Not a good week for vehicles in my family

[chevychic]

Warning: Long RANT

Monday smoke starts pouring out from under my husbands 98 Mitsu Eclipse. He takes it straight to the mechanic and they find the metal tube that supplies water to the turbo had a rust spot that had broken through. Price to fix?...$500...not bad considering...BUT we had just finished paying $600 to have the 60,000 mile maintenance done on the car 2 weeks ago. Now this'll be $1100 on this car within the month.
Thank God we have 3 vehicles....so now he's driving the cabriolet and I'm taking the truck which has been mostly parked since it came home from the tranny shop.
Wednesday I get a call at work...my husband had gone out to start the cabriolet in the morning and it wouldn't start. So I drive 30 minutes home to pick him and our daughter up to take them to work and daycare. Well I've known my alternator has seen better days and will need replacing soon but I know the tricks of my car to keep it going for now. Well my husband didn't know these tricks and had moved the dial to a/c the day before so the alternator had to supply more power to ac and accessories and didn't have enough left over to charge the battery. Got home from work Wednesday evening and give the car a jump and it's running fine now...whew...
So Friday I had just picked up my daughter from daycare and we're on our way for some girl time at the mall. I switched lanes and hear a grinding coming from the tranny @#!%...so I ease off the accelerator and am ready to make my break for the side of the road if it starts acting up. Well it seems ok so I continue to take it nice and easy trying to get someplace closer to home so I can stop and check it out. The problem is, I knew as soon as I stopped, all hell was going to break loose. I managed to make it 2 miles before a stop light...as it downshifted, sure enough, major grindage from the transmission. So I make it over to the side of the road and nothing...no gears AGAIN!!! Reverse feels like it's engaging, but it won't go anywhere. So I'm sitting on the side of a busy highway with my 3 1/2 year old, we're waiting for a tow truck for about 30 minutes + and NO ONE...not ONE person stops to see if we're ok!!

Here's a pic of it coming off the tow truck at the tranny shop:


So I'm watching it unload off the truck and thinking at least it's under warranty. Then when it's on the ground, the tow truck guy puts my truck in park...well the front wheels are resting against the tow truck sled...so the guy starts to pull the sled back up onto the truck and my truck starts rolling with it. CRAP....so I'm pretty sure I lost my transfer case, which is NOT under warranty....
So if anyone knows where I can get a decent transfer case without spending a ton of money I don't have, please let me know. I have a 208 in there right now and nows as good as time as ever to go to a different transfer case if one would be better than my 208.

Thanks for listening to my rant