My dog is afraid of the car – help!

Hi all! I have a 1.5 year old golden retriever who is afraid of the car. We got him at 8 weeks and did our best to socialize him to the car properly, but after a few months he started acting really afraid of it. We asked our vet, tried meds (thinking maybe he was nauseous) – no dice. We're at the point where sometimes he refuses to even leave the house if he thinks it might be a car ride (aka not normal walk time). He's literally never had a bad experience from getting in the car – we take him to the beach, to the daycare he loves, to see family he loves, to go to parks to walk around, and he even loves our vet!

We've tried working with a trainer as well to condition him to jumping in and out of the car for rewards (starting with rewarding when he got close to the car and working our way up to getting into the car), and although it worked a few times when he thought we were playing a game, he refuses if he thinks we're actually going to drive somewhere. We've also tried having one of us sitting in the back with him, which also hasn't helped, he shook the whole time.

I've considered getting him a car crate for the trunk, but I know the good ones are expensive and I don't want to do that if he's going to hate that too. He has major FOMO so I don't know if it would make it worse to not be able to see us.

Wondering if anyone has had this experience and what you did? We can't avoid taking him in the car forever and I hate that he seems so traumatized. Plus, he's getting heavy 🙂

Thanks!