We are FINISHED with Kehoe Ford

Tuesday morning, I'm driving into town when I start to hear a metallic noise 'pinging' in the engine. I call DH , he tells me to go to work but take it in after school. I do, and they say I'm a couple quarts low so I call DH and we tell the mechanics to give it an oil change and change the filter (the odomoter reading is 80079 so it's time). They tell me that a lot of metal came out with the very dirty oil and the engine could go at any time (maybe a few months, maybe less). I drive home after paying.
That evening, DH and I are talking. DH was going to give it an oil change this weekend, why was the oil so dirty and low? If the oil was that low, where were my warning lights? Why was my engine still running at a normal temperature? DH drove it the night before and had no lights either. So Wednesday we take it back to the Ford mechanics and tell them to find out what's wrong, tell us where the oil went to, and if possible, what two pieces of metal are hitting each other. The mechanics tell us that it'll cost $90 just to look and we say OK, do it. Later they call DH and tell him that the oil filter was "crushed and clogged". (So they're telling me that driving less than 30 miles after an oil change could crush and clog the oil filter?) We wonder if they really changed the oil filter the day before even though it was listed on the receipt when I paid for it. And they won't look into the engine to find out anything. At least they didn't charge us the $90. DH has it towed home, and starts the engine. He checks the oil filter (it's new now - too bad he didn't check it the night before) and he checks the oil on the dipstick. That oil is still dirty looking but the noise isn't happening. So we are thinking that maybe the damage isn't as bad as they led us to believe. Maybe the engine just needs to have an oil change every month to clean out whatever caused the problem in the first place. Still don't know why it was a couple of quarts short, but if we give it oil more often, we can avoid Tuesday's problem. It'll take a while, but if we just drive around town for a while, maybe we can eventually trust it again.
Thursday, when DH brings me home (he's taking me to work and back) we start the SUV again and the noise is back again. DH does more research online at work and he's thinking the tie rod is going to go out and then there's no recovery from that. I had that happen to my Nova approximately 11 years ago. The Nova's 'ping' noise was louder than what I'm hearing with the SUV.
DH wants to get a "cheap" car that the family can fit in, and maybe eventually fix the SUV. We still owe over $7000 on it, it's only three and a half years old but it's had major transmission problems twice already (those were in it's first year) and now this. He's thinking of ways to get it to Machen's Ford in Columbia to have their mechanics replace the engine (we aren't allowing Kehoe's mechanics to touch it again).