I have come to that conclusion based upon reading numerous other peoples accounts on this forum of the same problem with the same car.

Symptom: Transmission works flawlessly. Reverse is there one second and gone the next. All forward gears work as does park. just no reverse. Linkage is ok.

Everybodys whos posts I have read have opted to have the job done by someone else. Is it really THAT hard? I can understand the normal joe not wanting to rip the trans out because it takes a while, but thats no big deal to me. Just once the trans is out and on a bench Ill need some instruction. I was also wanting to know of any special tools I might need.

Considering the amount of people that have reported this problem on this forum, This is a very common thing for these cars. Mercedes must have published some bulletin or repair info for their techs to guide them thru this procedure.