So my front tranny seal is leaking like a *&**&(. So now comes the good question how much is this gonna cost? I would prefer to have a manual tranny in the car should I swap now? From everything I heard the car needs to be racked and the tranny dropped, which probably means I can't go fix this in the parking lot.

swapping tranny is easy, as for the cost of fixing the auto... your looking at over 400$, labor, seals, bearings once its taken apart just like a motor, and if they find parts wrong most shops wont put it back together broke cause they gotta warranty it so you could be looking at up to 1000$ for rebuild the tranny. the manual swap sounds like a much better deal for the same cost or less if you can get some deals. i think my manual swap cost me like 934$