It's not a good sign when a manufacturer doesn't provide replacement parts. I wouldn't take one person's opinion as the final word, though.
Then again, it may take some creativity to get someone to go against that scary, threatening, carved-in-stone company policy, and make an exception.
Something like a letter to the company CEO, spelling out in graphic detail how your neighbor's dog ate the grear and you've been looking thru steaming hot piles of stool trying to reclaim the gear, to no avail.. but then again, s/he might be a cat lover and feel no sympathy at all.
The RC/model industry is fairly vast in terms of accessories and "upgrade" parts, making a wide variety of small mechanical parts much more commonly available.
Trouble is, generally, RC and various parts suppliers do such a poor job at listing actual parts specs, finding something can result in a fairly complicated research project.