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CX-5 - Front Oil Seal Replacement, Alternator Belt, Serpentine Belt

Not as hard as I thought it'd be to do all of this maintenance on my 2016 Mazda CX-5.

Luckily I had my brother to guide me. I did all the work he just supervised. Bought him a cheddar spud (big potato full of cheddar and brisket) from a local bbq place as payment! Its delicious and very worthy for payment!

2016 Mazda CX-5 belt diagram.
2016 Mazda CX-5 belt diagram.

First thing was remove the belts. To me they're called serpentine belt (long belt) and alternator belt (short belt). For the drive belt I just cut it off since I bought OEM belts from the Mazda dealership nearby.

Second, remove the crankshaft pulley. My brother brought his air compressor to use his air gun to easily remove the crankshaft bolt. Very easy!

Third, remove the seal, very very carefully.

2016 Mazda CX-5 front oil seal replacement diagram.
2016 Mazda CX-5 front oil seal replacement diagram.

Fourth, push the new seal in carefully as well and rub some motor oil around the edge. I bought a seal kit to help push the seal in uniformily.

Fifth, put the crankshaft pulley back on.

Sixth, put on the alternator belt and use the crankshaft pulley to help turn it onto place like a bicycle chain.

Seventh, put on the serpertine belt and make use of the very useful belt tensioner. Use a 17mm wrench to turn the tensioner and then wrap the serpertine belt onto the pulleys.

Eighth, tighten the crankshaft pulley back, 74-88 ft lbf. This was probably the tricky part of the whole thing because I did not have a pulley holder in order to keep the pulley in place so I can tighten the bolt. We inserted a little wrench and worked BUT broke off and took a while to fish out the broken piece out of behind the crankshaft pulley!

That was that! Pretty proud and happy to do this with my brother and able to save $1044.96! I was quoted ONLY for the seal replacement $1200 from the Mazda dealership, pretty crazy!

  • Seal = $16.77
  • Serpentine belt = $22.25
  • Alternator belt = $46.37
  • Crankshaft and Camshaft Seal Tool Kit = $69.65
  • Total = $155.04