Thanks to driving older vehicles that have completely gone out on us in the last 12 months DH and I have driven
1975 Olds Delta 88 not very popular in the condition that it's in semi popular around here with older car enthusiasts who can't afford to get into the 1930-mid 60s era cars if it was in a restored condition. Due to the steering in this one only DH could drive it as it required too much upper body strength for me to drive it.
1996 Olds Cutlass Cierra so unpopular that your treated like trash driving it. Have the right away at an intersection and start to go through better be prepared to hit those breaks in order to avoid a crash. The only good things I will say about this one is the air conditioning and the heater both worked plus I didn't have to use an extender for the seatbelt as a pooh sized person. It did not handle that great on snow and ice so I had to make sure I stuck to the main roads and didn't venture out until they were plowed.
2001 Ford Taurus very popular around here. Loved that little car and was sad when the transmission went out with no warning. Doing research afterwards I learned this was a common complaint in the 2000-2004 model years of this vehicle make and model. From the time I had the first it's starting to be a little jerky starting from a stop to it completely went was less than 15 miles. Luckily while I was on a higher speed (60 MPH) road it was one of our rural roads between two towns so I was able to get safely pulled off at the entrance to a neighbors field and make all the phone calls I needed in order to get everyone to where we needed to be. (Teenager to a play dress reherseal-called my mom who was kind enough to drop her off, my younger child and myself to home. My plan was to call AAA to get me and the car home but DH thought that towing it with his dad's small truck (that only held 2 people) would work-my knees were killing me when we finally got home, at least he took our youngest in the truck with him. He was driving the little truck since the Delta 88 was having some work done on it and my father in law was helping him. (We ended up replacing this with the Olds Cutlass Cierra)
1999 GMC Sierra we actually had this before but the transmission went out in Februray of 2019 so we used part of our stimulus money to get it running. Cost to replace the transmission was lower on this even with it having the 4 wheel drive compared to the taurus and the value of the vehicle was higher. While it does get lower gas milage it is a better option to have with our winters here in Montana.
Our eventaul plan is to get a smaller type car such as another Taurus, or a Chevy Citation for me to drive with the understanding that in order to keep the grandparents from being too nervous about my driving with their grandkids on roads that are often black ice with snow pack on top of them. On those days I will drive the GMC Sierra and DH will take whatever vehicle we end up purchasing.