Originally Posted by MrMoose

Before you spend time and money replacing the joint rod and reverse lever, I would suggest just checking them. IIRC you can just do this with the car on the ground if you're a little flexible.

Put the car in any gear and get under the right rear corner of the car: you should see the cable end attached to the reverse lever at the transmission. You can see how it works: moving the shifter left and right moves the cable forward and back. This rotates the reverse lever, and moves the joint rod left and right across the top of the transmission. They shouldn't really call it the "reverse lever", honestly, because it's not just for reverse...it lets you select all the gears to the left and right of the 3-4 gate.

Now grab the reverse lever and try to rotate it. You'll probably feel a little play but not much: that's the combined play of the reverse lever, joint rod, and transmission input. If that's all relatively tight then the parts are okay and not worth replacing, just have your mechanic do the shift lever centering and cable length adjustment at the shifter itself.