An old mod pushing it through is what saved me too, took 5 months.

Ugh, that sounds like a total nightmare, sorry you had to deal with all that crap.

The $620 repair was an emergency for sure, but I'd push back a little on the idea that paying it from savings "proved the point." What it really proved is that you had cash on hand, which is great, but an alternator dying is one of the most predictable car repairs there is. That's not a random disaster, that's just car ownership. Batteries, tires, brakes, alternators, those things wear out on a schedule you can roughly guess, so a lot of people would say you should be setting aside a small car fund every month on top of your emergency fund. The real emergencies are the ones you truly can't see coming, like a job loss or a medical bill or your furnace dying in January. A car repair you knew was coming eventually is more of a sinking fund thing. Still, you did the right thing paying cash instead of swiping a card, so don't feel bad about it.