DirtyBacon04 wrote:Here's the flip side, if a winch cable breaks on TECORE 142 or something, it's only a weekend, then you'll be home with parts on order... I wont have that luxury. I need something thats going to last me, and if I get a good work out in by using it, then it's a win-win.
I think it's a common misconception to think that steel cable will last longer than synthetic. As long as you properly sleeve your synthetic line with chafe guards, I'd bet it can be used in just about any situation that steel cable could.
Synthetic line can also be field repaired, where a steel line cannot. You can also take a synthetic extension line and turn it into a synthetic winch line if needed (you are going to get an extension of some sort, right?).
Steel cable can get kinks in it that renders it unusable, whereas if you get a kink in synthetic, you can just "knead" it out, and its fine.
Steel does benefit from not being affected by UV, but I think most synthetic lines aren't really affected that much anymore. I'd still cover any permanently mounted winch with a neoprene cover to keep sun and rain off, synthetic or steel cable.
However, the biggest advantage of synthetic comes from the safety side, where if a component of your recovery pull fails, it will just drop to the ground because it does not store energy. A steel line will whip back when it fails.
I think the only thing that synthetic has yet to figure out a solution to, is creep the of the polymer molecules - which is the only reason why you don't see synthetic lines used very often for overhead lifts. The synthetic will plastically elongate a bit when subjected to high stresses.