Faults:

Nothing.

General Comments:

The only minor complaint I have with this car is that is seems to wear out front tyres quickly. I have 100,000 Km on the clock, and I have had to change the front tyres twice now, and also the back once.

The brakes are brilliant (unlike other posts here suggesting the brakes don't last). When I was changing the tyres at 100,000, the tyre man showed me how much "meat" was on the brakes... wow they had 90% left. Perhaps other people who are going through brakes very quickly should drive a little more gently, and not wear out their brakes as quick.

I am intending to keep the car for at least another 50,000 km, to see how the clutch holds up. I normally get 180,000 out of a clutch, so it would be good to see how long the original clutch in this car lasts.

I would have liked a bigger motor in this vehicle, the 1.3 Ltr is just a bit under-powered.

My friend works for Toyota and he has advised me not to sell it. In 10 years the local Toyota dealer has not seen one Echo come back to the yard on the back of a truck. There had been heaps of Camry's come back, and the upgrade to the Echo, the Yaris, is meant to be an absolute junk of a car. The general comment from the people at Toyota is that the Yaris contains the parts that were not good enough to make it to the Corolla, and therefore the Yaris is not as good as the Echo or the Corolla.

Faults:

Replaced 2 tyres at 30,000 kms. Otherwise, nothing has gone wrong!!

General Comments:

Perfect runabout, comfortable, reliable, handles well, quiet, very economical!

Drove Auckland to Wellington (680) kms each way and used only 1 1/2 tanks of petrol! Very comfortable on the corners.

Faults:

Changed the water pump under warranty at 114 000 km; but this again it was my fault.

I left the car outside at a temperature of -25 C for about 24 hours and I put it in the garage afterwards, but I didn't wait for the engine to warm up. Consequently the drastic change of temperature (from -25 C to +21 C) caused some metallic component of the water pump to expand and the coolant started leaking.

General Comments:

I own the 5-door hatchback model and this car is simply perfect! It is really really reliable (the so well known bullet-proof reliability of Toyota) and really really fuel-efficient. The Echo is really cheap in maintenance since all the parts are easy to access, they don't cost you a fortune and the car has a timing chain instead of a belt.

In really cold weather (-15 C to -20 C) I've obtained an average of 7.5L / 100km. Stats Canada show 6.7L in the city and 5.4L on the highway; but these are only theoretical numbers calculated in PERFECT driving conditions.

The front and rear seats are very comfortable and really high. While driving you have a very good visibility of the road. Trust me, the fact that the speed indicator is in the middle of the dashboard is really not a problem!

The car is small but inside it feels like a Camry or a Corolla. Toyota put a lot of storage spaces in it. I was able to fit a couch in the hatch!

The only things I didn't like about it is the fact that the suspension is maybe a bit soft, since you tend to bend a lot in stiff turns; the engine can be noisy since it has a timing chain and not a belt; the ventilation tends to be really noisy also when positioned at the highest power.

The rest is pretty OK. This car is perfect for a student or for anyone who is looking for a simple fuel-efficient and reliable car to drive around the city, or get from point A to point B in safety and lower costs.