You must read this if you own an Echo

[Spanky]

My Echo has been suffering a little bit of technical problems over the last week or so.

I'll list the problems

1.My Stereo headunit would for no apparent reason switch off and on again.

2. My speedo/tacho would lock up for no reason, The car would have to be switched off then on again to get the Electronic dash to start back up again.

3. The VVT-i system was going nuts causing the engine to surge and if I was trying to accelerate hard it never seemed like it knew what setting to use.

I decide late last night, About Midnight (Seemed like a good time) to start pulling apart my dash to check my stereo install as it seemed to start there first and spread elsewhere over a period of a couple of days, While removing one of the screws that holds the stereo bracket in place I heard a small pop and the stereo stopped working, I assumed I must have not properly insulated my Accesories crimp terminal or the terminal had come apart for some reason, Checked it out, it was a little loose so I decided not to take the risk and cut it off and replaced it, Checked all the other connections behind the Deck and all appeared OK.

Quickly checked with a Multimeter and a test light for any other potential shorts, No problems, Replaced the fuse in the accesories position and the stereo started up.

Fantastic! I thought I had found the problem, Not that easy! While replacing the screw on the bottom right hand side of the stereo support brackets (Behind the cig lighter) I heard another small pop and the stereo switched off and the fuse blew again!

On closer inspection all was revealed! When the car was built the wire for the cig lighter was meant to run over the top of a bottom dash support bracket but in this case it had gone between the dash panel and the bracket and when the bracket's bolt was tightened up during construction it was crushed, Now it has taken nearly 2 years for this problem to appear, I pulled the bottom of the dash forward and removed the wire and I could see where it had been shorting/arcing on the bracket, and had flattened the wire.

I insulated this wire and replaced the fuse and reassembled the dash, I took the car for a drive this morning and she's back to her old self again, I went to a friends place who owns the 4 door model (2003) and the frightning part was when we checked his dash support the same wire was also crushed behind the bracket, But his had not started shorting yet.

So why did this one wire cause all these problems? I can only asume because of the shorting/arcing wire it was sending some nasty spikes and surges through the electrical system causing all these problems.

But it is fixed now, But just keep it in mind if you start getting some strange electrical gremlins popping up.