Replying to Broken ipod.

Yeah so I bet a lot of people on here have broken ipods before. Mine just broke because I happened to drop it on the sidewalk. I was just wondering if you guys ever went through the trouble to get it fixed/replaced. I talked to the guys at apple and they said its not on the 1 year warranty anymore so theres pretty much nothing they will do for me. Researching online I've seen a lot of third party sites where you can send it to and they will do repairs for you. Just wondering if you guys have any experience with this, how much it costs, how long etc.