I don't know you and just now found this thread and read it. I admire any person who has the courage to look at their life, at the things that don't work for them, and make changes. Scary as hell.
I, many years ago, took a very ill-advised, spur of the momenet road trip from Vancouver BC to Las Vegas with $300 in my jeans and no clue. Car was a 1973 Monte Carlo that had no business taking a trip that ambitious. Oh yeah, it was 5 days before Christmas and the biggest snow storm to hit the Western US in the previous 50 years happened on day 2 in Utah. Ouch!.
Anyway, we had massive car trouble and NO money and found ourselves sitting on the curb outside a mechanics shop after receiving professional advice to walk away from the car and buy a bus ticket. The car was consuming massive quantities of oil, both burning and spraying under the hood (we actually had a blue smoke contrail fanning out behind us on the highway). After seeing the dispair in our eyes and understanding our dire circumstances, one of the senior mechanics pulled me aside and gave me some advice. He told me to walk across the street to the NAPA, buy a case of the thickest oil they sell, load up the engine, and turn around and make a run back to Canada.
Darned if it didn't work. I only had to top up the oil once, less than a liter and made it back a couple of thousand kilometers home.
If nothing else, try it for a few hundred miles and see if anything changes. Couldn't really hurt could it?
Good luck and I'll be watching...
