Hyundai Repair: car wont reverse, remanufactured transmission, hyundai coupe

Question
HI, can anyone help me with this a.s.a.p. as im going to the garage tomorrow morning. I drove home from work as usual and as i was pulling into the drive i felt something wrong with the connection through the gears. i decided later to take it for a test drive and it wouldn't go into reverse. all the other gears are fine. its like it just wont connect ! i got a mechanic to have a quick look at it and he says he will have to take the gear box apart and check the transmission or something. he said there might be some fibers stuck ? my car is a 1998 Hyundai coupe fx auto 16v 2.0 litre. im afraid they will go over the top here for a simple solution. any quick responses would be appreciated. thanks, Murray

Answer
If you have an automatic transmission, the greatest likelihood is that it's internal in the transmission.  But it's also possible that you have a shift cable or range switch that's misadjusted or not working properly.

If you have a manual transmission, it's possible that the shift cable or shift mechanism (either external or internal to the transmission) is the problem.  Since the other gears work properly, I'm leaning toward a problem inside the transmission, but the likelihood of this is more like 50%, with 25% being a shift cable issue, and the other 25% being an external shifting mechanism issue.

If you have a manual transmission and this is a good mechanic, you're probably on the right track.  If it's an automatic, this probably isn't the mechanic for this job.  Disassembling an automatic transmission usually results in little except determining that it's cheaper to install a remanufactured transmission than to repair the one you have.