Please help— broken down and stranded in an RV rental through Outdoorsy

LOCATION: Maryland

Hi all—my partner and I are on a cross-country road trip and rented a van through Outdoorsy (a peer-to-peer RV rental platform). We’ve run into serious issues and could really use legal guidance on where we stand. Here’s a brief summary:

The van started having mechanical problems early in the trip: engine issues, AC failure (in 100°F+ heat), a faulty neutral switch, and now a completely failed starter—it won’t start at all.
We’ve taken it to multiple shops and tried to keep the trip going out of necessity, but a licensed mechanic recently deemed the vehicle unsafe and said repairs could take weeks. We have written confirmation.

Outdoorsy has been inconsistent—one department offered us a short-term rental car, but they haven’t committed to a tow back to Maryland, reimbursement, or helping us safely exit the trip. They keep bouncing us between departments. One day they said they don’t expect us to wait for the repair or continue to drive the car (verbally), and the next they said we are required to (via email).

The host/owner of the van has now sent us legal-style threats, saying our continued driving earlier in the trip means we “accepted” the vehicle’s condition and are violating the contract by not returning the van across the country. He’s invoking “legal counsel” and threatening to enforce the contract “to the fullest extent.” He’s also refused to get the AC repaired as the mechanic said the entire system is comprised of rust and would need to be completely replaced. We have our dog with us and the van was advertised as pet friendly.

We’ve documented everything, stayed in communication with Outdoorsy and the host, and done our best to resolve this. We haven’t “abandoned” the van—it’s literally undriveable, and continuing would be unsafe. We have sacrificed over a week of our trip and aren’t willing to do that any longer.

The host plans to have the van towed to a different mechanic tomorrow to get a second opinion. In our opinion, our licensed mechanic’s diagnosis should be enough to allow us to exit the trip.

Here are my questions..
– Are we legally within our rights to end the trip early and refuse to drive the van back to the host?
– Are the host’s legal threats valid?
– Should we pursue a chargeback or consumer protection claim if Outdoorsy doesn’t help?

Any insight would be hugely appreciated—we’re stranded out-of-state and just trying to protect ourselves at this point. Thank you so much in advance.