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Sounds like the clutch is toast.
Did your father in law break it? <= Best answered by, how much do you love your wife? My $.02 says, eat the repair costs ("...for everything else, there's Master Card...") and next time, one of you rents a car.
FWIW, at the ripe old age of 53 there are a lot of folks of my generation who we gearheads referred to in high school as "automatic babies"... never learned how to drive with a manual trans. In *my* parents' generation, everyone learned how to drive with a stick because only the well-heeled folks could afford cars with HydraMatics. I think it's amusing that my *mother* taught me how to drive her '60 Rambler wagon in our long driveway when my dad was off on a business trip - I think I was in 7th or 8th grade.
Pardon, I digress. My point is that my boys are old enough to make ME a father-in-law, and although I've never selected a car with an automatic for my own use, probably 50% or more of people my age never learned how to use a clutch. Sounds like your F-I-L is one of them. I taught my wife (against her tearful protests) to use a clutch in a couple of afternoons shortly after we were married 30 years ago. Our first Volvo was a '88 245 and she *insisted* on a manual trans. Rumblegutz was retired at 250,000 miles and still had the original clutch!
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