You think upkeep on a car is bad, wait until you feed and care for a horse for a year.

Get it diagnosed and fixed. Better than leaving you stranded in the middle of nowhere. I was out in the woods doing my thing yesterday and came across some gents from Mississippi who lost the transmission on their pickup, a LONG way from home and a lot of miles from the nearest Ford dealer. They were lucky that it is elk season and there are a lot of people around to rescue them, and had people looking for them since they were late.