Q: dead ipod walking

while on vacation to nyc I had my 80 g video ipod plugged into my car stero it worked like a charm until the next day when I was sitting in back watching a movie, the ipod froze and I reset it but POW the sad icon came up and eventually it said you need to restore your ipod...I took it home plugged it in and my computer wouldnt recognize it, I updated my itunes still no luck, tried to restore in disk mode, no luck. I called apple the next day they offered to fix it for almost what the new ones are worth I laughed and hung up. So I am at my last hope as my gurgling ipod sits here on my desk...do I buy a new ipod? why would I buy a new ipod when this gurgling ipod is slightly over a year,magically over the warranty. If anyone has a suggestion it would be greatly appreciated....I have tried the famous disk mode restore, it usually says error 1437 which no one seems to know what that is, including apple. My computer says the device plugged into it has malfunctioned and it will not recognize it...in my itunes my ipod will come up but it just says ipod and not the nmed ipod that it was before, when I restore it it says error 1437 and can not complete the task. The battery seems to be fine but does have a lightening bolt in it sometimes but I left it to charge fully many times. I think I have a paperweight on my hands.