Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: True Cost to Own a Toyota Echo

The Toyota Echo is ridiculously cheap to own. I’ve had my 2000 Toyota Echo sedan for more than two years without a single incident of anything going wrong. Check out a few online forums on the topic – the Echo is built like a tank where it counts, under the hood. There are numerous online examples of Echos going over 200,000 miles, and the Toyota Echo was one of Consumer Reports’ most reliable used cars back in the years following its appearance on the market.

Regular maintenance costs for the Echo are impressively low. Because the 1.5L engine is so small, it requires less coolant and motor oil than other vehicles. While an SUV or truck might require 6 quarts of oil, for example, the Echo requires just 3.9 quarts (when the filter is changed.) Of course, you’ll need to do your own maintenance to see these savings, otherwise your mechanic will charge you the “big car” price. Other elements are similarly downsized and less expensive. I recently purchased new Michelin Defender tires for it, and they were something like $114.00 a piece, totaling 460 bucks. A friend’s Buick Rendezvous required a larger tire that cost significantly more.

Also, since my Echo has so few options and components (no power locks or power windows, no cruise control, no automatic headlights or keyless entry, no sunroof, no turbocharger, etc) I think there are simply fewer things that can go wrong. So far reliability has been outstanding, although I understand there are a few known issues with the Mass Airflow Sensor (located above the engine air cleaner box) malfunctioning.

To put the icing on the cake, getting car insurance for a Toyota Echo is cheap, cheap, cheap! I recently chose to drop comprehensive and collision coverage on it, since it is an older car that doesn’t have much cash value, but to give you some idea, a 500 deductible for comprehensive & collision insurance cost about $12.00 per month, and liability insurance was about $20.00 per month. That’s peanuts compared to most, but keep in mind I’m in the upper Midwest, one of the cheapest places in the US to get auto insurance. If only my state gave a registration discount for efficient cars!

So as you can see I don’t have a lot of numbers to throw around regarding the true cost to own a Toyota Echo, but I can confidently say that it is less expensive than your average car. Top-notch reliability, low routine maintenance costs, inexpensive to insure, and excellent fuel economy to boot… it all adds up to a pretty nice package with relatively few drawbacks.

More In The Toyota Echo Ownership Series:
Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: Notes for Tall Drivers (or Why I Chose the Echo)

Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: Notes on MPG

Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: Highway Cruising & Cabin Comfort: Not Bad, Not A Lexus

Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: What is it like driving an Echo in the snow?

Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: What is it like driving an Echo in the snow?

I live in the Midwest and drive a 2000 Toyota Echo sedan with automatic transmission. While you’re probably aware that it snows a lot in the Midwest, you might be curious how a economy-class, front-wheel drive, 2000-lb car drives and handles in the snow and in other Midwestern winter conditions.

In a word, driving in snow with the Echo is tense. I tend to get nervous driving in snow anyway, and I hope the majority of other drivers do too, but honestly the Echo is just so small that it’s hard to ignore even a little snow when you’re driving. The relatively narrow tires do cut through fresh snow on a rural road pretty well, if you’re traveling along at a high enough speed (around 35 usually is good enough). And the light weight of the car means it’s pretty easy to bring it to a stop when you have time to plan your braking in advance.

But the short wheelbase and weight distribution over said wheelbase means that if you do have to stop quickly, the rear tires are quick to lock up and the back end easily starts traveling sideways. Overdo one of these stops and you’ll probably find your rear bumper leading the way into the ditch. Luckily I’ve never experienced that, and this is a problem with all front wheel drive vehicles to some extent, but it seems especially bad in the Echo. The narrower tires also mean less rubber is in contact with the ground, which works out fine because of the light weight of the Echo, but it just doesn’t feel as secure on icy roads or slush.

Also, if you do happen to slow down when you’re cutting through the snow, and you lose your momentum, you’ll get stuck. The relatively low ground clearance makes it easy to get hung up just pulling out of your driveway. But if you’re the kind of person who shovels a path just big enough for your car, you will have a slight advantage. My Toyota Echo does not have ABS or any kind of traction control, so if the model you are considering does you’ll need to think about how that might affect your experience.

After the snow is cleaned up, you have the rest of the winter wonderland to deal with – freezing temps, frosty windows and cold starts. My Echo has always started up, even at about minus 20 degrees F. Once when it was around that temperature, the transmission began slipping when I gave it too much gas leaving the parking lot at work, but that cleared up once it warmed up. The rear window defroster is pitiful. I’m not sure if there just isn’t enough electrical power between the blower, AC, headlights, wipers and all that stuff for the defroster to get warm, but it really takes a long time to melt snow or ice off the rear windshield. It can handle a little moisture or a light frost fine, but a heavy frost or snow means you must use your scraper!

One odd thing about the Echo is that when you start it cold (after having left it sit and cool down for a period of time) there is a blue temperature light that comes on in the instrument cluster. This blue gauge light is normal and means that the Echo’s engine has not reached the optimal operating temperature yet. It also means that the engine and exhaust system is running in open loop mode, which is less efficient than the mode used by a hot engine. The Echo also will not shift into the final gear until the engine warms up and the blue light goes out. This can be very scary if you’re just getting on the highway with the blue light still on, since you’ll be buzzing along at 70 mph in third gear at what feels like about 6000 rpm for half a mile and it will seem like something is wrong. But once the light goes out, the car usually is quick to shift into fourth. Sometimes on my Echo you have to let off the gas for it to upshift into the final gear.

If it’s very cold out (say less than 0 degrees F) it can take a long time for the blue light to go out. Like most modern vehicles, the Echo doesn’t warm up much when it’s started cold and left outside to idle in cold weather, so it makes no sense to start it and let it sit for 10 minutes. In my experience it will not generate much heat for the defrost or cause the blue light to go out by just idling at below-freezing temps.

The Toyota Echo is not as versatile in the snow and cold as most vehicles. But it will still get you reliably from A to B, even if you can’t see out the back window and are gripping the steering wheel tightly and worrying about sliding off the road. I’m not sure it’s a bad thing to be scared to drive too fast in the snow anyway. If you’re the kind of person who absolutely must get to work under any conditions, you’re looking at the wrong vehicle – try a 4x4 instead. If you’re the kind of person who goes back to bed when the snow is blowing or stays home on snowdays, the Echo will work fine.

More In The Toyota Echo Ownership Series:
Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: Notes for Tall Drivers (or Why I Chose the Echo)

Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: Notes on MPG

Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: Highway Cruising & Cabin Comfort: Not Bad, Not A Lexus

Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: True Cost to Own a Toyota Echo

Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: Highway Cruising & Cabin Comfort: Not Bad, Not A Lexus

The Toyota Echo wouldn’t be my first choice of car for a highway cruiser. Here’s why: the short wheelbase and jaunty handling characteristics that accompany it are well-suited for urban treks, but they don’t fare as well on the long hauls.

First, the tall silhouette is very susceptible to being buffeted by crosswinds, and on a day with gusty winds in excess of 10 mph you’ll be fighting the wheel just to stay in your own lane. Also, the tiny tires (13” diameter) are a mighty big benefit when you’re at the parts shop picking out new rubber, but they sure are noisy on all but the freshest blacktop. That and the economy-class soundproofing in the cabin make for a noisy, fatiguing environment inside the cabin on long trips. Frankly, it’s hard to hold a conversation or listen to the radio at a comfortable volume in the Echo at highway speeds. A better use of the Echo is for bombing around town on errand runs or as your everyday commuter.

To add to the handling drawbacks, the interior amenities are very much lacking in the Echo. Pretty much everything besides the four wheels and a seat was optional. My Echo has an aftermarket CD player in it that has a clock, otherwise a dashboard clock was only available as an option. AC and rear window defrost? Options. Power steering? Option! I guess that’s why the base price was so low (just under $14 grand). In later model years they had power windows and power locks, ABS and keyless entry, but my Echo doesn’t have those things, and I don’t think they would make it any more comfy on long trips.

The lack of cruise control becomes more than a missing amenity as your trip length is extended. It turns into a serious problem. On one voyage I remember alternating between my left and right feet on the highway to keep my foot from cramping up. Honestly, when was the last time you drove with your foot for more than an hour at a time? My foot certainly isn’t up to that kind of challenge. Sure, there are aftermarket cruise control kits for the Echo, and a lot of drivers have them installed and never look back, but I am hesitant to put one in myself and I’m not going to pay someone to add that to the car. Plus, there’s some obvious safety risks to having an aftermarket device take control of the throttle. Lets just say that I can’t believe a car made for this millennia was missing cruise control.

So the Echo falls flat as a highway-conquering cruiser, and the cabin comfort is not so good. But for an economy car with a bottom line price tag, was anyone surprised? My advice is if you’re looking for a highway cruiser you need to look elsewhere unless you’re really ready for the quirks. But if you’re not going too far  the Toyota Echo just might be for you.

More In The Toyota Echo Ownership Series:
Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: Notes for Tall Drivers (or Why I Chose the Echo)

Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: Notes on MPG

Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: What is it like driving an Echo in the snow?

Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: True Cost to Own a Toyota Echo

Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: Notes on MPG

Part of what makes the Toyota Echo so attractive to me is the efficiency. While you would expect an economy-class car like the Echo to be fairly frugal, even I was surprised and skeptical when I read that the Echo sedan with an automatic tranny is EPA-eastimated to achieve 32/39 mpg. You can imagine how shocked I was, then, when I first pulled up to the pump and fueled up the 10.7 gallon tank and calculated that I had gotten 35 mpg! At that time, gas was more than $4.00 a gallon in the Midwest and SUVs and trucks were routinely dropping Bejamin Franklins into their gas tanks like it was nothing. And here’s a goofy looking car with a drivetrain that would be equally at home in a lawn mower (or so it seems sometimes) that gets 35 mpg and costs less than $50.00 to fill up.

My point is that the Echo is great on gas. Even if you factor in all the other cons about the car that you can think of, the fact is it’s an efficient little vehicle that is only a handful of mpgs less efficient than the newest Toyota Prius (at this writing) without any hybrid technology at all.

It's worth noting that the gas mileage does decrease in the hot summer months and the freezing winter months. My Echo is finished with a metallic Black Pearl paint job that get hot in the sun faster than your oven will preheat, so you’re running the AC all the time. The AC is actually an add-on option and I kind of think maybe if it had been standard equipment someone at Toyota would have wanted a bigger power plant in the Echo to run it, because it really does cause a noticeable drag on the engine. With the AC on, the auto transmission shifts later as the engine revs higher when the compressor is on. And there’s an electromagnetic clutch on the AC pulley that kicks on and off with a noticeable clunk every few mintues as the compressor engages and disengages, and your engine power will surge when it’s off and get sluggish when it’s on. It’s annoying but not too bad at highway speeds. You’ll likely notice it when you’re counting on the peppy 1.5 liter four to pull out in front of someone on a highway entrance and end up with a rearview full of their grille instead of the car lengths between you that you had hoped for.

In summer running that AC all the time I’ve seen anywhere from 32 to 38 mpg and in the winter with the heat on, battling slushy roads and cold starts anywhere from 28 to 36 mpg. Those are still some pretty decent numbers for a car with over 120k and 12 years on the clock!

More In The Toyota Echo Ownership Series:
Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: Notes for Tall Drivers (or Why I Chose the Echo)

Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: Highway Cruising & Cabin Comfort: Not Bad, Not A Lexus

Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: What is it like driving an Echo in the snow?

Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: True Cost to Own a Toyota Echo

Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: Notes for Tall Drivers (or Why I Chose the Echo)

I drive a 2000 Toyota Echo and I’m here to tell you that the Echo is an amazing car for tall drivers. I am 6 feet 9 inches tall with a beanpole figure, and while I do have to do a little turtling (craning the neck down and out) to see the traffic signals at intersections, the Echo is among the very very few cars that I could comfortably sit in, let alone drive.

The front head and leg room doesn’t look all that great on paper, at 39.9” and 41.1” respectively, but something about the upright driving position and tall greenhouse let it work well for tall people. It has a seat that is kind of skimpy but nothing different than your other economy class cars, and it really doesn’t offer much support beyond my butt, but since you’re sitting almost as if you were in a minivan it works. Well, it works for most trips less than 200 miles, I should say. And given the lack of cruise control you’re not going to be driving much farther than that without getting out and stretching out your foot anyway. A tiny dummy pedal on the left doesn’t do much for my size 14 foot either, and I have to consciously move my left foot off of it to it doesn’t get too stiff on a long trip.

The front doors on the sedan are large enough for large people to get in and out comfortably, and while I do have to scrunch down to enter and sit in pretty much any sedan, the Echo isn't nearly as bad as other econo cars in this class. Rather than falling into the driver's seat, I can just kind of sit down into it.

Most other tall people at my height and up are driving with their seats tipped so far back they are checking their blind spot out of the rear window, but the Toyota Echo actually lets me sit up a little straighter than normal. It’s not perfect, I’m definitely still leaning back, but I think my in-laws said it best after going for a spin: the Toyota Echo is bigger inside than it looks from the outside. Back seat room is cramped for me, I have to bend sideways or way forward to even think about sitting in the back seat, but I never spend any time back there. As a front seat passenger the room is also pretty much fine.

The Echo also comes with 60/40 folding rear seats, and as tiny as the rear trunk lid appears you can actually get a fair amount of stuff in there. Ten paper grocery bags are no problem, but bulky stuff like multiple sleeping bags or a disassembled bicycle can be a challenge. (And if you’re wondering, yes, my uber-large Schwinn Impact mountain bike does fit in the back with the seat down and both tires removed. You just need a shoehorn to get it in.)

The moral of this story is simple: if you’re 6’9” or less, an Echo will work fine for you. You might get some weird looks getting out of it, but given the reliability and mpg stuff that I’ll be touching on in future posts, I wouldn’t hesitate to pick one up.

More In The Toyota Echo Ownership Series:

Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: Notes on MPG

Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: Highway Cruising & Cabin Comfort: Not Bad, Not A Lexus

Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: What is it like driving an Echo in the snow?

Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: True Cost to Own a Toyota Echo

Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: Introduction

My 2000 Toyota Echo is 12 years old, and I feel like it's finally time to give it a review on my blog! This is the first in a series of posts that will attempt to detail my ownership experience with the Toyota Echo on several levels.

Let's begin with an introduction. Toyota created the Echo starting with the 2000 model year as an inexpensive car aimed at younger customers. Previously, this segment of the car market had been served by the Toyota Tercel, and for anyone used to that vehicle's styling the Echo looks a lot like someone took a Tercel and inflated it. Inflated it a lot, actually. The tall shape and short trunk lid give it a unique look that I've heard of as "cute" or "goofy" (although I haven't really heard anyone say anything bad about it, just that it's different.) The tiny grille up front and fairly flat sides do make for an interesting look at any angle, and I always think it looks like the engine is weighing the front end down since the whole car appears slanted forward from the side. It’s a look that’s best described as “original.”

Under the pint-sized bodywork is a matching engine: a 1.5L four-cylinder aluminum engine that generates 108 horses and 105 lb-ft of torque. Of course, the curb weight of the four-door sedan is only 2030 lbs., so the engine hauls the Echo to 60 mph in 8.5 seconds. Not too bad, but keep in mind that you're going to have to punch the pedal through the floor to achieve that number anywhere besides the test track. My Toyota Echo has the optional A/C (yes, air conditioning was an option) which noticeably saps engine power when it's engaged.

The engine is also equipped with variable valve timing for increased efficiency - Toyota's version is dubbed VVT-i. The Echo’s small engine is a good fit for the technology, and EPA mpg estimates for the 4-speed automatic model are 32/39. In real life I’ve been seeing right around those numbers on a highway commute of 30 miles to work and back, but it does drop some in the Midwest winter. It’s also worth mentioning that the Echo’s transmission is “hill-smart” meaning it won’t upshift to go up a hill unless it’s a serious grade. In practice this represents another smart choice by Echo engineers – the small engine is capable of moving the Echo up grades without lagging just fine in the final gear. And you won’t even notice if it does lag a little since I don’t think cruise control was even an option until the 2005 model year.

Given its low, low original price (typically under $14,000) Toyota has done an amazing job on getting all the basics right and adding just enough of a twist that you feel like you’re driving something special. In fact, it kind of makes me want to buy another quirky car just so I don’t have a common vehicle. Maybe that’s just my left brain expressing itself, since my wallet sure is going to be surprised when I have to say goodbye to my Echo!

More In The Toyota Echo Ownership Series:
Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: Notes for Tall Drivers (or Why I Chose the Echo)

Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: Notes on MPG

Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: Highway Cruising & Cabin Comfort: Not Bad, Not A Lexus

Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: What is it like driving an Echo in the snow?

Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: True Cost to Own a Toyota Echo