ATV Winch Problem

I finally got to try out my plow with the little snow
we got. I didn’t really need to use it until the plow
came through and deposited the usual pile at the end of
the driveway just as I was putting away the shovel.

I have the plow on the ATV hooked up to a factory installed
winch and everything seemed to be working fine at first.
Then the switch started to become intermittent when trying
to let cable “out” to put the plow down. It happened a few times but continued to work until I was done.
I parked the ATV and went in for awhile. I went back out and wanted to keep the ATV in the sun to melt the snow off of it before putting it away.
I started it, lifted the plow and moved it facing the sun.
When I went to lower the plow nothing happened. I could
hear the switch operating but it wasn’t releasing the cable. I finally manually released the plow and removed it. The winch will still pull the cable in but will not
release it. I tried several times after removing the
plow only to hear switch clicking.

Any ideas as to what the problem could be??

Thanks,

Dan

Im sure you have checked it but is the cable “kinked” in the winch…try pulling all the cable out by hand and bringing it back in…just an idea…jay

Just put a plow on my Honda last week….check for this….on mine, the loop coupler gets hung up in my roller fairlead…..which won’t allow the plow to drop….I need to solve this problem on mine….maybe figure out a way to get a large fender washer over the cable or something

check your connections sounds like one of the wires is loose, is it a warn? if it is the 2500 check contator box,just follow all the wires and check the ends

Thanks for the quick replies guys.
I checked all of the above and it still won’t release
the cable but it sounds as though it wants to.
Still goes in fine once I have manually released the
cable and pulled some out by hand.
It is a Polaris winch which I believe is made by Warn for
Polaris.
The dealer also thought it may be a pinched wire or a
loose connection of which I found neither.

Thanks,

Dan

Maybe try this.

Swap the wires around on the winch itself. Then try the winch. The switch should now run the opposite way. Try to run the winch in on the switch and see if the cable comes out. Then work it vise versa. If the winch acts the same way, then your motor is probably bad. If the winch doesn’t pull back in, but lets out fine, then your relay or our switch is probably bad. Just a thought.

If its under warranty, take it in. That’s what I did last year when my new winch stopped working. Similar to yours. I dont know what the problem was because they just replaced the whole unit.

Warn has a recall on its 8 post contactors for failures and heat issues. Follow your winch cables back to the contactor and see if has 8 or 4 posts to where the cables mount. Here’s the link the the Warn recall page.

http://www.warn.com/atv/recall_notice.shtml#info

I guess the winch is a Polaris by Polaris.
It is a 2006 model and the contactor is a 4 post.

I haven’t tried switching the leads yet as MM suggested.
I guess I’ll try that next and the dealer after that.

Thanks for all the responses.

Dan