happening. And that I’d have to send it in, etc. He sounded annoyed by the whole thing. I tried calling him back that afternoon for an update after he had time to watch videos, and left a message with a lady that said he was busy, but never heard back from him via email or phone.

So, proceed with caution if you buy Superwinch.

Ill keep this thread updated with how they handle the situation.

well most winches that I know of don't have oil they have a heavy grease so that is probably just some residue. sounds like your clutch was not fully engaged.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jadmt (Post 4335067)

well most winches that I know of don't have oil they have a heavy grease so that is probably just some residue. sounds like your clutch was not fully engaged.

the clutch handle was definitely fully engaged but I agree that it was not fully engaging internally.

Spoke with a different rep today. My only recourse is to remove it, package it up, and ship back to them at my own expense.

Thats bad Customer Service no matter how you spin it. This is a new item. Obviously defective from the start.

Safety note on the video above: Don't put your hand/fingers that close to the fairlead on the rope.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr.T (Post 4335125)

Safety note on the video above: Don't put your hand/fingers that close to the fairlead on the rope.

A valid concern. We were spooling in slowly with no resistance after discovering it was damaged. Friend was keeping lines from looping under each other. Hard to tell from video how careful we were being. Agree it looks careless in video.

This is indeed poor customer service. It sounds to me like you need to escalate this higher up the chain of command. I really hate doing things like this cuz it's time consuming, but in egregious circumstances such as this, I find going directly to the top often leads to swift resolutions. It becomes a matter of principle. If it were me, and if I were pissed enough, I'd be composing some correspondence to Mr. Pat Gerard who is President & CEO of Kinderhook Industrie, the private equity firm that owns Superwinch. This is NOT the kind of publicity that companies desire.

https://superwinch.com/pages/superwi...orate-overview

Man that is a shame and very concerning. I have a Superwinch EPi 9.0
I bought new in 2011 and it's a beast....never failed, never had to do anything
to it. I've used it around the farm and on trails from Moab and Colorado to
Kentucky. Not like it's a small thing you can just pick up and return very easy.
I'm watching this very close to see if the company makes it right!

If you purchased it from a shop and had it installed, the shop should be dealing with Superwinch and handling the warranty. Superwinch wanting the unit back to verify and the either fix or replace is kinda what companies do for warranty. Read through the warranty statement that came with the winch. I"m not seeing anything that is even close to horrible service that you have now mentioned on several forums.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ghost JK (Post 4335253)

You don’t think they should be offering to pay the return shipping on an item defective right out of the box?

You dont think an apology of some sort should have been issued by their customer service?

You have awfully low expectations of what to expect if that’s the case.