Echo 2000

[Dion Worles]

Isuggest that you continue to drive your Hondas, assuming that they run well and have less mileage than this Echo. It will take 5 years to pay off the $4000 with gas savings if you drive 10,000 miles per year. It will be more if you have to pay more to repair the Echo, and that is likely considering the mileage.

Well if you are just looking for a beater for the husband to learn to to drive a stick that sounds pretty good-but, for 7K more you can probaly get a base Versa or something similar brandnew.Zero miles and you will have another economical car,4K just sounds like too much money for the Echo-Kevin

And, even with both of those provisos, you are still very likely to have periodic repair issues with a 12 year old car with over 200k miles on the odometer. Please DO NOT fall into the trap of thinking that, because it is a Toyota it will run forever, despite possibly lax maintenance in its past.

Even the best cars need repairs and maintenance. We have a meticulously maintained Toyota 4Runner (great repair record according to CR) that needed a front hub bearing at a cost of $500. Our 2011 Toyota Sienna needed new tires at 35,000 miles even though I kept the tires properly inflated and I rotated the tires every 5000 miles. I am almost certain that there are repairs lurking ahead on a 2000 Toyota Echo with 255,000 miles.

You can pick one of these up with some work needed for less than $500 and a good running one for $1200 or so. Beware of severe frame rust where the front control arms bolt up. You may have a great running car with no outside rust but this area is about to come apart! Also give the engine a good look and see if the PCV system is clean, if seals are leaking, etc. Again, this stuff is super easy to replace but can be indicative of how well the engine was serviced.

I personally would not pay more than $1000 for an Echo with 255K on it, even if it seems in great shape. They were great little econoboxes when new, but at that mileage the better part of its life has passed. Things will routinely wear out and fail, some of them expensive.

I was helping my friend with a problem on his wife's 2000 echo yesterday and ran into a problem that's confusing me. It has 140k miles and less than great maintenance. We couldn't get straight answer from her about how long it's running badly or when the CEL came on.

It ran like poo and had several fault codes, a couple for evap related stuff, that I think was caused by a cracked hose near the purge solenoid (easy fix) a several misfire and fuel trim codes. I should have written them all down, but didn't. they were lost due to having the battery out to clean up corroded terminals.

Now it's giving a p0300 (general misfire) and p0301 (cyl 1 misfire) idles awful and bogs until at about 2000 RPM. Swapping coils made no difference, and all seem to be working. The injectors seem to be working, each cyl drops out as that injector is disconnected.

I'm unfamilar with the Echo's engine, if it is coil on plug then swap the #1 coil and see if the fault moves. Did you inspect the old spark plugs' porcelain (on the outside) for carbon tracking? If a plug has carbon tracks, you need to put new wires/boots on since the spark will still arc down the boot. Probably wreck the new plug, too.

Try pulling the codes again. It does kinda sound like the VVTi may be having "issues." It runs fine way up on top, right? Just down low it runs like crap? If the mechanism was all gunked up and stuck, I think that might do it. Don't know how to check for that. The computer is only going to throw a code for that if the valve itself is disconnected electrically. You might try disconnecting the valve and seeing if there is any difference in the way it drives.

What does the LTT (long term trim, it will be in the live data) number look like? I bet it's positive (correction in the rich direction) and pretty high. I'd suspect a relevant sensor fault (O2, airflow, temperature) somewhere falsely screaming that things are lean.

Our GS300 was running rough at idle and wanting to bog down and stall at low RPMs. It turned out to be a bad VVTi oil control valve. The valve was sticky and the oil filter for it (small stainless mesh screen) was plugged. Cleaning the filter helped but then it got worse again. Replacing the valve fixed it 100%.

It was throwing a VVTi solenoid code, though. I don't know if it's possible for it to be bad and not throw a code. You can try unplugging the solenoid to see if it makes a difference. If there's no difference, then your solenoid is stuck.

You do a quick and dirty diag for a whacky upstream O2 by unplugging it, resetting the computer(disconnect battery), and going for a drive. They'll gradually start to read lean after 100k or so, but I've seen one go full batE36 M3 crazy before at like 120k and make the car useless with it plugged in.

A lower number than it should be means it is measuring low flow. Either due to a dirty MAF, or a vacuum leak/false air. It could also be due to cam timing being way off but IME the idle mechanism will crank up the airflow to compensate. It takes a given amount of air to idle, generally in the 3.5-6.0g/s range depending on engine size and idle speed.

Now, the fun part is, you can't look at fuel trims if it is actively misfiring, because a dead cylinder will pump the exhaust full of oxygen and if the computer is running in closed loop, it will also start dumping all kinds of fuel for that reason. Fords have historically been really bad for this because they are really bad at misfire detection. A computer should kick out into open loop if a misfire is occurring.

try cleaning the MAF, when I first got my echo it ran poorly at low rpm also. I cleaned the MAF and changed the PCV and it ran great afterwards. also a common problem is the Oil control valve, which works the VVTi

Before you do anything else, pull the intake boot. Toyotas and Hondas were notorious for the rubber rotting and getting a big split in the bellows. Chances are its on the bottom of the boot near the engine end.

That causes almost all of what you describe. The vacuum leak means the MAF says its getting 2 lbs of air but the O2 sensors are reading 4 lbs worth coming out. At idle it makes misfires and wet plugs. When you open the throttle, the MAF is reading 6 lbs of air, but the engine is actually getting 12 lbs, hence the lean bog.

Removed the VVTI valve filter screen, it was dirty, by not what I would call plugged. The VVTI solenoid won't come out. So instead of risking breaking it, I'll wait till I get a new one and just replace it.

Now that the MAF is reading correctly, go on and re-clear the computer and see how it do. It probably will be running horribly rich until it can go into closed loop again and re-correct itself, otherwise. Do not disconnect the O2 as it will never go into closed loop (obviously) and it will just be going off of its learned long term fuel trims, which will be massively high due to the previously dirty MAF.

I couldn't get the O2 sensor disconnected, and I found the springs on the exhaust pipe to manifold bolts were both broken. Doesn't sound like an exhaust leak, but it's one more thing that needs to be fixed.

The stupid thing snapped off as soon as I yanked on it.The valve body was absolutely stuck fast in the cyl head. I pulled the valve cover off to see if could push it out from the inside, and found that the small part of the valve that is visible was split open.

I spent the next three hours cracking the valve body apart from the inside out with a sharp thin chisel. I don't yet know if I'm brilliant or a butcher. I'll go back tomorrow and clean out the crumbs. I managed not to gouge housing in the cyl head, so I have that going for me at least.

It was a whole lot happier (but not perfect) after the O2 sensors were replaced. The exhaust manifold to pipe mounts broke the rest of the way when I touched them, so it's definitely leaking and effecting the sensor reading now.

Could a partially clogged oil filter cause a VVTI malfunction? The oil warning light wasn't coming on, but after an oil and filter change it's noticeably better. I know the idiot light is not the most accurate device, and before the oil change the engine the engine had run about 3-4 seconds to make the light go out from a cold start up, now with fresh oil& filter, it goes out before the engine lights off.

The Toyota Echo, known as the Platz in its homeland (the hatchback was named Vitz), was available in the United States for the 2000 through 2005 model years. It was an inoffensive and reliable little commuter appliance, but something about its proportions seemed wrong to American car shoppers and few signed on the line that is dotted.

Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards.These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.

Remember the summer day and the white walkway just outside a strip mall where I saw my first Echo yanking and banking into a spot nearby my feet.Four large and loud ladies inside with arms all out the windows. The passenger bailed and ran into a store.Well I thought the looks of the car were striking. It was also silver like in the pictures. Glistening and brand spanking new. I thought it was a new Toyota electric car! So I roll on up to the driver and I ask her, "What's it like?" She gives me this sort of slow, gum chewing, surveilling half-smile. Her eyes bright and dancing. "Goes over curbs great!" she says. And the two girls in the back giggle hard. I don't recall if any other little things were said and don't know why that incident sticks with me, but that's my Toyota Echo memory.

Late reply I know... Currently running a 2005 ECHO bought off the daughter. Now at 207,000 KM. Automatic. Hate it. Love it. 42 imp mpg regular fuel. Rust is insignificant. Certainly nothing structural. Silent running timing chain. $200 for brakes on all fours. $40 MAF. $20 oil change. Cheap. Cheap. Cheap. Everything works dammit!

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