i got two harbor freight winches, one on my rig and one on my trailer. the one on my trailer is about 7 years old and still works great
last year the 8000lb model dragged this thing onto the trailer with two locked up tires up bowed old trailer ramps
also the 9k on my sfa s10 is just as strong as my old 9k warn i used to have but its a tad bit slower. i too bought the warranty on the trailer winchas i was paranoid about them breaking but so far so good. i think the one on my s10 might be going on like 3 years old which i got a amazing deal on, picked it up for $175 due to it being a open package and missing the remote. didnt care cause i wanted to hardwire it to the dash anyways