DSG cover rusty and oil leak

[CDP]

Hi, I had already become a member of this forum but couldn't access my old account, so apologies for the noob post count.

I have sprung a leak in my gearbox today and need some advice!

Car: 2007, 2.0 TDI 140, DSG, saloon, ~135k.

I was changing the engine oil earlier (normal servicing) and noticed that the underside of a front-facing black steel cover plate on the front of the DSG gearbox was really quite rusty. The main body of it is fine: painted back steel, it's just the very lower section that faces the road that the paint has flaked off and exposed the steel.

I tapped it lightly with my knuckle and the bloody thing was evidently *so* thin that it sprung a leak! It's currently dripping about once per second. I'm collecting the oil in a clean container.



I'm staggered that this cover (does anyone know what it's for and what it's called?) has become rusty to the extent that I can basically poke a finger through: the car is only 7 years old! That's the sort of thing I'd expect to find on a 40 year old Mini at MOT time.
A bit of surface rust on some components of any car is expected after 7 years, but to be wafer thin is just a joke...

So has anyone experienced anything like this before? Is this cover easy to source (dealer-only, I assume) and replace? Are there any major pitfalls to encounter when replacing it?
It looks like it's held in place with a few Torx bolts and access isn't overly terrible from a quick glance.

Thanks everyone.

[CDP]

A conclusion to this issue for anyone else to benefit from:

I found out the name of the rusty item: a 'mechatronics' cover, apparently. It was around £33 from a VW dealer. Along with the cover, 6 litres of DSG oil and a DSG filter were bought from the dealer at around £15/litre for the oil and around £18 for the filter.

Because I was very careful to catch everything that dripped out of the hole in a clean, dry container and because the last fill was done proficiently at a VW dealership, with no intervening leaks from the gearbox, I was happy to accurately measure the oil drained with a measuring jug and replace that quantity through the filter hole.
The gearbox had been shifting and operating perfectly for the last 40k miles, so with exactly the same amount back in I knew it should be fine.

I cleaned and vaccumed the area around the mechatronics cover prior to removal, to prevent dirt ingress. The mating surface was cleaned to ensure a good seal for the rubber gasket, which came supplied with the new cover incidentally.

If you're attempting this, I found that removal of the starter motor gave much improved access to the area.

The total volume collected through the mechatronics cover rust hole and, later, the main drain plug was 5.05 litres. I added 50ml to account for residue in the containers and the odd drip that escaped the collection pot. This took an absolute age to put back into the gearbox through the filter hole: around 1hr 45mins...

After re-assembly and a decent test drive in conditions that required the gearbox to be continually changing up and down through the gears, the car behaved perfectly. I'll be keeping an eye out for leaks over the next few days/hundreds of miles.