I bought a Vectra 1.9 CDTi Estate in April 2009. Recently, while on holiday in Cornwall, the gearbox lost 5th & 6th gears and there is a whining noise in 1st gear.

On return from holiday I rang the Vauxhall Pentagon dealership in Derby, firstly to ask whether it maybe covered by any warranty, (the car had its first service by Vauxhall before I owned it and its second service was carried out by a local garage (Hawkins & Shepherd, Liversage st, Derby,) who use genuine parts. Its third service was due in April but it is yet to have this.

The service department Manger said they would not cover this at all.

I also asked if they could give me an idea of repair costs. They offered to test drive it but then also suggested they may need to strip it down to see what the problem could be and wanted to charge me £78 an hour.

I have therefore taken the car to my garage (Hawkins & Shepherd) they have test drove it and suggest it needs a new gear box (I believe the model of gear box is M32) or possibly the gearbox may be repairable depending on the amount of damage caused inside the box.

The worst case would be a gearbox exchange & possibly a new clutch again depending on any damage. The cost if all of this is necessary will be around £1600.

I have 3 questions,
1 - is this a fair price?
2- in your opinion should a gearbox be able to do more than 37700 miles without going faulty, and if so is this M32 gearbox fit for purpose?
3- Should Vauxhall contribute towards its repair?
4- How should I go about persuading Vauxhall to contribute?

The car is booked in for next Tuesday 9th August, so any help would be very welcome.