That's right. Furthermore in my case there's the question "what muscle?"
But more seriously I've found that I make a lot more mistakes and inujuries when I try to use manual effort; this then helps justify electric winches, electric screwdrivers, cutoff saws, etc. IOW personal energy management isn't just a matter of laziness.
Anyway back to winch choices: this thread contains references to a wide range of winch sizes. I'm familiar with those as used on the front of an off-road vehicle where the typical recommendation is 1.5 times gross vehicle weight which easily gets you into 10-12k lb winches (and a lot of money and they are VERY heavy). But there you might be pulling the entire 5,000 lb. vehicle essentially straight up out of a ditch.
But if we assume dedicated use for winching a car onto a trailer, the winch strength requirement should be lower. For example, if we assume just for the sake of argument a 30 degree maximum ramp (or bump) angle and a 3,000 lb car we need only a 1,500 lb winch. But what if as was pointed out earlier the car is no longer rolling? I suppose you then have to throw in a friction component for dragging the car; coefficient of friction <= 0.5? That's another 1,500 lb. So I would think 3,000 lb would be plenty.
Comments?