First of all let me say that I love my car. However, I'm approaching my last free B-Service and have been noticing the following things:

*** Engine "ticks" loudly at idle - Sounds like a sticky lifter? I've always thought (from day one) that the idling engine sounds quite a bit like a diesel, but now this ticking is loud enough that someone else has noticed it.

*** Transmission slipping - This seems to happen once per day while taking off at a stop light, usually early in the morning. It feels like I'm in neutral and revving, and then suddenly goes into gear and lurches forward. It doesn't feel like the traction control kicking in.

*** Gearshifts are clunky - This seems to happen once per day while downshifting to 3rd gear. It feels like the car jerks/clunks into gear even though I'm not at high RPMs (only 2-3k at the most).

*** "Rotation" noise from wheels - This happens when traveling between 10-20 mph in parking lots.

My car has appoximately 45000 miles on it. Am I being overly paranoid, or are these things I should be worried about? I don't want the dealership to roll their eyes at me when I tell them what's going on.

did u take to dealer to get error codes read out?

Not yet. It is going to the dealer on Monday, but they always claim that they can't get error codes for anything.