It is darn near impossible to change a tie rod end and NOT do an allignment. Your tie rod ends are what control the alignment. If you change one, then there obviously was a problem with the car keeping proper alignment. Any MB dealer that would not do an alignemnt when changing an end is not doing their job (also it seems odd that they would not want to run up the bill as most dealers do). To take one off you are changing the alignment, and even if you "count the turns" when you put the new one on, the new one is inherently a different length from the old one.