Id buy it in a heart beat. I just picked up a used FIW3500 logging winch. After a little clutch adjustment Ive got it working pretty nicely. I can not believe I didnt find one of these things sooner. A couple weeks ago I was going after 3 trees that I had taken down earlier in the year. I was waiting for the ground to freeze to pull the trees out. They were cut up into about 11 logs, various size and length. Took a good part of the day to drag them out to my clearing. The biggest pain was getting the tractor in close to the logs to hook them up to the 3PTH and I could really only do 1 at a time. With the winch, in a matter of a couple hours Ive got a stack of logs equal if not larger already stacked. I can hook up 4 logs (depending on size) and pull them to the tractor. Then skid them out to my clearing.
Theres not much that can go wrong with them. I could use a new cable and will probably replace it next year. The clutch disk still has plenty of meat on it. Other than that its just a hunk of metal. Even at $1500, you could buy it, use it and still sell it for $1500.
