I have replaced the passenger side axle seal 3 times on my 2011 civic lx coupe and it still leaks. I took it to the dealer and they told me it’s because there is excessive play in the transmission and I would need to get a new transmission for $5000. Does this sound right?

 

That's pretty sad, instead of rebuilding the transmission the tech's now a days are just swap parts. We don't know how so we'll just do a re and re.

If there is play then it would be the differential of the transmission. Depending on automatic or manaual would depend on how challenging it would be to replace the part and get it to spec. (I think there are shims involved)

 

it you can pull the tranny, a decent tranny shop wouldnt charge that much simply swap out the diff bearings and re-shim it, if necessary, after checking the clearance which is a must since you're having clearance issues

i would say less than 500, this assumes the tranny has no other issues, but you could just have em rebuild it while theyre in there