Okay, we have a potentially dead Jeep (water leaking out of the front of the block itself, not from the thermostat housing as we'd thought). We're going to have it towed and looked at to get a sense of whether it's worth fixing.
Meantime, we thought we had a passable backup vehicle for him to just get to work, 5.5 miles away (biking is out due to mountains and due to I won't ask him to do what I won't do). However, the backup, our 1982 Tercel, doesn't start without being sprayed with starter fluid, doesn't charge though he's replaced a bad alternator and the wire between the alternator and battery, and put in a known good battery ( from the bad-transmission truck). Finally, steam starts rising from the radiator just about the time it arrives at the other end of the 5.5 mile commute. Plus no heat, no radio, and various other minor discomforts and inconveniences. The thing cost us $800 three years ago and we've more that gotten our money back in gas savings because it was a daily driver for a year on a thirty-mile each way commute we no longer have. Now, though, it's truly unsafe, and the cost to get it safe and sort of reliable is probably much more than it's worth. Even if it doesn't cost much, right now we don't have the time to do all the troubleshooting it will take to figure out all the issues.
We made do this week with a combination of carpooling (three days) and him driving the unsafe Toyota one day when I work late (past the time when he would've been locked out of the building in single-digit temps). One day he was furloughed, and I left him stranded at home, also not ideal.
We can carpool easily enough two days every week and three days most weeks. But on the nights I work late, it isn't possible because I can't get to him before he's kicked out, and he'd have to do two 70-mile round trips, one starting at about 6am, to drop me off instead. Plus next week he has jury duty (federal grand jury) 40 miles away and 50 miles from where I work. Carpooling won't work at all then.
So, we need a vehicle next week. We need to know if the jeep can be fixed. And, given our rural environment, we need a third backup vehicle of some sort.
We're not getting any younger, and he's working full time and trying to finish our house, so we're considering a newer vehicle than we usually look at, maybe something made this millennium (this is a big deal for us, but cutting down on the time spent working on vehicles would be a major plus). Max price right now is $8,000, which is pretty doable here (low COL rural area, remember).
We're considering a full-size pickup with camper shell. It would need to be 4WD to manage our road. Advantages include hauling of building supplies (every month or sometimes more often) hauling of Great Danes (every couple of months), towing our trailer when we need to move truly large items or vehicles (rare but saving hundreds to DIY when it needs doing), and camping (2-4 times a year). It would be his daily driver, and the fuel mileage would be poor, we know, but his short commute would keep the cost down.
The other option, at the opposite extreme, is a small car with front wheel drive and good fuel mileage. We could likely get one for less than a truck of the same age, and front wheel drive will manage our road in most weather (2WD pickups won't, ever, because they just spin--rear wheel drive and a light back end). The primary advantage, the better fuel mileage, is partially offset by his short commute, and a car would not haul supplies, the trailer, or Danes or serve as a camper.
Having looked around the area, we think we could get an early 2000s car for ~4,000 vs. close to our $8,000 max for a truck.
Neither option gets us a backup vehicle, but a newer vehicle for him should buy us time to see about the Jeep and maybe to work on the Toyota.
We will look this weekend in case the perfect deal turns up, and if we have to we'll rent a car for jury duty (cheaper than prison, after all).
But, looking over all these considerations, what would you do? Do you see options I'm overlooking?