Transmission Fail......

[darrentenerife]

Hi guys, I joined this forum a while back and I must say its been invaluable in terms of advice for the E53. I've got a 2004 3.0D with 170,000 km on the clock and i put it into a garage on monday to have the front bushes replaced (bought powerflex) and a couple of other niggles seen to, such as squeaky rear struts, an aircon gas check and a leak from the exhaust manifold. All good, until they phoned me up monday afternoon and suggested I come back to the garage to see what they had found when getting under the jeep. Turns out that when they took off the under guard it was full of oil! Upon inspection it was deemed to have come from the transmission. Now I've gone pale. The mechanic added some oil to show me where it was coming from, and i nearly collapsed. Not a faulty seal of anything but a fissure in the transmission casing. So they told me they'd have to remove it and see if they could send it off to be repaired; if not then it was gonna cost roughly 1800€ for a new one .
Got a phone call this afternoon to confirm that it couldn't be repaired as the central pinion has somehow dislodged from the transmission causing it to slip and hit the casing. In one sense I'm extremely lucky because if it had dislodged any more it could have seized up the differential alltogether whilst doing 120 kmh on the motorway with the family in the car(!) But I'm now facing a 3000€ repair bill to get the jeep back onto the road
Just thought I'd share this with you guys as I need to get a release somehow, and typing about it seems to be helping a little. Has anybody else out there experienced any similar issues? I know that E53's are known for having weak transmissions but its one of those where you never expect it to happen to you.