sgriffith Posted December 6, 2004 Share Posted December 6, 2004 I am about to take my RX in to replace the water pump and all of the belts & was told that I should replace the cams & crank seal (cost of $165 for parts and labor). Has anyone else had this done & if so, what is the purpose? I really trust the mechanic & will probably just have it done, but wanted to make sure this wasn't a waste of money. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dgorrie Posted December 6, 2004 Share Posted December 6, 2004 I haven't had to approach this area yet, so don't have any experience in this area on this car. I have a '99 as well. I know that over time, with all the heat cars generate, the seals around the crank and cam shafts will harden and eventually start leaking. It's just a matter of time. Some leakage isn't too bad, unless the oil leaks onto something critical like a cam belt, then it begins to weaken the belt such that it won't last the full 90K miles. If the mechanic is seeing oil leaks, then it is definitely time to replace. If not, it is a judgment call. If he has to pull a lot of parts off to get to the seals, and he is already pulling those parts off for your other work today, then it makes sense to do the seals IF he is also reducing the price from what the seal job normally costs by itself. In other words, if he charges $165 all the time just to do the seals, then he should charge less today because he already has that area open. He probably is doing that, and it probably makes send to do it now as a precaution. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TunedRX300 Posted December 17, 2004 Share Posted December 17, 2004 I am about to take my RX in to replace the water pump and all of the belts & was told that I should replace the cams & crank seal (cost of $165 for parts and labor). Has anyone else had this done & if so, what is the purpose? I really trust the mechanic & will probably just have it done, but wanted to make sure this wasn't a waste of money. ← When I was at the dealer for brake inspection, my RX300's crank seal was found leaking into the water bump. It was covered under warranty since I only had 36739 miles at the time. Also got water bump and timing belt replaced under warranty because of the leak. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeremyp Posted December 19, 2004 Share Posted December 19, 2004 Replacing the cam and crank seals at the same time the timing belt is done is a good idea IF you aren't charged the full price of doing this job alone (as dgorrie said). Alldata says it takes 3.1 job hours to do the front crank seal by itself and the part is about $20. $165 seems reasonable for your mechanic to do both seals at this time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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