Runva EWX 9500-Q: 12-volt winch test

YOU can’t help but be impressed with the Runva EWX’s huge horsepower rating of 8.6. That’s a clear winner amongst this field.

The Runva winch also has the fastest final gearing ratios, combined with the highest current draw. This is a good example of high motor power (and torque) combined with a fast winching speed, but it uses a lot of power to do it – over 400amps sucked from our battery bank, which is above our ammeter limit.

It’s all well and good being this fast, but if you don’t have the battery capacity to feed the hungry winch, it’ll all stop with a buggered battery. Winching sensibly with plenty of rests will get you out of trouble faster than all of the other winches.

Impressively, motor and gearbox temperatures stayed very low, suggesting this winch did the job fast and with ease. It only needed four pulls to drag the sled 20 metres – that’s one pull less than its nearest competitor, and up to three pulls less than the slowest winch on test.

It must be noted that Runva has a huge range of winches and, indeed, has other versions of 9500 pounders with lower horsepower motors somewhat similar to other brands tested here. However, given this winch is the cheapest winch of the seven on test, it returns huge pulling power for your buck.

A unique rope-securing method sees the start of the rope pass through the body of the drum, while a flush-mounted grub screw secures the rope-end within. There are no sharp, protruding edges or crimps, and there’s no chance of the rope being damaged by the securing system. It isn’t designed to withhold high loads, so the standard minimal wraps of rope on the drum must be adhered to.

The rope pulled out of the end at the retaining bolt, even though there were many wraps and more than two layers of rope on the drum at the time. The rope must have been slightly and slowly unfurling under the load of the sled, given the slipperiness of the synthetic rope. Most suffered from the same – we had three ropes slip and break their mount on this test.

A protective sheath is fitted to the hook-end of the rope but not to the drum end, thereby needing more caution while unspooling.

It comes with both the aforementioned wired hand control, plus a wireless version. The advantage over all the others is the wireless receiver is inbuilt within the control box, so it doesn’t need to be wired separately.

A separate manual isolation switch is included to mount under the bonnet, to prevent thieves from operating your winch.

Looking for any negatives with this winch, perhaps the second shortest rope at 26.5m is the only thing worth mentioning.

INCLUDED
Wired hand-held remote control; alloy hawse fairlead; open hook with spring-loaded safety catch and removable clevis pin; safety strap; wireless remote control with integral wireless receiver; sheath protection for hook-end of rope; manual isolation switch.