This should be common knowledge, car-ownership 101. I guess the battery dying in 5 days (wut...? Never heard of that) is new but otherwise this is pretty common knowledge, or well, used to be.
My dad has been in and out of the hospital for about 18 months because of a terrible staph infection in his prosthetic hip which has required 5 or so major surgeries, and in that time he's only been able to drive sporadically. So, for the last year I've been taking his car about once every two weeks around town for the day to do errands. It's inconvenient for me to drive over there, swap cars, and drive his (older) car for the day, but w/e.