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Sedans Toyota Echo Toyota Echo
5644 messages, Last post on Oct 12, 2009 at 11:53 AM
You are in the Toyota Echo Forum. Your Hosts are pat & karens
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My son and wife decided to ride around in a Between-The-Lakes Kentucky State Park in their beloved ECHO. The road became more Off Road than road. It was rough but the ECHO did well except they said it will need an front end alignment. What do you think they learned from this?
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Replying to: babyboomer (Jul 05, 2008 5:10 am) 
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I just bought a 2000 silver four door for my son to replace his 93 Altima which has 138k miles on it. 117k miles, one owner, (woman collage professor) auto, ac works (everything works) clock, manual remote control mirrors (mine dont even have that!) CD/tape/AMFM. Good rubber. Clean air filter and appears to have the maintenance up to date. Did a scan of the error codes which turned up a clean slate. There is a bit of broken plastic on the right front corner of the car involving the underside of the bumper. CV joint boots were good, no leaking brake fluid anywhere, exhaust system has no holes, car ran and drove as it should. Now what would you say if it was $3000? Deal...or no Deal?
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Replying to: kneisl1 (Aug 13, 2008 9:29 am)
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Replying to: lhanson (Aug 13, 2008 12:16 pm) |
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Heres a FYI about older ECHOs. Today we removed one of the wheels to check the front brake pad thickness on the 2000 ECHO with 117k miles I bought for my son. Well we couldnt get the wheel off! It seems the ECHO has a hole through through the center of the rim that the hub on the rotor/brake drum goes through. They are nearly the same diameter so corrosion seized the rim on the hub solid even without the lug nuts on. COULD NOT pull the wheel off the car. So what we did was spray all four wheels round the hub area with WD40 and loosened ALL the lug nuts a couple of turns. Then we drove the car back and forth a few times. That broke all the rims free of the hubs. You might want to do this on your older ECHO because if you ever have a flat and its been years since the wheels were off you zMIGHT NOT be able to get the flat tire off the car!.
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Replying to: kneisl1 (Aug 19, 2008 9:27 am) BTW, this advice isn't Echo-specific, this happens to older cars in general whenever those rims have been on there for too long. It's even better when the lugs are frozen too - you have to break them off the hub just to get the darn wheel off. |
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I think Toyotas are alone with the hole thru the rim matching the hub diameter which leads to stuck rims. The AF and brake fluid were new but the coolant was pretty dirty. A mixed bag it would seem. Next project: the PS pump belt (although new) is a bit loose and squeeking. One of the rims was pretty badly dented but still holding air and not wobbling. I had a bolt in my tire on my personal ECHO last week. Tire was less than 5000 mile old. (about a year) The rim wasnt stuck but it took a few blows with a sledgehammer to loosen it off.
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Replying to: kneisl1 (Aug 19, 2008 7:50 pm)  I decided to not pay $40-60 for rotation every 6K miles. I did not like the OEM tires anyway. This Canadian made ’04 Corolla however turned out to have not only the wheels seizing to the hubs but the rotors & drums too. First it took a lot of super penetrating fluid and removing of surface rust on the hub center with a Scotchbrite pad. Then I used a long pry bar, a 5 # hammer plus a few choice words before they finally popped off with a loud snap. The actual reason for removing the wheel in the first place was there is no excuse for one of the front brake pads seizing in the caliper just after the warranty ended (actually the pads are probably not covered). The other three ‘free’ pads had about 50% or more life left based on the lining material remaining. So it seemed to be not a hydraulically problem or normal brake wear. It took quite a lot of effort to slide the worn pad off the caliper’s stainless clips while the other three slid off with relatively low effort! In addition most all of the under carriage and suspension fasteners seemed to have very low quality plating. My nearly 20 year old Japanese made Toyotas never exhibited anywhere near that much corrosion. Of course it was well rust proofed by yours truly. Possibly the use of today’s Chinese made fasteners has come back to bite us in the wallet. With reduced longevity. I'm rambling on so on to my solution to the problem. Do not try this at home  guys and gals. I apply a thin film of Black Molybdenum High Temp brake grease to the rotor to hub (or drum) and to the wheel mating surfaces. Then I high temp anti-seize the studs to make sure they do not seize up either. Yes it’s frowned upon in some circles as dangerous. However treated New Hampshire roads in winter can do a number to unplanted fasteners in just a couple of winters. That would be only 12-15 K miles on my wife’s Corolla. Lately much less than 2000 per year on my accessible ‘97 S-10 used primarily during winter. Prior to anti-seize I used to occasionally snap off properly torqued lug nuts due to corrosion when trying to remove them just a few years later. Specially when over tightened during service or state inspections. Not anymore. And safety wise I have never had any lugnuts loosen in more than 20 years with anti-seize. I actually do it to new cars as soon as possible. It is so nice being able to freely spin lugnuts on or off by hand. Currently other than me only the well trained very capable guys at Costco have removed the wheels. And they use a torque wrench to tighten the lugnuts to spec. Unfortunately they now are removing any treatment with brake cleaner. Rats! Any opinions? RG |
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As one who has lived in upstate NY for 25 winters I know where youre coming from! That old chestnut about antiseize on the wheel studs causing loose lug nuts needs to be put to rest! Driving on heavily salted roads can do those things to a car in a hurry. Really I would be removing and lubricating the wheels and brake parts once a year if I still lived there. At least Toyota uses acorn lug nuts instead of open ended nuts but even those are subject to seizure under those conditions. Throw in Neanderthal car mechanics overtightening the nuts and there you have it. You are wise to treat lugs with antiseize as soon as possible living where you do. Which reminds me about the trailer I just bought... But really the cure for stuck rims is loosen the lugs nuts on all four wheels a couple of turns and drive the car back and forth a few times. Youll hear the rims pop loose.
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