Best bang for the buck. Recommendations, experiences, problems ?

I've been using a Superwinch ATV winch bought at a yardsale for $20 for years. I just bought a Champion with remote, haven't installed it yet. It was about $160 on Amazon.

I know several that run the Badland from HF. A couple farmers here also run the 12K for various uses on the farms.

I bought the 4500 lb with wireless remote, at Tractor Supply. I know, its Chinese, but it works good for what it is. It was just under $200 IIRC.

I have a super winch in both trailers that works fine. Upgraded one to synthetic rope and that’s nice. I don’t have experience with other winches, but I wanted to come and recommend getting a wireless winch remote for whatever you get, have one for both winches and they work great. There are many out there on eBay and Amazon. Here’s a link

WARN AXON..remote works with phone

Warn A2000, upgraded wiring, and wireless remote kit. Cost me $60 total for everything, been in the trailer for, 2 decades? Gets used pretty often. Rolling load is basically nothing so you don't need a huge winch. Wireless remote is nice so you can steer the car while winching in. Synthetic rope is really nice but it doesn't do well sitting outside in the sun.

I have a 5000lb Harbor Freight Chinese built one and it works great. I would recommend getting a synthetic rope, I need to find one for my 5000lb winch.

working at a polaris dealer I get to see some different things than I did when I was at the yamaha dealer.

Today I had to do a warranty winch replacement. The winch I removed was actually still good, just needs a slight repair. It's a two speed winch. 4500 lb, "rapid recovery". I could see that being an advantage at times. It won't have any pulling power on "high" but it will wind the rope quickly. Real quickly.

Also something handy to have is the magnetic safety stop, which is a fairlead that has a magnetic switch in it so that when the rope gets pulled close to the fairlead, it automatically cuts the winch off so you don't jam the rope in the spool and/or destroy the fairlead, rope, etc. Works good on UTV's, can't say on an enclosed trailer but it would be handy on an open trailer for sure.

on my UTV I also carry a soft shackle as well as a fid for repairing the rope if necessary. Synthetic rope can be repaired easily on the trail in minutes. May not have much of a bearing on this thread but I felt it worth mentioning for those that might like to have a lot of tools "just in case". My coworker makes his own soft shackles and they are real handy for UTV and ATV use, maybe even with pulling a race car into/onto the trailer. Might look into those. You can make them pretty easily.

I have two winches in my trailer. A 12000 lb HF for the car and a 2500 from HF for the rear door. Both work very well, the 12000 has a wireless remote. Learned the hard way to have a spare battery for the remote. I will say the 2500 lb winch is noisy as heck. It was mentioned in all the reviews. I took it apart cleaned out all the grease and repacked totally full. I helped a little but not much. I did put the synthetic rope on the big winch. it does the job very well pulling in the race car and keeping it tight against the rear tie down straps.

One thing to check when buying is line speed. I have dragsters so I didn't need a stump puller winch. I even use a synthetic cord to pull it in. It is much nicer just yanking the digger up into the trailer within a minute or so.

Ignore if you have a door car. lol

I have a 3500lb HF in mine...It's been flawless and I also use the remote control you can get for them. Also running synthetic rope. There are better ones out there but for the cost it's hard to beat.