Major transmission failure - Manufacturing fault?

Question

I have recently purchased a brand new 800cc 4 speed manual dune buggy. As part of my testing after around 3 hours of driving (carefully and without any impacts) the manual transmission has essentially exploded and roughly an inch sized hole appeared where a couple of the internal components along with a metric ton of oil has been ejected out.

I don't know exactly what type of transmission is in this vehicle but have been advised it is a motorcycle transmission.

Could someone please advise, how common is something like this happening? I understand obviously different gearboxes will be manufactured to different standards but excluding a manufacturing fault - I guess what I am asking is - is there any possibility that anything I could have done could cause such a catastrophic failure in such a short period of time?

I realize this is a somewhat open ended question but any input would be appreciated.

Answer 1

That sounds like a manufacturing fault to me. Unless you've been badly mistreating it, an average gearbox should last for tens of thousands of miles - and even then, failures don't normally result in parts of the geartrain being ejected through the block!