The early 90s W140 MB's have a reputation for losing reverse.
Mine is a 92 but after more than 5 years of ownership no issues so far (touch wood).

But I've always made sure the car was completely stopped before moving the gear selector.

Shift down manually as you are decelerating. If you are going slow enough, it will drop to a lower gear.

never done that in an automatic, defeats the purpose of driving an automatic, lazy driving :D

yup 99 tahoe the reverse and 2nd are on a "sun" gear its really thin steel and sheers off. We tore it down ourselves and installed an upgraded one.

I can remember my dad down shifting into L when coming down our alley to put the car away. First time driving with him I decided I could do it too. Did it going a little too fast so chirped the tires some what. He wasn't all that upset but asked that I not try that again till I had more practice driving the car. '59 Pontiac 389 Tri-Power w/4-spd Hydramatic trans station wagon. He ended up selling that car, only new one the folks ever bought, when it started having problems with reverse. I think it was because we never changed the limited slip rear end gear oil in all the years we had it.

There's a metal band with friction material on it. It slips over the drum that holds your clutches and tightens when engine braking.

Don’t think you are allowed to call it that any more…

You're right.

It's sweet red Bruce Jenner fluid.

In an automatic trans it takes twice the line pressure to reverse
In reverse you're changing direction of rotation inside the trans hence the higher pressure
Which is why reverse is the first to go in a failing trans

I didn't know this and it makes sense.