Oil Leak Repair Cost in 2026: $10 to $2,500 — the Location Is the Price

No repair category has a wider gap between the part and the bill: the gasket costs $20, and the repair costs $10 or $2,500 — because an oil leak repair is a labor story, and the location writes it. A valve cover gasket sits on top of the engine and takes an hour or two. A rear main seal sits between the engine and transmission, and reaching its $25 of rubber means removing the transmission — 6-10 hours of labor that average out to an $1,100 job. Same symptom on your driveway, same class of part, a 10x difference in price, and both quotes can be completely honest.

Which is exactly why the second fact of this niche matters more than the first: gravity lies. Oil runs downward and gets blown backward at speed, so the lowest, wettest point on the engine is routinely not the source — upper leaks from valve covers and oil filter housings rain down onto the oil pan and collect there, wearing the pan's alibi. Shops that skip the trace step fix the wrong gasket at the right price, or the right gasket at a "reseal the engine" price. The $50-$150 degrease-and-dye diagnosis is the best money in this entire article.

This guide runs the full sequence: the ten-second check that confirms it's even engine oil, the driveway protocol that reads the leak's rate and probable source, 2026 prices for every leak location, the navigator to your route — including the one no shop will sell you (monitoring a seep, legitimately) — and the scripts that keep quotes honest. By the end you'll know what's leaking, how fast, roughly from where, your fair number, and your next move. If you arrived from the puddle itself, our oil leak symptom guide is this article's diagnostic twin, and oil change costs covers the maintenance side of the same system.

I built Pulscar — an AI tool that diagnoses car problems before you pay a mechanic — after spending $6,000 on misdiagnosed repairs over a few years. Oil leaks taught me the gravity lesson personally: the "oil pan gasket" I once paid for was a valve cover leak with good aim. Let's make sure your version of that story ends at the diagnosis instead.

How to use this guide

In order: confirm the fluid — ten seconds, and a third of "oil leaks" turn out to be something else entirely. Run the driveway protocol — rate, position, and probable source, free. Find your situation in the finder. Check the price ladder and the by-vehicle table for your fair number. Run the navigator to your route and use its script. If there's an oil light on or smoke from the bay right now, Playbook 1 near the end comes first.

One rule overrides everything: no four-figure leak repair without a clean-and-dye trace. The location is the price, the source is the diagnosis, and gravity is a liar — every expensive mistake in this category starts with skipping that step.

First: is it even engine oil? The ten-second check

Touch the drip spot (or the fresh drops on cardboard) and look:

Amber to dark brown/black, slick, smells like oil = engine oil; this article. Red or reddish-brown, thin = transmission fluid — different system, different money; the transmission guide takes it from here. Green, orange, or pink, watery, sweet-smelling = coolant; the coolant leak guide is your article, and low coolant escalates faster than low oil. Amber-to-brown but near a front wheel or the steering rack = possibly power steering fluid; the PS leak guide sorts it. Clear water under the front passenger area on a warm day = AC condensation; that's the system working, drive on happily.

Position helps too: engine oil lands under the engine (front third of most cars), transmission fluid mid-vehicle, coolant near the radiator at the very front. Ten seconds of looking prevents the most basic version of paying to fix the wrong system.

One more split before the protocol: leaking vs burning. If the level drops but the driveway stays clean — no spots, no drips — the oil is leaving through the engine, not under it: worn rings or valve seals burning it off (bluish exhaust smoke on startup is the tell). That's an oil consumption story, not a leak story, and no gasket on this page fixes it.

The 15-minute driveway protocol

Step 1 — The cardboard map (overnight, $0). Flatten a box under the engine before bed. Morning reading: number of spots (one clean drip point vs a spatter field), position relative to the engine (front = timing cover/front seal territory; middle = pan, filter, drain plug; rear = valve cover run-down or rear main), and size (dime = seep-to-drip; palm = active leak; puddle = stop-driving territory). Keep the cardboard — it's your baseline and your evidence.

Step 2 — The dipstick and the rate (2 minutes). Level now, and honestly: when did you last top up, and how much? The rate is the severity: a quart per 3,000+ miles = minor, schedule at leisure; a quart per 1,000 = active leak, weeks not months; a quart per few hundred miles or visible drop between fill-ups = urgent. Start a phone-note log today — date, mileage, level. Three entries turn "it leaks" into data every shop and warranty conversation downstream will respect.

Step 3 — The top-down look (5 minutes, flashlight). Hood open, start high and work down — because leaks flow down, the highest wet point is the prime suspect. Valve cover edges (top of the engine, where the cover meets the head): wet or crusted grime along the seam is the most common leak on the road. Oil filter and its housing: a loose filter or a leaking housing gasket (a famous European habit) drips from mid-engine. Front of the engine behind the accessory belt: timing cover and front crank seal territory. The oil pressure sensor (a small plug-in unit, location varies): a $30 part with a famous o-ring. Wet only low down with a dry top? Now the pan gasket, drain plug, and rear main become real suspects — but only now.

Step 4 — The last-touched question (30 seconds). Did this leak appear within days of an oil change? Then the first suspects are the drain plug (crush washer reused, double-stacked, or overtightened) and the filter (loose, cross-threaded, or the old filter's o-ring stuck to the block — a classic double-gasket leak). That's a return trip to whoever did the service, free, before any repair quote exists.

Step 5 — The exhaust proximity check (1 minute). Follow the drips upward: is oil landing on or near the exhaust manifold or pipes? Burning-oil smell or wisps of smoke after driving means yes — and that upgrades any leak from "schedule it" to "this week," because oil on hot exhaust is the fire-risk version of this problem. The burning smell guide sorts that smell from its siblings.

By the end you know: it's engine oil, its rate, its probable altitude on the engine, and whether recent service touched it. That's most of a diagnosis, free — and exactly the notes that make the $50-$150 dye trace fast and the quote checkable.

Find your situation: eight ways people arrive here

"There's a spot on the driveway every morning." → Rate check (Step 2), fluid check, cardboard map — then the ladder. A consistent small drip is the standard entry here; you have time to do this right.

"The level keeps dropping but I never see drips." → The burning-vs-leaking split above. Blue-ish startup smoke = consumption, not a leak. No smoke, no drips? Some leaks only weep at speed and burn off en route — the dye trace finds those too.

"It started leaking right after my oil change." → The last-touched rule (Step 4): drain plug washer and filter seating, and it's the servicing shop's problem to fix free. Don't buy a gasket for a $12 washer.

"There's a burning oil smell after driving." → Oil reaching hot exhaust — often a valve cover gasket leaking down onto the manifold. Prioritize; this is the fire-adjacent branch.

"The bottom of my engine is uniformly grimy and wet." → The classic gravity picture: everything below a leak gets coated. This is precisely the case the degrease-and-dye step exists for — the grime tells you there's a leak, and nothing about where.

"I was quoted a rear main seal." → The biggest verdict in the category. Two questions before anything: was there a clean-and-dye trace (rear mains are the most common beneficiary of gravity's lies), and is there a clutch or transmission job to bundle it with? The trap section and Route 4 carry the math.

"My old car seeps a little and I just want the cheapest sane path." → Route 5 — the monitoring route — is legitimate engineering, not neglect, and this article will show you how to do it properly instead of guiltily.

"I'm buying a used car and the engine is oily underneath." → Playbook 4: how to read an oily undercarriage, what it's worth in negotiation, and the one seller sentence that should raise your eyebrows.

What actually determines your price

Location — the whole game. Top of the engine (valve cover): 1-2 hours. Bottom (pan): 2-4 hours, more if the subframe interferes. Front (timing cover, crank seal): behind the accessory drive, sometimes behind the timing system itself. Back (rear main): behind the transmission — the 6-10 hour story. The part is $15-$100 at every one of these addresses; the address is the bill.

Labor rate. $100-$150/hour independent, $140-$210 dealer in 2026 — and because these jobs are 80-90% labor, the dealer-vs-independent gap compounds harder here than almost anywhere.

Engine layout. Transverse V6s hide the rear valve cover against the firewall (doubling that job); boxer engines put everything low and wide; some designs route the pan around subframes. Same gasket, different architecture, different hours — the by-vehicle table below maps it.

What rides along. A valve cover job on many engines should include spark plug tube seals (right there, same access); a pan job includes fresh oil and filter by definition; a rear main should be evaluated alongside clutch condition on manuals. Legitimate bundling saves duplicate labor — the trap section covers the illegitimate kind.

Diagnosis, included or billed. The $50-$200 trace fee is often credited toward the repair if you authorize it there — worth asking exactly as with any diagnostic fee.

One or many. High-mileage engines often seep from several places at once. An honest shop ranks them (fix the drip, monitor the seeps); the other kind quotes "resealing the engine." Ranking is the tell.

The price ladder: every leak, 2026 numbers

Read it bottom-up when a quote arrives — every rung below the quoted one is a question the shop should have answered. And the ladder's own rule: the parts-vs-labor breakdown is the honesty test. Labor at 80-90% of a rear-main bill is the geometry of the job; labor at 80% of a valve-cover bill is a shop testing you. (If oil is mixing into coolant or vice versa, you've left this ladder entirely — that's head gasket territory, with its own tests and its own math.)

Your number, by what you drive

Same gasket, different architecture. 2026 independent-shop ranges for the two most common jobs:

Use it as a benchmark and a translator: a $650 valve cover quote is padding on a Corolla and Tuesday on a transverse V6 — the table is how you know which conversation you're in.

Which route is yours? Answer five questions

Question 1: Under powertrain (5yr/60K typical) or bumper-to-bumper warranty? → Route 1. Your number: $0. Seals and gaskets are covered powertrain components — the most under-used fact in this category. Dealer first, documentation in hand.

Question 2: Did the leak appear within days of an oil change or other service? → The free route. Back to the servicing shop with the cardboard evidence: drain plug washer and filter seating are theirs to fix, gratis. Not a repair — a warranty on their work.

Question 3: Has a degrease-and-dye trace actually named the source? → No: that's your move, not a route — $50-$200, often credited to the repair. Say: "Clean it, dye it, and show me where it glows — then we'll talk about which gasket."

Question 4: Source confirmed as a top/middle leak (valve cover, filter housing, sensor, pan)? → Route 2 or 3. Your number: $50-$700 by the ladder. The standard path for the standard leaks.

Question 5: Source confirmed as a deep leak (timing cover, rear main) — or the leak is a seep on a car in its final years? → Route 4 for the big labor jobs, with the bundle math run first. Route 5 — monitoring — when the rate is low and the car's remaining life is short. Both are below, with their honest boundaries.

Oil leak repair cost: the five routes

Route 1: Warranty — $0

The powertrain warranty is the forgotten player here: people associate it with transmissions and engines exploding, but its fine print names seals and gaskets — and a rear main leaking at 45,000 miles is a four-figure job that coverage turns into a $0 one. Extended warranties are choosier ("seepage" exclusions are common), which is where your Step 2 log earns its keep: dated levels and photographed drip spots convert "it seems to leak" into a documented active leak.

What to say: "Documented oil leak — drip spots photographed, level log attached. Scheduling diagnosis under powertrain coverage; please note the dye-trace findings on the RO."

Route 2: The ten-minute fixes — $10 to $180

The cheap rungs are real and common: crush washers get reused until they don't crush, filters get installed onto a stuck old o-ring (the double-gasket leak — dramatic, fast, and free to fix), and oil pressure sensors weep from a $5 o-ring while looking like something expensive. The last-touched rule finds most of them: a leak with a service date attached goes back to the servicer first, with the cardboard as Exhibit A.

Fix it yourself? Genuinely: a drain plug washer is a $2 part and a careful re-torque; a loose filter is hand-tight plus three-quarters. If oil ends up on exhaust parts during the fix, wipe thoroughly — residual burn-off smell otherwise haunts you for a week and fakes a new leak.

Why are oil leak repairs so expensive when the gasket itself costs $20? Because the bill buys the path, not the part. Oil leak pricing is almost purely a labor story: the rubber at every leak point costs $15-$100, and what varies is the hours of disassembly between a mechanic and that rubber — one hour for a valve cover sitting in the open on top of the engine ($150-$500 total), six to ten hours for a rear main seal hiding behind the transmission ($600-$2,500, averaging around $1,100). At 2026 rates of $100-$150/hour independent and $140-$210 at dealers, the address on the engine writes the invoice. The practical use of this fact: request the parts-vs-labor breakdown on any leak quote. Heavy labor on a deep leak is geometry; heavy labor on a top-of-engine fix is padding — and the split exposes it in one line. Pulscar's estimates show both halves for exactly this reason.

Route 3: The gasket jobs — $150 to $700

The heart of the category. Valve cover gaskets are the most-replaced leak part on the road — rubber baking on top of a hot engine for a decade does what rubber does — and the job is honest, visible work: cover off, surfaces cleaned, new gasket and tube seals, torqued in sequence (not cranked — overtightening is how new gaskets leak). Filter housing gaskets are the European mid-engine classic. Pan gaskets are the same job performed lying down, priced by whatever the subframe allows.

Fix it yourself? The valve cover gasket is the classic entry-level DIY of the whole leak world: $30-$80 in parts (gasket + tube seals), hand tools, and an hour or two on most inline-4s — cover off, both surfaces cleaned spotless, new gasket seated, bolts torqued to spec in the factory sequence (snug, not strong — overtightening squeezes new gaskets into leaking, and it's the #1 DIY failure mode). Photograph hose and connector positions before removal, and expect one stubborn ignition-coil connector per job as tradition. Where DIY ends: firewall-side covers on transverse V6s (access, not skill), oil pan gaskets (the car has to be safely in the air, and some pans hide behind subframe hardware), and filter housings on pressurized European systems — those are shop rungs for most hands.

At the shop: "Dye trace confirmed [source] — quote that gasket with the seals it exposes, torque-to-spec, and degrease the area after so we can verify it's dry in two weeks." That last clause is the quality-control loop most repairs skip: a degreased engine can't hide either a botched fix or a second leak.

How do mechanics actually find where oil is leaking from? The honest procedure exists because gravity lies: oil runs down and airflow smears it backward, so the lowest, wettest point — usually the oil pan — is routinely wearing another leak's evidence. Valve cover gaskets and filter housings drip onto the pan constantly and get misdiagnosed as pan leaks constantly. The three-step trace: degrease the engine (old grime tells old stories), add UV dye to the oil and drive a day or two, then inspect under UV light — the dye glows precisely at the escape point, altitude and all. It costs $50-$200, is frequently credited toward the repair, and it's the highest-leverage money in the category, because every repair price on the ladder assumes the location is right. The corollary rule: no four-figure leak repair from any shop that hasn't cleaned and traced — "it's wet down here" is an observation. Pulscar's report tells you whether your symptoms even justify the trace, before the first invoice.

Route 4: The deep seals — $400 to $2,500, with bundle math

The deep seals are where the bundle rule earns four figures. Rear main: the transmission comes out to reach it — which is the same removal a clutch job requires. On a manual with a clutch past its midlife, RMS-plus-clutch costs one teardown instead of two ($300-$500 of seal work added to a clutch job, versus $1,100+ standalone). The reverse also holds: a rear main quote on a manual should always trigger the clutch-condition question. Timing cover and front seals: the same neighborhood as timing belt work and water pumps — a front-of-engine leak on a car due for its belt is one job wearing two names. The severity gate matters here too: a deep seal seeping (not dripping) on a healthy engine is often a monitor-and-bundle-later call, not an emergency — which is Route 5's territory.

At the shop: "Dye-confirmed [seal]. Quote it standalone, and quote it bundled with [clutch / timing service] — and give me the parts-vs-labor split on both." The two quotes side by side make the math self-evident, whichever way it falls.

Route 5: Monitor the seep — $0, done honestly

The honest secret of the category: many seeps never become anything else. A 180,000-mile engine with damp valve cover corners and a steady dipstick can seep contentedly for its remaining years, and spending $600 resealing a car worth $3,500 is math nobody's obligated to do. Doing it right: dipstick every two weeks (calendar reminder — the route lives or dies on this), the cardboard map quarterly to catch a seep graduating into a drip, an eye on the exhaust-proximity rule (that one upgrade ends the monitoring), and — the legitimate use of the stop-leak aisle — a high-mileage oil or seal conditioner, which softens hardened seals and genuinely slows the classic old-car seeps. What this route is not for: actual drips, anything near exhaust heat, or any car whose level moves visibly between checks. The line between patience and neglect is the log in your phone.

Is it safe to keep driving with an oil leak? Judge the rate, not the existence. A seep — damp residue, no drips, a dipstick that barely moves between changes — is drivable for months under honest monitoring: level every two weeks, cardboard check quarterly. A drip — spots where you park, a quart vanishing per thousand miles — gets a repair scheduled in weeks, with weekly level checks and top-ups bridging the gap. Three things end the driving immediately: an oil pressure warning light (bearings are minutes from running dry — pull over and shut down), a fast leak dropping the level between fill-ups, and oil reaching hot exhaust parts, where the burning smell and smoke are a fire question rather than a maintenance one. The engine's own logic is simple: it tolerates escaping oil right up until the level starves the bearings, and that repair dwarfs everything on the leak-price ladder. Pulscar's severity read makes exactly this drive-or-park call from your leak's pattern.

What the trace-and-fix actually looks like

Two short visits, five checkpoints — and each one is a question you're allowed to ask:

Visit one — the trace (30-45 min + your driving). The engine gets degreased (old grime stops telling old stories), UV dye goes into the oil, and you drive normally for a day or two — the dye needs miles to travel to the escape point. Ask: "Dye's in — how many miles do you want on it before the inspection?"

The inspection (15 min). UV lamp over the engine: the dye glows at the source — altitude, seam, and all. Ask: "Photograph the glow for me." That photo is the diagnosis: it names the gasket, anchors the quote to a rung on the ladder, and travels with you if you want a second price.

The quote check (5 min, yours). Photo against the ladder, quote against the table, and the honesty test: "give me the parts-vs-labor split." Deep leak with heavy labor = geometry. Top leak with heavy labor = padding.

The repair (1-6 hours by rung). Gasket surfaces cleaned, new seals seated dry or with the specified sealant (not "extra RTV everywhere" — excess sealant squeezing into oil passages is its own future failure), bolts torqued to spec in sequence — overtightening is how brand-new gaskets leak. Then the part most shops skip: the area degreased again, so the engine leaves clean. Ask for exactly that.

The two-week dry check (2 min, yours). Flashlight on the repair area: dry means done. Any fresh shine means a comeback visit under the repair's own warranty — which is why the post-repair degrease wasn't cosmetic; it made the engine unable to hide anything.

Total: a $50-$200 trace, a rung-priced repair, and a verification loop that closes. A shop that resists any checkpoint — the photo especially — just told you something the invoice wouldn't have.

The diagnostic trap: gravity's alibi, the reseal special, and the add-on stack

Trap one: gravity's alibi. The situation: oil all over the pan and lower engine. What the shop says: "Pan gasket — $600." Or worse: "rear main — $1,400." What's actually happening (often): a valve cover or filter-housing leak upstairs has been raining down for months, coating everything below; the pan and the rear main are wearing evidence they didn't produce. The real price vs. the quote: a $280 valve cover versus the four-figure verdicts below it. Defense: the trace, always — "degrease, dye, drive, show me where it glows." No glow, no gasket.

Trap two: the reseal special. A high-mileage engine seeping from three places gets quoted "engine reseal — $2,800" as one grim package. The honest version of the same engine: one drip that needs fixing ($300), two seeps that need monitoring ($0), ranked in writing. Defense: "rank the leaks by rate — which one produces the drips, and what does fixing only that one cost?" A shop that can't or won't rank them just told you the quote was built for their month, not your engine.

Trap three: the rear-main add-on stack. The transmission's out for the seal, and suddenly the estimate grows: transmission service, new mounts, a "transmission inspection fee." The honest core: some of this is legitimate — a fluid service while the transmission is out costs almost nothing extra, and a clutch on a manual is the canonical bundle. The padding: mounts, flushes, and inspection fees that weren't in the diagnosis and arrive only after the car is captive on the lift. Defense: the pre-authorization sentence — "nothing beyond the written estimate without a call and a photo" — and the dispute guide if something appears anyway. Our overcharging signs guide catalogs this trap's cousins.

Three real quotes, decoded

Scenario 1: Camry, 140K, oily everywhere underneath, general shop quote: "engine reseal, $2,750." Owner bought the $120 trace instead: degrease, dye, two days of driving. The lamp found one glowing seam — valve cover, rear bank. $340 fixed, and the follow-up degrease showed a dry engine at two weeks. The pan, front seal, and rear main — all named in the reseal quote — were wearing rained-down oil. Lesson: on a grimy engine, the $120 trace isn't a diagnostic fee; it's a $2,400 filter.

Scenario 2: Silverado, drips started four days after a quick-lube oil change, quoted $580 for a pan gasket — by the same chain. The cardboard map put the drip directly under the drain plug; the crush washer turned out to be two washers, stacked. $0 — fixed under the service's own workmanship, after one calm conversation with the manager and the cardboard as evidence. Lesson: the last-touched rule outranks every quote — a leak with a service date attached goes back to the servicer first, free.

Scenario 3: Manual Mustang, 130K, dye-confirmed rear main seep, standalone quote $1,350. Owner asked the bundle question: the clutch was original at 130K. Clutch job plus rear main plus resurfaced flywheel: $1,850 total — versus $1,350 now and a $1,600 clutch (with its own transmission removal) inside two years. One teardown instead of two saved roughly $1,100 of repeated labor. Lesson: on manuals, a rear main quote without a clutch conversation is half a quote.

Your situation right now: four playbooks

"There's a puddle this morning / the oil light flickered." Pressure light on = engine off, now — that light means the bearings are next, and no destination is worth them. Puddle without the light: check the level before starting; if it reads, top to full, drive gently and directly to a shop with your cardboard, checking for smoke. If the dipstick shows nothing, it's a tow — a $100 flatbed versus a $4,000+ engine is the easiest math in this article.

"It started leaking right after my oil change." Don't buy anything. Cardboard overnight, photo of the spots, level check — then back to the servicing shop, calm and documented: "the leak began after your service; the drip is under the drain plug/filter; I'd like it corrected." Reputable shops fix their own work without argument; the chains have regional managers for the ones that argue. Only if the trace later points somewhere unrelated does this become a normal repair.

"My old car seeps and I want the sane minimum." Route 5, done properly: the two-week dipstick habit, the quarterly cardboard, the exhaust rule as your tripwire, high-mileage oil at the next change. Budget a quart every month or two as the cost of the decision, and re-run the math only if a seep becomes a drip. This is maintenance strategy, not surrender — the log in your phone is what makes it the first and not the second.

"I'm buying a used car and the underside is oily." Read it like the protocol: uniform old grime = long-term seep, priced accordingly ($300-$800 off, by the ladder); fresh wet oil = active leak, trace required before purchase; a spotlessly degreased engine on an older car deserves its own suspicion — ask directly, "what was cleaned and why?" The seller line that raises eyebrows: "they all do that." Some do seep; "all" is doing heavy lifting in that sentence. A pre-purchase inspection with a dye trace ($100-$200) is cheap against a rear-main discovery in month two.

After the repair: keep it dry

The two-week verification: the repair area was degreased at the shop (you asked), so one flashlight look confirms dry — and catches the rare botched torque or the second leak the first one was hiding. The torque note (valve covers): a re-check at the first oil change catches the gasket settling; thirty seconds for the shop, ask for it. The log continues: two more monthly level checks post-repair close the case properly — a stable dipstick is the repair's real receipt. The stain amnesty: driveway spots outlive their leaks; degreaser on the concrete resets your early-warning system so the next drip gets noticed in week one, not month six.

Your action plan: next 10 minutes, today, this week

Next 10 minutes (free):

1. The fluid check: touch, color, position. Engine oil, or a different article?
2. The level and the light: dipstick read, and confirm no pressure warnings. Start the phone log with today's entry.
3. Cardboard down for tonight.

Today: 4. Read the map: spot count, position, size. Run the top-down flashlight look and the last-touched question. 5. If it's post-service — the servicer call, with photos. If it's near exhaust — this week becomes today.

This week: 6. Rate unclear or engine grimy → the $50-$200 degrease-and-dye trace, credited toward the repair where possible. 7. Source named → the ladder for your number, the by-vehicle table for your multiplier, the route script for the shop — with the parts-vs-labor split requested on anything over $400. 8. Deep-seal verdicts → the bundle question (clutch? timing service?) before any standalone authorization.

For the symptom side: oil leaking from your car (this article's diagnostic twin), oil change costs (where the cheap leaks are born), burning smells, and the neighbor fluids — coolant leaks, power steering leaks, and head gaskets when fluids start mixing. For the money side: what a diagnostic should cost, dealership vs independent, signs you're being overcharged, and disputing a bill. And our story explains why Pulscar exists.

How these numbers were built: cross-checked against 2026 shop-survey data (valve cover $150-$500, oil pan gasket $300-$700, pan replacement $350-$800, rear main average ~$1,100 with a $600-$2,500 spread), 2026 labor rates ($100-$150/hr independent, $140-$210 dealer), and published estimator ranges. Assumes independent-shop labor and dye-confirmed sources. Prices reviewed quarterly — last verified July 2026.

Holding a leak quote with no trace behind it? Email [email protected] with the itemization and we'll tell you which rung it belongs on.