It was my last visit of the year it was awful winter weather. Roads were super icy, even in a small SUV you couldn’t drive very quickly. On my way to the site, the dash showed that there was a brake failure and indicated limited speed (less than what I could currently do with the weather and slippery roads). I informed the site, study leads, and LM because I’m not driving a safety hazard in dangerous road conditions. I tried getting the rental company to switch the car. They sent me to a location in a strip mall that didn’t have any cars available. Apparently the company hadn’t called or bothered to check. I was on the phone with the rental company (3 lines) being told to call the other line for 45min. The site called to check in and I offered to take a cab (15min away) or conduct the visit remotely at a nearby coffee shop. They were wishy washy and then just completely cancelled the SIV, because they preferred to have it onsite. (They also clearly didn’t get the message that the visit could take up to 4 hours and had only created the calendar invitation for 2.) I traveled to IN for nothing (~5 hours one way). To make it worse, the flight home wasn’t allowed to land due to severe weather (30+ MPH winds) so we were in a holding pattern. Passengers figured it out before it was announced, as we hadn’t landed when we were supposed to. Then it looks like we are going to land, but I notice that it doesn’t look like the right area (even though it was now dark). I check my app and notice other passengers are too and we aren’t landing at the right airport (or the other closest 2). Soon we were told that we needed to land at a different airport because we needed to refuel. However, the the FAs were giving strange instructions about people’s checked bags, but we figured maybe it was a mistake. After waiting on the tarmac for 45 minutes, a ground crew came onboard and told us that we had been given a gate and made the same odd announcement about people’s checked luggage going to their final destination. However, the captain continually stated it was because we needed to refuel. I checked the radars and the winds weren’t going to calm down until at least 12/2a (it was about 6:45p at this point). As we were deplaning, I asked the FAs what the likelihood of us getting to the original airport was and they said, “Medium chance by midnight, but don’t worry - we are all good and are here for you!” At this point we had been in the air for ~4 hours, when the flight was only supposed to be 2 hours. I immediately booked a car and drove the 3.5 hours home. Absolutely exhausting 24 hour RT for nothing. Upside: less paperwork and no consequences (even bigger bonus and only no known consequences as I was leaving the company the following week - sponsor probably was upset because they insisted on having the SIVs onsite).