Lx570 rear main seal

[Landinkyle]

A friend of mine not on mud has an lx with 150k. Doing scheduled maintenance at Lexus they found a small leak in the rear main and quoted $3200. I haven’t found any info here on this so figured I’d post the questions:
1. Is this price fair and about what you’d expect.
2. would you trust this to anyone other than a Lexus dealer.
3. if it’s a small leak is it important to remedy right away?
4. Since engine is removed for this, what else would you recommend doing?
5. If this isn’t necessary right away, are there other maintenance items that need to have engine removed to do that he should just wait for and do it all at that point if those items are more important than rms?

thanks in advance.

 

[TeCKis300]

Replace PCV valve first before anything else

It's not particularly important to address a rear main seal weep if it's not significant volume. It very well could have been a exacerbated or a symptom of other things - particularly a plugged PCV valve which would not adequately scavenge crankcase pressure. Also, it could be a sign of overfilled oil which is easily remedied. Or both.

I would address those first, run it for several thousand more miles, before any consideration of actually replacing the seal.

To answer your questions:
1) it's pretty labor intensive for what amounts to a $40 parts. At lexus rates (~150/hr), it's not out of the question
2) completely depends
3) nope
4) radiator, starter/starter solenoid, reseal for coolant valley leak
5) not really

 

[99toylc]

Check that PCV valve!
Exactly my story from the thread by the same title!

 

[KLF]

I agree, check the PCV valve first.

If that isn't the problem, then isn't it easier to drop the transmission? Seems pretty drastic to pull the engine.

 

[Valex]

I recently got a 2013 LX570 with 100k miles.
I seem to lose 1qt of oil over 3000 miles.
I know the lx570 got a new engine 1/2 year before I bought it, at some point it lost coolant and overheated, hence a new engine with 40k miles. Poor rear mail seal would be most logical explanation, right?

 

[Valex]

 

[Valex]

 

[Valex]