Echo owners, your help please

[goofy1]

I'm planning on getting a Toyota Echo. I was wondering if I could get some comments from Echo owners on here. The ups and downs, advice, problems.experiences, etc...with the car. Anything and everything would be great. Thank s

[jcp123]

Ups:
Very roomy for a subcompact, big trunk, comfortable, decent cornering, lots of storage bins, pretty zippy for a 1,5l motor esp. with the manual trans

Downs:
Ugly as sin, centre mount gauges, squirrelly at speeds over ~55mph or in a crosswind

My Fiancee's '00 Echo has 204k miles and with poor (nonexistent?) maintenance still runs like a top. Needs a new cat, but at that mileage who cares. No leaks, misses, CV's are still good, trans shifts solidly. No rattles or squeaks from an interior which otherwise looks low-rent. Easy-to-use, solid switchgear. Hers is an auto trans, but if you keep the tires up it's a 32mpg car with no attention paid to mileage, 35-40mpg with just the basics, and mid-40's highway @60mph. Mileage can only go up from there. It's short on aesthetics and long on durability and mileage.

[kit352]

a coworker has one and loves it. its pretty peppy and he gets around 40ish with a manual. Id be all about buying one but that center gauge thing kills the whole car for me. I get sick when i drive his for any decent distance cause my eyes are always darting around looking at the gauges then road. Its not very fluid for me but most people dont seem to mind it.

[jcp123]

Yeah, that gauge placement is awful. It's the worst thing I can say about the car though. I've gotten used to it, but it's far from ideal for me. In fact, some prefer it. You'd have to drive one to see how well it works for you.

[dieselmech]

Good for the city if you don't mind the go-cart ride. Don't attempt highway speeds or distance with it. A buddy sold his about 6 months ago. Bought it new, had 3 or 4 recalls, no real problems for him though, and got tired of the ride and tinny sound/feel of it. I think he had it 2 years all together.

[goofy1]

The center gauages dont' bother me. I know its going to have a rough ride, it's a small eco car, i'm use to that. I'm going to have to have a automatic due to physical limitations. I want an echo, because after watching the Yaris review by MPROMATIC on youtube and that he got close to 50mpg on a 4door sedan automatic. And that the engine and transmission in the Yaris are the same in the Echos(though the Echo makes 2hp more). I could save some money buying the Echo. I believe the cD is the same with the Echo and Yaris too. And that the weight between them are close also.

[FrugalFloyd]

You might also want to consider Hyundai Accents and Kia Rios of the same vintage. I rented an AT Kia Rio for 2 weeks in the Rockies and midwest. I averaged 43.4 mpg for 3600 miles, 49+ mpg for the last two tanks, and would have averaged 45 mpg if allowed to throw out two outlier tanks where I was fighting 40+ mph headwinds. The beauty of the Korean cars is while Echos are selling in the $5000 range, Accents and Rios are under $2000 - and they don't have center gauges.

One disadvantage compared to Echos is the maintenance cost of timing belt changes for the Korean cars, but their huge price advantage will more than cover those.

[jcp123]

It's actually a surprisingly supple ride in the Echo, much more comfortable than I expected for its short wheelbase and price. The auto trans is also decent as autos go - reasonably smooth, shifts decently early, and holds high gear pretty well. It's also decently tall-geared, final-drive is around 3.00:1.

[JanGeo]

Don't worry about the center gauges - install a scangauge and forgetaboutit - my xB is the same way and I barely ever look at the speedo until recently after I replace the front tire with taller ones and now it is at least accurate instead of reading too high. In reality the dial doesn't reach the marks on the gauge and the speed reads 0 20 40 60 so finding 35 and 55 is a bit of work anyway.

[goofy1]

The only problem I have with Hyundais and Kias. Is that if something needs to be replace and you dont have the warrenty, it's major money to fix. A friend of mine had a Kia optima and a rio and the warrentys were out and he had a front headlight go bad on the optima, so he went to the dealership and they told him it would be $300+. So he went to the junkyard to find the part, when he asked the guy at the junkyard if he had any Kia Optima parts, the guy just laughed and showed what he had.... there was just basically the body(shell) and seat belts. The guy said that Kia and Hyundai have people that have paid the junkyard to call them when one of their cars are brought in, they send people to that junkyard to get parts and then refurb them. That was a couple years ago, i dont know how it is now, but thats just not cool. On MSN.COM they have an article about what cars mechanics love and hate. This is what a mechanic said about the Yaris:
http://editorial.autos.msn.com/lista...mentid=1175618

Consumer Reports dependability rating: 80 percent above average

The Toyota Yaris is the best-performing ride in Consumer Reports' 2010 Annual Dependability Survey, the bible of reliability. According to Consumer Reports, the Yaris has one-fifth the problems of the average car in its sampling. Kenny Tran of tuning specialists Jotech in Garland, Texas, credits the tight tolerances Toyota engineers put into their engines as the reason. "They are well-built, with many overengineered heavy-duty parts," Tran says, "like using a timing chain versus a timing belt."

And considering the Yaris using the same engine that was in the ECHO(Echo received the some marks for reliability) The Echo is seems better to me.