First off I'll say that other than burning oil my car possibly had oil in my coolant. I've read and been told this may be a head gasket problem but the previous owner may have not taken care of oil/let it go down too far and overheated and damaged the head gasket right? However I'm not a car expert so if other underlying questions need answering I will do my best... my dad has worked for the big three as an electrical engineer/quality specialist and he's a jack of all trades, doing medium work on his cars for years. So i get a little help from him but its not like i grew up working on cars by a long shot, i have like changed breaks 3 times with help and done a few oil changes... i just get tidbits of advice from him when he's in a good mood. hopefully i dont come across like i know what im talking about..

I've had a gold saturn sl2 99 for about four years. I got it when it had 83k miles on it. It was my first car. We've been through alot. I don't know much about cars. It always burned oil but I didn't keep good enough track of it. I think what happened was I let it go down over two quarts which damaged the engine a bit, then it started burning oil faster than ever before possibly with some knock but I'm not sure. Then since I didn't check on the oil often enough it burned down FOUR QUARTS very fast and i ruined my engine. Also i have a hunch that since i added 1 quart of oil and one bottle of that thickening stuff i had in my trunk for a total of almost three quarts in my engine, I made my oil way to viscous and damaged my engine until i filled it the rest of the way up which was probably well over 100 miles later *yes very stupid.
Now I have not taken it to a mechanic because I am broke, but my father told me my engine is bye bye. I dont have money to be towing my car around town from mechanic to mechanic or having them do estimates that cost me money because i stupidly gave myself an engine problem which are hard to specifically diagnose (i guess engine knock is an overused term which can mean many things or be caused by many things i just think mine may be far to advanced to do anything about). Where i stand now is wondering if its even worth driving anywhere or should i just put it on craiglist for parts maybe try to get $500 for it. I don't know if it's worth selling or sellable. I won't have much help selling it and I'm trying to get a job without a car right now so I can't have 100 newbs asking to test drive it or w/e every day*.

Pretty much my idea is someone who can appreciate how jacked up my car is might buy it for parts right? Maybe put "serious buyers only" or something on my craigslist page and mention that the engine is ruined? i dont even know if its ruined im just assuming

I looked up engine knock on youtube and SL2 knock on youtube and I believe mine is that, but a little bit louder and more jacked up sounding.


I know I was really stupid. If anyone could give me some constructive advice I'd appreciate it.