Valkie2

It were empty, but the poor old dear had 300,000 klm on her, it was a stinking hot day and the air con was working flat out. She had never even hinted at any overheating issues, so I assumed it wqs good to go. Oh well, such is life.

Well, I have done went and dun it. I broke my Echo. Towing a 8x4 trailer up a steep hill on a hot day, I cooked it and appear to have blown a head gasket (or worse) I cannot drive more than 10-15 minutes without it overheating and there are bubbles in the radiator. No oil in the water, no water in the oil, just bubbles in the radiator and overheating. Looks like the poor old dear is off to the wreckers, cant be bothered fixing it. paid $2000.00 for it 3 years ago, driven 68000 klm so I figure I got my moneys worth. Sad to see the old dear gone, now I gotta find another car.

The last two weeks have been hell. Yes, the little Echo rattles, its 20 years old and severely treated in that time. So it has a few battle scars, lots of klunks and ratles, but most of these I could live with. But about two weeks ago it got this annoying little rattle in the dash. Not all the time mind, just when idling and through the gears...Rattle Rattle Rattle. I started pulling everything I could think of out and was about to embark on a full dash removal. Then I was just doing a few adjustments under the bonnet and I sighted the cause of my persistent and annoying rattle. It was the damn accelerator cable hitting the fire wall. Wrapped some sponge around it and took the car for a drive......Noise gone. I could have pulled the whole dash down and never found that damn thing. Just a warning to all you who have an annoying rattle................Sometimes its not where you think it is, sneaky little beggars.

This morning after rain, I had water, quite a bit, in my footwell, soaking the carpet. I've only had the echo 3 months and driven in through very heavy rain and had it parked in heavy rain many times in that ownership. Any ideas?

Yeah, the first car I bought my daughter was an old Nissan Pulsar. It looked pretty good, but mechanically it was just so-so. I spent a bit of time working to it to keep in running until I fixed all the issues. It ended up lasting 4 years with her and then I gave it to a friends daughter to learn on. Then, when their car broke down it became their day car, lasted another 4 years before it finally died. This little echo is the opposite, the body is crap, no rust, just dings and crappy paint. But mechanically its fine, not perfect, but good enough that Id have no hesitation in driving it to Queensland and back any time. In the last two months Ive done 10000k freeway driving at 110, not even so much as a backfire. The battery issue isnt the cars fault, its mine, so all good. Ill probably give this one away to someone who needs it eventually. But it will look better when im done with it.

The best thing about the Echo is that I fear nothing. I can pull anything apart without worry, if it breaks, Ill get another from the wreckers. If someone bangs their door into it, who cares other drivers fear me becuase they see a bomb, they just know I dont care (I do but they dont know that) So when I push in, they always let me, and If I stop someone from pushing in, they never try to bluff me, one look at the guard and they just know I dont care. I can test wiring up things and never be concerned. In my $50k 4x4 Im terrified to even touch it for fear of damaging something. and, of course, everything is expensive. a $10.00 part for the Echo is worth $700.00 for the 4x4. But , all said and done, I really enjoying this little buzz box. Its a great car, great milage and even after 20 years, everything works. Bet my 4x4 wont be able to say that.

OK Does anyone know what seats from what cars can be used in the old 2000 echo sedan? My drivers seat is killing my butt, no padding at all on one side, Im starting to walk with a limp.

just to close out this post. Replacing the MAF sensor fixed the problem. No more stalling and the car runs better. who woulda thunk it?????

yep, sillly of me to not check the battery, but in honesty I think it would have been too late even then. The new battery starts the beast like a jet taking off, great. As for the radio.......binned. I got a newer one from the wreckers, same brand, later model. Works a treat, but it has RED back lighting, I think I can change it will see tonight. Talk about easy, its a 20 min job to get the old radio out and the new one in. But my dash now looks like a xmas tree.

Life has just turned to ******* with my little echo. well, not quite that bad, but I'm an unhappy chappy. I was asked to tow a trailer (empty) for a mat who had bought it sight unseen. I picked it up and drove home to park up overnight. The next morning, I could not get the car out of park. This was because the brake light fuse had blown. Replace fuse back on the road. Towed the trailer, no problem, but arrived sans brake light fuse, blown again. This was Monday. Tuesday, car no start, flat battery. Check battery, no water. Dry as a brickworks kiln. Nearly a liter of water later I had a nasty looking mess inside the battery, (all black and yucky) charged it up and went on my way Then the radio stopped working (aftermarket unit Kenwood) Reset it and its ok, but all stations deleted. Flat battery again this morning, getting a new one at lunch time. But every time I start the car I have to reset the radio. Im hoping the battery change will fix this, if not Ill have to pull the damn radio out and find out whats going on. All because a mate asked for a favor.......................never again. PS, A trailer on the ECHO only affects the drivability going up hill. It tows very well, but dies on hills, You have to turn off the overdrive and then its all go go go but my milage was sadly affected. Such is life.

I have made up a simple diagram of wiring for driving lights. This is for toyota echos 2000 models. Most toyotas are the same, negative switching makes it a little different from normal cars. Cheers Wiring diagram for driving lights in a Toyota ECHO 2000.pdf

OK, as with all things electric you have diagnosed your problem yourself. If all doors except the passenger open from the drivers door. And all doors open when opened from the passenger door. The problem is the passenger actuator. You will probably find either a rusty or clagged actuator in the passenger side. It wont move when opened from another door, but when it is forced from the passenger side it actuates the other doors. I had that same problem with another car a few years ago, it was water getting into the little electric motor which rusted it up and stopped it from working. But when forced, it set the other doors off. you can either replace or clean out the damaged one and all should be good.

I had them on my old X Trail. With the standard incandescent halogen lights the Narva were more than adequate, give a good distance. I have also put a set on my daughters Yaris, perfect for her and she is amazed at the penetration the lights give But when I got my MUX, they were yellow in comparison to the standard LED lights on the car, so I had to go brighter. . You can do it cheaper using LED light bars or LED spots, it all depends on what you want the lights for. In my case, I often drive home very late at night down unlit country roads where Kangas like to wander. The spots I have on my MUX could burn their eyes out at 2 klm, but I didn't need that for most driving. So on the Echo I went down a bit and bought the cheap lightbar off fleabay for $28.00. The wiring is minimal and a few metres of wire, a switch, a relay and a fuse is all you need. all up, using quality parts, it cost me $65.00 to wire up the light bar. The light bar is nowhere near the powerful as the MUX spots, but the spray beam catches anything on the side of the road and the spots give me about 1 klm up the road ahead. unless you plan to do some extensive off road or long distance driving, Id suggest the cheap LEDs The Light bar completely wipes out the high beam of the echo, cant even see high beam when they are on, but with that much light, who cares? This Echo is my run around car, so I like to do everything on the cheap, but good brakes and lighting is a must in my books. Ill be back home on Thursday, Ill do up a wiring diagram then and give you some tips to assemble. Its really quite easy and the improvement in lighting is amazing. As for towing, Id prefer to use the MUX, it has a 3 ton towing capacity. But for a lark , and the fact that I have a tow bar on the Echo, I thought Id give it a go. My Echo is an auto, so I turned off the O/D, but overall it didnt seem too worried. Wouldnt like to tow anything serious though. Cheers

Wiring in additional lights to the echo is quite easy. You just have to get over the damn stupid reverse wiring setup. Il do a diagram when i get the chance and post it for you. The heater controls look good with the blue LEDs, but I also had to add a few LEDs as the LEDs are very directional and tend to point ratehr than spread. It was as simple job of finding the positive and negative feeds on the flexable PCB and then soldering a feed to them. Then I glued in some additional LEDS. Ill take a picture of the back when I get the chance. It even lights up in daylight now, looks cool. As for the paintwork, yeah, mine is a mess. I plan to give it a respray sometime in the future as I hate blotchy paint. Apparently it has something to do with the early water based (cacogenic) paint. It deteriorates quickly , so they put a thick coat of clear, but any small flaws in the clear coat allow air to get under it and deteriorate the paint. The clear then peels off and you get the dreaded toyota scurvy. They are getting better now, but give me good old acrylic any day. Forgot to mention; I hooked up the trailer and did a trip to the tip yesterday. Surprisingly, the old ECHO towed it quite easily, and even braked quite satisfactorily and safely. I towed without the overdrive engaged and I'm not sure about fuel usage, but it didn't notice the trailer all that much. This little car surprises me more and more.

And cheap. $30.00 ebay, got it in 3 days. not quite the power that my 4x4 serious headlights have, but I paid considerably more for them than this light bar. Stupid toyota wiring had me stumped for a while. I couldn't work out how to trigger the relay. Turns out it switches to earth not the other way around, so I have to run a positive feed to the relay and then from the relay back to the headlight wiring. But now it works a treat, nice spray beam and a reasonable spot. Just have to fix the paintjob and it will be a great little runaround. Oh, and I added a few LED lights to the center controls, BLUE ones. But the initial install didn't fully illuminate the whole cluster, so I added a couple and wired them into the circuit board. Now I have a bright blue centre heater control setup...noice.