Thanks everybody for your advice and help with this. At this point I'm leaning towards having the dealer do a transmission service ($200) - they told me that includes a new filter, pan gasket and fluid top up.

The dealers have told me that If I do it myself I need to count on 5 + quarts so :

If I need to buy 6 quarts of fluid @ $22.50/quart,
Pan gasket at $20-ish (Advance Auto price)
Filter at $32,
Totaling $190 ( + tax)
I gotta be nuts not to have the dealer do it for me for $10 more!

I'll post back here with the results.
Thanks again very much for everyone's help,


Dave