Crankshaft Seal Replacement Cost

You lift the hood and the front of the engine is wet with oil, right behind the big pulley at the bottom. Or there are fresh drops on the driveway, and a burning oil smell when you stop.

The usual suspect is the crankshaft seal, a rubber ring that keeps the oil in where the crankshaft comes out of the engine. Every engine has two, one at the front and one at the back.

So how much does a crankshaft seal replacement cost? For the front seal, the carmakers’ own parts and job times at $132 an hour come to $119.58 on a newer Subaru and $550.35 to $576.75 when Mazda reseals the whole front cover with it.

The rear one, the rear main seal, costs far more because the transmission has to come out. I priced that job in my rear main seal guide.

In this guide I will show you what the front seal job comes to, what owners paid, what makes the bill bigger, and how to tell which seal is leaking.

What the Carmakers’ Own Parts and Times Come To

These are front seal jobs the carmakers put a job time on in their bulletins, at $132 an hour, Tekmetric’s US average from June 2026. The parts are priced on the carmakers’ parts websites on October 16, 2026:

Subaru pays 0.4 hour to replace the front crankshaft seal on its 2011 and newer FA and FB engines, and another 0.4 hour to test for the oil leak first. Its seal is $13.98.

Mitsubishi pays 0.7 hour to take off the crankshaft pulley and replace the front seal on 2008 to 2011 Lancer and Outlander models, and 1.6 hours on the turbo Lancer Evolution and Ralliart.

The job on Mazda’s 2.5 engines with cylinder deactivation is bigger. Its technicians take off and reseal the front cover and fit a new front oil seal, which takes 3.6 or 3.8 hours depending on the model.

For that job the bulletin lists seven parts: the $12.85 seal, a $33.45 valve cover gasket, an $8.15 O-ring, a $6.64 sealing washer, three O-rings at $0.98, a $1.18 drain plug gasket and $9.94 of sealant.

Those come to $75.15, plus the engine oil.

The seal itself is cheap on other engines too. GM’s front seal for its 5.3 and 6.2 V8s is $14.92, and the Mopar front seal for the 2019 Jeep Grand Cherokee’s 3.6 is $29.59.

What Owners Paid

Here are the crankshaft seal bills I found from owners, with the date each was posted:

• A shop replaced the front and rear main seals and the valve cover gaskets of a second generation Toyota Tacoma for $2,100 out the door, in February 2022.
• A Honda dealer quoted $245 to fix a crank seal leak on a 2009 Accord, next to $225 for a valve cover gasket, filed in January 2017.
• A Volkswagen dealer replaced the $11.30 front crank seal of a 2009 Tiguan and then a $201.30 PCV valve, $774.07 in all, filed in October 2015.
• A local shop fixed the leaking front crank seal of a 2008 Tacoma for $200. The owner had feared $1,800 or more for a timing cover, in February 2011.
• A Toyota dealer replaced a Tacoma’s front seal, the leak came back, and the dealer redid it without labor. The owner paid $300 for a new crank pulley, in December 2010.
• A Toyota dealer wanted $1,500 to fix a leaking front timing cover seal on a Tacoma. The owner bought genuine Toyota parts and did it for $90, in November 2010.
• Honda paid for the parts and cut the labor on a 2005 Pilot crank seal job, which brought the $1,700 bill down to $1,100, in July 2009.

So owners paid or were quoted $200 to $1,700 for a crank seal job, and $2,100 with the rear main seal done too. The low end, $200 to $245, was a seal on its own.

What Makes the Bill Bigger

The pulley is the first thing. The new seal rides on the pulley’s hub, and a worn groove there lets oil past again, which is why that Tacoma owner had to buy a $300 pulley.

Mitsubishi’s bulletin has its technicians check the rubber of the pulley too, and replace the pulley if oil has damaged it.

The second thing is whatever pushed the old seal out. GM tells its technicians to check for misfires and low compression on a 2018 Equinox with a front seal leak, since those can raise the pressure inside the engine and force oil out.

On the 2009 Tiguan above, the dealer replaced the PCV valve after the seal. I advise you to ask the shop what caused the leak, or a new seal can fail the same way.

The third thing is a timing belt. On engines with a timing belt, the front seal sits behind the belt, so it is worth changing while the belt is off.

Which Seal Is Leaking?

Oil on the front of the engine around the bottom pulley points to the front seal. Oil dripping from where the engine meets the transmission points to the rear main seal.

Oil from higher up can run down and look like either one, and Subaru’s bulletin pays 0.4 hour for a leak test before the seal job.

On those 2.5 engines, oil seeps from the joints around the front cover, so the whole cover is resealed and not only the seal.

If it is the rear seal, my rear main seal guide puts that job at $600 to $1,200 on a car and $1,000 to $2,000 on a truck or SUV, because the transmission has to come out first.

Crankshaft Seal Questions You Might Have

Where These Prices Come From

• Subaru bulletin 02-161-15R (August 2020), Mitsubishi TSB-16-11-003 (November 2016), Mazda 01-006-23 (April 2023), GM PIP5517C (October 2019) and Jeep 9004115 (August 2019), on NHTSA’s website.
• Part prices, checked October 16, 2026: SubaruPartsDeal 806750080; MazdaPartsNow PE01-10-602, PYFA-10-235, PE01-12-257, ZJ01-10-243, PYFA-10-673, 9956-41-400 and 0000-77-1217-ES; GMPartsGiant 12634614; MoparPartsGiant 53021585AB.
• Owners’ posts on Tacoma World and CarComplaints.com, and NHTSA owner complaints, linked above, plus a 2006 Dodge Caravan owner’s report of a seal that popped out (December 2011). Tekmetric, Average Auto Repair Labor Rates by State, June 30, 2026. All read October 16, 2026.

I hope this helps you fix the right seal for the right price. If you have any questions, you can email me at costcheckr@gmail.com.