Just thought I would update everyone who has found my site via a google search for Snowbear Plows.
Snowbear sent me a new winch and strap. The blade has held up pretty good for a full winters use. All in all I am pleased and my experience with the winch seems to be a unique one. When I got a hold of Snowbear they made sure to take excellent care of the situation and couriered a new winch out to me. The problem with the old winch happened everytime the temperature got down to about the freezing mark. It seems the winch freezes up. Not a good thing on a snowplow! 🙂 I did find that I could get the winch to work most times by using the manual crank to free the winch and then to tap it a few times with my wooden ice scraper. This would be ok, but sometimes I would stop plowing long enough to get out and shovel some snow into it’s path and by the time I get back into the truck the winch would be frozen again.
For the money, I feel the Snowbear Plow is an excellent tool for the job. Much cheaper then one of the big guys and it does my driveway just as good as my old Western Plow used to!
(For searchers: snow bear plow )