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Toyota Echo

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    mralanmralan Member Posts: 174
    The pictures are too cool! The new ECHO has a Camry appeal from the rear. The overall increase of length must be from sheet metal redesign. I doubt the wheelbase has changed.

    According to the Toyota site, 03 ECHO's will start arriving tomorrow, Sep 3.
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    coolguyky7coolguyky7 Member Posts: 932
    Wouldn't it be really wacky if Toyota started selling many more ECHOs? I think the styling changes are very appropriate. Moving the license plate makes the back end look much less awkward. Now all of Toyota's sedans have that garnish above the license plate. Corolla has it too but it's color keyed.
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    coolguyky7coolguyky7 Member Posts: 932
    That pale, shiny green ECHO in the Platz pictures looks to be "Aqua Ice."
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    thooverthoover Member Posts: 49
    Check your dealer, ours has the sales brochures for the 03 ECHO, but no cars yet. The changes to the front end seem to make it look more like other Toyota cars. Any sightings yet?
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    sfechosfecho Member Posts: 26
    We just bought our second Echo! Our first Echo, a silver 4-door automatic has every option but ABS. We bought it new in 2001. Our newest Echo, a green 2-door we bought used for $8400. It has automatic, A/C, PS, defroster and CD. It has only 12000 miles. I think we got a good deal, any comments?
    The first Echo is due for it's 30,000 mile service. I notice in the maintenance book the spark plugs need to be changed. I don't get dealer service since they're so expensive and the shop that gave me an estimate says the Echo uses Iridium spark plugs and should last 60,000 to 100,000 miles. Does anyone know the descrepency?
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    vocusvocus Member Posts: 7,777
    Who drives the first and who drives the second one? Congrats on the purchase, sounds like a good price.
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    pulgopulgo Member Posts: 400
    At least here in Canada 2001 Echos came with copper electrode spark plugs. I changed mine at 20K miles to Platinum plugs (easy to do yourself). Next change will be at 80K miles (as a precaution).
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    majorthomechomajorthomecho Member Posts: 1,331
    Sorry for dropping off the face of the Earth, but my Internet Connection at home is really bad and I was unable to reach Edmunds townhall. I am at work in the breakroom as I type these words. Until I get the home situation resolved, not sure how much I will be around.

    I read the articles in Motor Trend and AMI Autoworld about the changes in the 2003 Echo and I called the dealership where I bought my Echo. They don't expect to get the '03 until mid-October. This could be due to our being in the middle of the country.

    When I have gotten to see it in person, I will make an effort to get online and tell you what I think.
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    coolguyky7coolguyky7 Member Posts: 932
    www.toyota.com/echo

    The American Toyota site has updated the ECHO page for 2003.

    Wow, that black ECHO on the main ECHO page looks very sharp...reminds me of the last Tercel.

    Actually, the site is partially up, but should be finished within the next day. Usually they don't leave it half finished for too long. The rear of the black ECHO looks fantastic with a crisp trunk lid. Don't tell the 2003 Accord fans, but I think the front of the ECHO is a little bit like it in light and simplicity of the grille. Also, I think the profile view of the head and tail lights make it look somewhat Lexus GS-like. Overall, I think this car is much sharper and likeable than the 2000-2002. I liked that one too but I think this one is more appealing. Toyota may have been looking to change it the most it could without a redesign to really boost sales. Does anyone know how current ECHO sales compare with those of the latest years of the Tercel? I wouldn't mind trading in my Corolla for this new car. I noticed an interior showed power windows...perhaps they will be more available now?
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    coolguyky7coolguyky7 Member Posts: 932
    Looks like the new instrument cluster gets a TACHOMETER and another little screen of some sort containing fuel and other info.
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    mralanmralan Member Posts: 174
    The 03 ECHO looks like a cross between the last Tercel and a Civic ... but I mean that in a good way.

    According to the Toyota website you only have a choice of pebble beige interiors on the 03 until January.
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    coolguyky7coolguyky7 Member Posts: 932
    To me it seems that only Pebble Beige is available now and the Dark Charcoal will come in January, then there will be choices available. The poor Seafoam Blue didn't make the transition. I wish Toyota would put up more interior pictures, especially of the beige fabric, along with more exterior photos of some of the options and body styles. And this year, there looks to be no black, only Phantom Gray Pearl.
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    wrgrahamwrgraham Member Posts: 112
    I dont know for sure, but from what I have read here I believe the 00 Echo (mine) has the
    Iridium spark plugs, but the 01 Echo probably does not.
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    sluglineslugline Member Posts: 391
    If you're going with the Prestone brand, seek out the newer formula in the silver bottles. It will not damage water pumps like the familiar yellow-bottle formula people have used for years.

    Prestone, Havoline and Xerex all have "long life" coolant formulas available. The quickest way to tell is to see if the bottle says that it meets GM's "DEX-COOL" standard. Otherwise, look for silicate-free, phosphate-free coolants labelled safe for aluminum engines.

    I got curious about this subject awhile back and even exchanged a little correspondence with a Havoline engineer, so I ended up learning way more than I needed to know!
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    mdrewmdrew Member Posts: 32
    about my favorite cotton-candy Seafoam Blue being discontinued next year. (Collector's item, baby.) The downside is, I tried some year-old touchup paint on some two year-old bumper scratches from when I first got the car; doesn't match too well. Still it's better than the original scratches that show through black and look like dirt from pretty far away; you have to look pretty hard to see the mismatched paint.

    Not a single problem in two years...
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    wrgrahamwrgraham Member Posts: 112
    A while back we had discussed do-it-yourself maintenance on the Echo, with regard to changing the air filter. That change worked nicely. Now there is coolant discussions ongoing, can someone just give a clear talk-through of changing the coolant?
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    kneisl1kneisl1 Member Posts: 1,694
    Well, I can tell you where the block drain is. It is on the back side of the engine, the part that faces the firewall. If you put the car on ramps and crawl under, you can see it ... its a little to the left of center and I believe a 10mm wrench will loosen it. It looks like a spigot. It can inly be accessed from the bottom of the car. I will look in my service manual when I get home and supply further details.
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    kneisl1kneisl1 Member Posts: 1,694
    According to the official Toyota manual:

    Engine cold.

    Remove radiator cap

    Open the radiator drain and the engine block drain. You might want to remove the plastic underskirt from the nose of the car before draining the coolant out of the radiator. Otherwise, coolant is going to run over the top of the skirt and get all over the place. It looks fairly easy to remove. The location of the block drain is controversial. The offical manual shows it on the right FRONT of the engine between the pipes for the intake manifold. I have been unable to locate it there on my car. I have found something that looks like it on the REAR of the engine (see above post) On my motorcycle getting at this block drain involves three hours of removing the plastic fairing so I just remove the radiator cap and get an eighteen inch long piece of garden hose. I put the garden hose into the place where the radiator cap was and blow. Actually you dont have to plow just maintain a steady pressure and the coolant will be forced out of the passages and out the radiator drain. I do this same thing on my wifes Honda Accord and it works well. Except you dont need the garden hose for a car you can just put your mouth over the radiator fill. If someone can say for sure where the block drain on the ECHO is it would be good to post it.


    Close the drain plugs.

    Coolant should be mixed with plain water at a 50/50 ratio and the manual recommends using distilled water. (Availible at the drugstore)
    The manual says fill slowly. 4.7 quarts MT 4.5 quarts AT.

    The manual says to fill the system slowly, start the engine and bleed the system. There is no mention of a bleed plug however, so I guess its safe to assume that youll have to get the engine hot, let it cool down, and add more coolant until it is full. This isnt good. On other cars that cant be filled full the first time (and dont have a bleed plug) I just leave the radiator cap off and start the engine. Constantly weatching the level in the radiator, I add coolant until its full. You dont want to over heat the engine.

    The manual doesnt say anything about draining the coolant resivoir and refilling but I assume you need to do that also. For $125 dollars this is a lousy manual! If the coolant tank gets crudded up and you want to clean it out, remove the tank and fill it half full with ice cubes. Add some water and shake until it is clean.
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    wrgrahamwrgraham Member Posts: 112
    kneisl, thanks. I am printing this out and I will give my Echo a good looking over before starting the process. Going out of town for about a week, so I won't get to the job till I return. But still it doesn't sound like very much hassle.
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    kneisl1kneisl1 Member Posts: 1,694
    Iwas reading I think it was Motor Trends review of 2003 cars and they had a blurb about the 2003 ECHO. But the picture they ran with the paragraph was of a 2002 ECHO! I guess that means the ECHO is a hot exclusive car under tight wraps which is impossible to get a picture of.
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    vocusvocus Member Posts: 7,777
    Even on Toyota.com, for the interior pics, they still show a 2002 Echo. I wanted to see what the dash looked like, but it was the 2002 dash. Weird.
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    pulgopulgo Member Posts: 400
    Go to www.toyota.ca and there you will find a few photos of the new 2003 Echo.
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    719b719b Member Posts: 216
    you'll find a few better pics at the web site below. has the new speedometer/tach combo


    http://www.toyota.com/echo/

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    vocusvocus Member Posts: 7,777
    The speedo/tach combo can be seen in the one picture, but not in the "360" pictures. What's up with that? It looks like Toyota redid half their site or something...
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    coolguyky7coolguyky7 Member Posts: 932
    The 360s aren't up yet.
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    babyboomerbabyboomer Member Posts: 205
    A newspaper car ad said "This is not a lease; not a balloon."
    Please explain what the dealer means by the word "balloon" in the ad.
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    719b719b Member Posts: 216
    big payment at the end of a contract
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    vocusvocus Member Posts: 7,777
    I didn't, a good friend of mine did.

    He had originally picked out an 01 Elantra with 21.5K on it for $7999. The brakes were messed up on it though, which we found out this past Wednesday when we test drove it. The dealer hadn't fix the brakes on the car today when we went to get it. So we saw this white 2000 Echo (35.8K, auto., white, 4-door) on the lot. He drove it, and fell in love with it. He got the car for $8450 on the road. He is very happy with it. I will let you all know how it works out, because I am sure I will be driving it soon enough. :)

    *Note: The car is white with grey interior, auto., AC, AM/FM radio, body cladding, and rear spoiler.
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    vocusvocus Member Posts: 7,777
    My friend got a used Echo today (see above post). The car only has an AM/FM radio in it. On the face of the radio, it says "compact disc digital audio" but there is no CD player or changer in the trunk (we checked for it). What's up with that?

    Thanks for anyone's help on this matter.
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    tominvatominva Member Posts: 7
    As far as I know, all Echo AM/FM radios have that logo on them. I believe it just means that they are CD-ready. For example, the Toyota CD unit can be easily installed into the horizontal space just above the radio and connected to the AM/FM unit.
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    babyboomerbabyboomer Member Posts: 205
    5W30, 30W, 10W30 or what?

    I live in south Georgia and my mechanic recommends 10W30 year round for any car.
    He recommends 5W30 for northern states during freezing weather.

    Is he right?
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    vocusvocus Member Posts: 7,777
    This AM/FM radio takes up the whole space in the dash. I guess the top part would come out and you would put the CD slot in there, I don't know.

    I might buy my friend a CD player for Christmas or something, but we shall see.

    Also, I saw a factory Toyota 6-disc CD changer (in-dash) on Ebay last night. The bid is currently $225. Too bad I don't have the funds right now... :(
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    tominvatominva Member Posts: 7
    Even though the radio takes up the whole space, isn't there a plain black plastic section about an inch tall across the top of the unit? That's just a placeholder, so to speak, which is removed so that the CD can fit in. It's very slim. At least that's how it worked on my '00 Echo - I'm assuming that they're all the same in that regard, but I'm not positive about that.

    Buying your friend a CD player for Christmas sounds like a really nice idea. I'm very glad that I had one installed.
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    vocusvocus Member Posts: 7,777
    Did you get yours from the Toyota dealer for your car? His Echo is a 2000 as well, so maybe he can get one of those. The radio does have the black plastic thing at the top where the CD player would go as well. How much did you pay for yours? Thanks.
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    kneisl1kneisl1 Member Posts: 1,694
    The correct oil for any car is what the owners manual says to put in it. For the ECHO that is 5w-30 for all driving conditions. But I would probably run a 10-30 or 10-40 if I drove long distances or in stop and go city traffic and lived where the temps were consistantly above 90.
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    coolguyky7coolguyky7 Member Posts: 932
    I found lots of pictures of the 2003 on a media site.


    go to wieck.com and click on "public" then type in "ECHO" for other pictures


    http://www.wieck.com/public/*2PV_043342

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    aeroterremeraeroterremer Member Posts: 79
    Just saw the film 'One Hour Photo' starring Robin Williams. In this film his character drives a white Echo. In fact, there are quite a few scenes where Echo is featured. If not for the Echo, this film would have been too dark and heavy for me. I found myself smiling at the Echo scenes, especially where the car's interior upholstery shows up. Check it out if/when you can.
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    aeroterremeraeroterremer Member Posts: 79
    I forgot to add that the film 'One Hour Photo' is not suitable for minors due to certain scenes and language.
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    kneisl1kneisl1 Member Posts: 1,694
    Could this be the beginning of a Herbie phenom for the ECHO?
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    vocusvocus Member Posts: 7,777
    Too funny! My friend just bought a white Echo last Saturday, used. It's the 4-door with automatic, the body cladding, a rear spoiler, rear defogger, AC, alarm, and that's about it. :)

    He has put about 500 miles on it thus far, says he likes the way it drives better than the 1997 Nissan Sentra he replaced with the Echo. He says it also has more power and better fuel mileage too.
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    wrgrahamwrgraham Member Posts: 112
    I was in Las Vegas last week, for the wedding of a brother in law. Exactly a week ago they had pictures on the late night news of a car crash that killed the driver. A car was passing several others at about 75mph when it ran head-on into a large truck. Plenty of pictures, and the car was a green Echo just like mine. Smashed flat all the way back into the rear seat. But the trunk looked as good as new, like you could open it with the key. Haunting. So drive safely, all.
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    peacejbmpeacejbm Member Posts: 9
    It looks like Toyota is recalling the ECHO. Details can be found here: http://www.freep.com/news/latestnews/pm11139_20021001.htm
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    kneisl1kneisl1 Member Posts: 1,694
    My ECHO has a build date of 8/00 and the recall is well after that. Even so I went out to have a look at the setup. It IS a little funky. I would say the RUBBER HOSE which runs from the supply pipe to the bottom of the control arm is vulnerable to the rotation of the rear wheel should anything become attached to the wheel and rotate with it. This rubber hose is only 2 or 3 inches from the wheel which IME is unusually close. From the fitting on the control arm to the wheel cylinder itself is another metal pipe which does not appear to be vulnerable at all. What is the overall effect of this situation as far as safety? It DOES look possible for dammage to happen. But if it did it would only affect the rear brakes which do only 25% of the braking. The front brakes would still work and you would notice a small loss of braking effect. I might worry about my wife or daughter driving the car, but it would not affect MY safety at all. For even the loss of the rear brakes to happen you would have to say the event would be one in a million. So this problem has nothing to do with the fundamental safety of the car.
    I would be curious to hear from anyone with a recalled car to know what the setup is on THOSE cars and what TOYOTA does to modify it.
    Frankly most recalls are not worth the paper they are written on. They are mostly due to million to one accidents...not fundamental defects in the mechanism. (there are exceptions)Because of lawsuits the companies are forced into recalling the car. Even the Ford Explorer rollover problem probably affected less than one in 500000 vehicals. If we were all held to those numbers for what we do at work wed all be fired by now.
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    vocusvocus Member Posts: 7,777
    It's only 2001+ US models, right? My friend just bought a used 2000 ECHO a couple of weeks ago, so I was curious.

    He really likes the car thus far, a little better than the 1997 Sentra he had before it (it was totalled in an accident). He also likes the fuel economy, a little better in the ECHO, even when running the AC.
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    kneisl1kneisl1 Member Posts: 1,694
    The 2000 year model would not be affected. Its a weird recall though. Its from 8/01 to 4/02. Why not earlier? Why not later? Obviously this happned last winter. Why wait till now to recall? Was the car really changed after 4\02? without being recalled until now? Something does not add up here.
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    vocusvocus Member Posts: 7,777
    I agree, now that I think about it. If all ECHOS have had the same size wheels since they came out (175/65R14 if I am not mistaken), and no suspension changes have been made, you would think all of them would have been recalled since they were introduced.
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    8u6hfd8u6hfd Member Posts: 1,391
    could be sourced to a particular lot of parts used from 8/01 to 4/02
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    kneisl1kneisl1 Member Posts: 1,694
    No I dont think its a matter of parts. My 2001 which isnt specified in the recall has a setup for the way the rear brakes are piped that is not the way I would do it or have seen it done. I dont think that many cars are going to have dammage to the rear brake hoses/pipes, but the potential is there. (then again, with a conventional setup you could very easily have a rock fly up and dammage the metal pipes) Im curious to see what the fix is and what the setup is on cars that were recalled. I question why the cars were (apparently) modified on 4/02 but the recall wasnt for six months later. Either this isnt serious or Toyota is lax in its recall.
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    coolguyky7coolguyky7 Member Posts: 932
    I drove through a local Toyota dealer parking lot today and they had a 2003 ECHO in the bronze color. I think it has lost that lovable look that it had. Toyota really screwed up by pushing the headlamps into the car. The lenses should have been flush with the hood and grille.
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    719b719b Member Posts: 216
    the headlights are subjective, but the tach and 15" wheels are for real. if you found last years model fun to drive, the 2003 will be even better.
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