This is MPR's life kid.

I'm Gabrielle Horton.

In the first year of the pandemic, I decided to get a new car lease and trust me, it was

even surprising to me because I am not a car person by any means.

But I had a new puppy and I found myself taking more and more road trips so at least made

sense for me at the time.

Because even the notion of committing myself to a full on car purchase, it just felt too

overwhelming.

To be honest, I've always had a rather wary relationship to cars.

The day-to-day maintenance of it all has always given me the most stress.

Something that would always cost me a pretty penny.

And unfortunately, all of that soon proved to be true with my new car.

There were all of these electrical issues that kept bringing me back and forth to the

service center.

And it was all the more frustrating not only because they couldn't figure out what the

actual issue was, but because I didn't always feel safe in my car.

And when I did reach out for help, I couldn't always understand the panic talk.

A little over a year in, my car was officially declared defunct.

Now that I've had some time without a car, I gotta say I am ready to test the waters

again.

But this time, I want to feel more confident, handling and caring for my car.

So it only made sense like haul up Kaya Milstein to help me and us unpack it all.

...