Can't thank you guys enough. Really solid advice.

The only obvious issue I'm noticing at the moment are the front brakes which I'm doing this weekend. Also sounds like the consensus on these boards is to swap out the tranny fluid even though every shop I talk to says to leave that pandoras box alone.

My fear around the tranny is probably fueling the urge to buy the extended warranty. If I do I'll be reading each word of fine print.

 

Well, my tranny fluid advice only comes from reading other posts and the "official" ZF notice that says the life of the fluid is about 75,000 miles. I have yet to do it on my L3, but am actually planning to give it a go this weekend. My personal belief (so take with a grain of salt) is that the fluid is best changed between 75-100k miles, but I don't think I'll touch the filter until the 150k-200k mile range when I have to do this again (or unless I see problems).

Despite not having touched the L3 tranny yet, I HAVE changed all the fluid on my L322 a few weeks ago and have noticed no ill effects. I haven't really noticed any improvements either, but that tranny shifted smooth as butta to begin with. The reason I changed out all the fluid was due to a tranny overheat issue, so replaced the oil cooler, fluid, and filter (radiator had just replaced recently).