RWOGS: I found that it was much less expensive and less of a hassle to have my own tranny rebuilt by a local shop! I stayed-away from the franchise chains and found a local independent who did a great job at a very reasonable cost!

I have considered that too and been in contact with a reputable tranny shop but they are only open weekdays and it is hard to schedule when I'm going to drive straight in and have them look at it. Do you have a feeling about a reasonable charge for a local rebuild?

I'd budget between $1800 and $2500 based on where you live. You can save a few hundred dollars if you pull/install the tranny yourself.

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Jim

same thing happened to me, exactly, no reverse all of a sudden after months of warning in forward gears, a lurching feeling while stopped. Cost me $1400 in New Mexico for a rebuild and they did an excellent job, absolutely excellent, but it took them a whole week...other than that, no problem, and that was 30K miles ago.clutch packs were burnt they said

That sound exactly like my experience! I should add that before it completely stopped moving in reverse, it acted like the rear brakes were on...when I gave it gas, it felt like it wanted to move but was locked up.. the rear end even raised slightly.. but I know the brakes were not locked or dragging..after that it just "whirrrred" and did not move.

wow, that's weird. My 124 has a 3 second delay going into reverse, sure sign of future doom, but like all the other ones I've read about in that it's a gradual failure. Yours failed with no warning and no prior delays or slippage? Weird.

My 300sd did that reverse-gear delay from the day I bought it with 128k miles on it, to the day I sold it with 325k miles on it. It also did the hard 1-2 shift.

Both of these things, people start griping about certain death for the transmission, but that's not really true. A lot of cars show those characteristics and never have a problem.