Harbor Freight - Gems and Junk

While I'm at it I might as well report on the $50 2500 LB winch after 1 year.

I used it three times in the first two months and it was great. Loaded a car onto a car dolly and pulled another car around the yard. No problem moving those 3500+ pound cars despite the 2500 rating.

It's a little faster than I'm completely comfortable with. It replaces the marine winch, which is MUCH slower and has a better brake.

Now the bad part. When I went to use it last week, the remote didn't work. I put new batteries in it and still nothing. This pretty much rendered it useless until I removed all the wires off the relay
and manually held them on a battery.

It's a $20 ebay replacement but it sucks to have to work around under emergency circumstances, and turns the $50 item into a $70 item.

If I had it to do over, I'd get the marine winch with wired remote again. That one lasted almost 7 years being stored outside for the first 5.