How to know when to seek diagnosis?

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No, he has never flapped his hands or banged his head. He does sometimes repeat part of what I say, but it seems somewhat appropriate, i.e. I will say "Look, a blue bird!" and he will say, "Oh yeah, a blue bird!", or "A blue bird, oh!". He doesn't repeat phrases just for the sake of repeating them, doesn't pick up phrases from TV or movies, and switches pronouns correctly nearly all of the time. He just recently has started copying other children a lot when playing...so he will do EVERYTHING that they do, including what they say. It drives my daughter nuts , but he'll stop if we ask him to, and it's seems to just be a "play" thing...he doesn't do it in class for example, but will do it on the playground. His conversational language is still coming along, and I know that I have a tendency to parrot back what he says to him (to make sure I understand what he said).

He loves cars, and for a while was somewhat obsessive about them. That was always what he played with, and he likes to lay on the floor to push them around in front of his face. I know part of that is because he's watching the wheels move (he doesn't hold them up and just spin the wheels), but he also seems to play appropriately with them. He has a road mat and he pushes them along the road, parks them in the parking lots, crashes them and laughs, etc. He still plays with them now but not AS much as he used to, and he will share them with other kids and even put them away in order to go play with other things or go play with other kids (he has a cousin very close in age and they play together often).

I have never seen most of the symptoms listed on things like the M-CHAT from him, or only occasionally. If anything, socially I worry about him less than I did his sister, who didn't take much of an interest in friendships until she was closer to 4. There are mild things...sometimes he doesn't seem to hear me (his hearing was tested and is fine) or pay attention to what I'm saying. The way he plays with cars in front of his face. The refusal to try new foods. The sensory seeking behavior. He's getting better now with age, but stores and restaurants overstimulate him (he doesn't cry, but he gets hyperactive). He also has attention to detail/hyperawareness...I can't count the number of times he's picked a piece of lint off the floor and handed it to me . I definitely believe though that if he does fall on the spectrum somewhere, it is mild...I think if he was more severe, more things would jump out and he would be having difficulty at school already. He's very affectionate but I also know that many spectrum children are as well. He's strong willed and wants things to go the way he envisions them...example, last night we went over to my in-laws house for dinner. He wanted to knock on their door, but my mother-in-law heard us on the porch and opened it before he could knock. He screamed and cried, angry that she had spoiled his plan . He stood on the porch, upset, until about 5 min later I went back out, closed the door for him, and allowed him to knock on it. It's not so much that he's rigid about routine (he's never knocked on their door before), it's that he wants to do everything and gets mad if he can't or if someone else does it. That may just be typical 3 year old butthead behavior though

Thank you all for talking this over with me...it helps immensely.