What's the goss on winches?

[pollenface]

I'm looking at fitting a winch to my beast in the near future.

From what I can gather so far, Warn seem to be 3x the price of the others. Carbon and Sherpa seem good value. I definitely like the look of the Carbon 12000 Ver2 and Sherpa 12000/17000.

I'm not really sure about Runva as my brother had an 11XP and he had a few dramas with the clutch seizing, looking on their website there's no mention of an IP rating on any of their models.

I'm not sure how much I'd trust a $500 one so probably give those a miss unless anyone can convince me otherwise.

Is 12000lbs enough for say a family of 5 and a camper trailer (with perhaps a double line pull) or should I be looking at 15000-17000lb models?

I have the ARB Non-winch steel bull bar but plan to use a universal mounting plate and modifying the bar as needed.

I'm keen to hear your thoughts