Rated mounts, real wiring, and gear that fails safe
A winch is a machine you buy hoping you never need it. The day you do, everything about the install gets tested at once — the mount, the fasteners, the battery, the ground strap, and whatever you hooked to on the other end of the line. We install WARN winches on trucks, SUVs, and Jeeps here in Argyle, and we build the whole system rather than just bolting on a drum.
Start with capacity. The working rule of thumb is roughly 1.5 times the loaded weight of the vehicle, which puts a half-ton pickup near 12,000 pounds and a three-quarter-ton or one-ton closer to 16,500. That number is not about picking the truck up. It is about the first layer of line on the drum, because pulling power drops as the drum fills and the last wrap is the weak one.
Everything gets quoted in writing before anything is ordered — winch, mount or bumper, cable, fusing, and labor at our $150/hr door rate, itemized so you can see what you are paying for. We are veteran-owned, open Monday through Saturday, and we would rather talk you out of the wrong winch than sell you one that disappoints you in a ditch off FM 407.
We install WARN VR EVO, Zeon, and M-Series units on trucks, SUVs, and Jeeps. Capacity gets matched to your loaded weight, not to whatever happens to fit the bumper opening.
Ranch Hand and similar steel bumpers carry the winch on a proper cradle tied into the frame horns. We check fitment against your radar sensors, camera, park assist, and tow hooks first.
Behind-the-bumper cradles keep the factory bumper and grille. They fit tight, they limit fairlead and clutch access, and not every truck has room once the crash bar and cooler stack are counted.
Correct cable gauge, proper fusing, clean grounds, and a battery that can actually feed the motor. Dual-battery kits and alternator upgrades when the truck already runs lights, a compressor, and a fridge.
Frame-mounted front recovery points and rear receiver shackle mounts, installed with the right hardware and a working load rating you can look up. We also show you what not to hook to.
Synthetic line, soft shackles, tree savers, snatch blocks, gloves, and a line damper. Gear does nothing in a garage at home, so we set it up in the vehicle and walk you through a pull.
People hook to a tie-down loop and call it a recovery point. The thin stamped loops under the front of most half-ton trucks are shipping tie-downs. They hold a truck to a rail car. They are not rated for a snatch strap with a buried vehicle on the other end, and they straighten, tear, or come loose at speed. A real recovery point bolts through the frame with the manufacturer's grade hardware and carries a published rating.
Undersized cable and a ground that only looks connected. A winch under load pulls several hundred amps. Run it on undersized cable or a corroded chassis ground and you get voltage drop, a slow motor, hot terminals, and melted insulation behind the bumper. We use the manufacturer's specified 2 gauge or heavier cable, fuse or breaker the circuit, ground straight to the battery negative, and seal every lug so Texas humidity does not eat it.
Steel cable stores energy. Synthetic does not. When a steel cable parts under load it whips, and it has killed people. Synthetic line frays and drops. Synthetic is lighter, easier on hands, and safer when it fails, but it hates heat and abrasion — it needs an aluminum hawse fairlead, not a steel roller, and it does not like sitting against a hot header or dragging over a rock ledge. We fit it to how you actually use the truck.
Nobody budgets for the weight. A steel bumper and a winch can add 200 to 300 pounds hanging ahead of the front axle. The nose drops, the rake changes, the headlights aim high, and a coilover or leveling kit that was set for a bare truck now sags. We measure ride height before and after and correct with the right spring rate or spacer instead of pretending the sag will settle out.
Roughly 1.5 times the loaded weight of the vehicle. A Jeep or midsize truck usually lands at 10,000 to 12,000 pounds, a half-ton at 12,000, and a Super Duty or 2500 at 16,500. If you tow, run 37s, or wheel in mud rather than sand, size up. Pull rating is measured on the first layer of line, so a full drum gives you noticeably less than the sticker.
Synthetic for almost everybody. It is lighter, it handles safely, and when it breaks it falls instead of whipping. Steel still makes sense if you drag line across rock and caliche constantly or you want something that shrugs off abrasion and UV. Synthetic needs an aluminum hawse fairlead and a look every so often for fraying and glazing near the hook.
Not always. A healthy AGM group 65 and a factory alternator handle short recovery pulls. You need a dual-battery setup if you run long winch pulls, a compressor, a fridge, and a lot of auxiliary lighting, or if you idle for hours. We test your charging system first and tell you honestly which one you are, then quote it in writing.
Yes. Plenty of 2WD trucks around Denton County pull boats up wet ramps and haul trailers into soft pasture, and a winch earns its keep there. The limits are frame structure and front axle weight rating, not drivetrain. We check the bumper and mount options for your specific chassis, confirm sensor and camera clearance, and tell you before we order if it will not work.
Our shop is at 4020 Trey Ln, Unit B in Argyle, and we work on trucks from Argyle, Flower Mound, Bartonville, Copper Canyon, Justin and Northlake, plus Denton, Roanoke, Trophy Club, Keller, Haslet, Highland Village and the wider Metroplex within about fifty miles.
Open Monday to Saturday, 7:00 AM to 6:00 PM. Closed Sunday. (940) 240-1958
More of what we do: Off-Road Lighting · Running Boards & Steps · Tonneau Covers · Brakes · Diesel Service · Lift Kits · Shocks & Suspension · Wheels & Tires · Vehicles we service · Fleet service
Authorized dealer for all 42 brands below.
Authorized dealer for every brand listed above. Running something that is not on this list? We can source and install almost any major aftermarket suspension, wheel, tire or accessory line — give us a call and we will price it out.