Hi Wingman1972, and welcome to the forum.
Would it be worth sitting down with your current instructor to get his advice? As he is leaving he might be more willing to give you an honest view of the club & whether moving to another club might be beneficial for you. If you choose to stay, he should be able to recommend another instructor that he feels would be a good match for you.
Spreading out the training over a number of years isn't ideal. You will no doubt have found out that a longer gap between lessons means the next lesson contains a greater amount of revision. If you want to continue with spread out lessons, then you might consider (re)doing all the exams at the end. Check the current (EASA) rules, but under JAR-FCL you didn't need to have the exams all passed until just before the licence was issued (after the test). Clubs never told you this of course ... they liked students to start the ground school before the first solo.
Another approach you could consider is to save your pennies so you can concentrate the lessons over a much shorted period. That way you will make rapid progress through the flight exercises.
Regards