Venom winch dead in 11 months.

Well my Venom winch is dead!

It made it 11 months...it's about on par with Warn and Gorilla.

My winch spends it's life under water and used every time I go out, more than once every time.

So it's that time of year, I pull my winch off the Rhino and clean it out.

All the bolts holding the winch to the mounting plate were tight, good...I get the winch home and find the bottom bolts holding the motor side and gear side are cracked. As I open the winch up, I found it full of water and mud...most of the grease is still there and the gears show no wear, but the motor and points look bad, several of the seals are bad or ripped, and spool completely covered with rust.

I spend three hours hours this morning cleaning and putting it back together, but I think it is really done...turns a lot faster than it did, but with so much water in the motor side I think the motor is gone. Based on the last time I used it and had to double up the line to pull the Rhino out of a short ditch...she's just lost power.

As I said before, it seems like I only get about one year out of any of the electric winches I've tried.

Do you guys have any suggestions?

Christopher, Minooka, IL.