Had a good chat with my Indy a couple of weeks ago about a slight leak from the plug sleeve on the gearbox housing. Told him that, although I wasn't having major problems with the box, I felt it was holding onto the gears for longer than it should. Not slipping, per se, but the car seemed to spend virtually no time below 1500-2000 revs. He immediately said change the fluid, along with a new pan, filter and sleeve. I mentioned the horror stories I'd heard about doing this at my mileage (95,000) and he said that previous to having his own place, he was a master tech at BMW and spent some time working with someone who had been an employee of ZF and was brought to the UK by BMW to work with them. This guy had said categorically that the fluid should be changed before 100k miles, no matter what. I didn't hesitate to book that job in.

Whilst there it had:
2x drop links installed.
2x trailing arms fitted (the bushes were shot which was making the car wallow quite a bit.)
All brake lines/rear flexi hoses replaced as a pre-emptive maintenance job.
Handbrake tightened up.

All in £668, which is about $1100, but the car has been totally transformed.

Car is so much quicker going through gears and revs sit at just over 1,000rpm at 30mph now.

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BMW X5 4.4 2004