For now I just need something that works ... which is more than I have now.

Lucky me ... broke down in a parking garage in New York City.  Waited more than an hour for the tow truck to arrive, and when it did, we found out that AAA didn't tell them about the garage, and they had sent a flatbed.  The driver didn't give up though; he put my van on the loader and towed it out, navigating some very tough turns and ramps.  Then once we got outside, he went to put it up on the flatbed, and the winch cable broke.  So we went all the way home towing it on the loader.

I have to replace the starter.  It looks easy enough, and I started disassembling to get to it at lunchtime today.  I have deep sockets, and I have metric sockets, but I don't have deep metric sockets ... off to the tool store.

I didn't ask for this project but I'm notoriously frugal so I'm going to attempt this one myself.