As I was heading home from my girlfriend's house this past weekend I noticed a whine coming from the transmission about 40 miles after I left. I figured I'd drop by the dealership and drop it off as I was getting close to home, but as I progressed it rapidly got louder (to the point it sounded like I had a twin screw under the hood). Not even 5 miles after I noticed the issue, I shifted into 5th after starting from a red light, gentle acceleration and was greeted with a bang followed by an engine that revved freely. 1-4th would still work but I didn't want to push it so I had it towed to a dealership.

They're saying it was a failed snap ring and they don't really want to replace any of the gears because of it. This dealership has been pretty decent to me in the past, however the loud gear whine sticks in my mind. If anyone has had experience with this type of thing, am I looking at premature failure if the physical gears aren't replaced? Furthermore this is the 4th time I've had this damn transmission serviced. I'm really wishing they'd just throw the damn thing out and give me a new one, because I can't for the life of me figure out what would cause a snap ring to fail unless the case was out of spec.