ird unit and gear box gone at the same time??

[jamieb61]

hi all!

recently towards the end of a long trip a slight knocking noise developed from the bottom of the engine on my 2002 1.8 freelander. the noise got louder and louder until i came to a halt when the noise got unbearable and i could hear something was seriously wrong. the engine still ticked over fine and i could still engage all of the gears, it was moving that was the problem...every 5 meters or so a grinding of metal.

ok so i got the car picked up by a recovery truck and taken to a local garage where they diagnosed the problem as being the ird unit or transfer box as they called it. i sourced myself one second hand because it was too expensive to buy new and had it sent out to me in spain. took the new part too the garage only to be called 2 days later telling me that the gearbox is gone too! and not only that but it had taken them 10 hours of labour to find this out, without even calling me! obviously i am very annoyed because i would have wanted to go and see for myself that there was another problem straight afetr the new ird was fitted. now i am a builder not a mechanic so i need some advice before i confront them on monday morning..... 1.does it sound feasable that both items went at the same time and only after fitting the new ird can you discover the gearbox has gone too?. 2. does 10 hrs seem close to how long it would take to remove/ replace ird and open up the gearbox?

i suspect that as i am english they may be trying to pull a fast one. either way they should have called me after they fitted the ird which was the work we had agreed too and let me come and inspect the new problem to decide what i wanted to do right?

thanks for reading and hope someone can help!

cheers

jamie