I have a 2001 Echo, 5-speed, 122,000 miles. My car is making a noise that sounds like a baseball card in a bike tire (like you used to do when you were a kid to make it sound like a motorcycle). I can hear it especially loud if I'm driving about 20-30mph in 2nd gear; I don't generally hear it in 1st gear or when I first accelerate. I do hear it constantly humming/clicking/buzzing whatever noise you want to call it while I'm driving down the highway. It has finally progressed to where I even hear it when I let off the accelerator and am coasting to a stop. Has anyone experienced this problem before? I took it to a family friend's auto shop to have it looked at. He replaced my "transmission fluid" (actually, he told me that the echo doesn't take transmission fluid, it takes gear oil) in hopes that it would stop the noise. He thinks I have a problem with my transmission but hasn't specified anything. He checked out my car for two days and couldn't figure it out. Has anyone had a similar issue and if so, what did you have to do????
Sounds a lot like the problem I had with my 2000 Echo. Better sit down...
I had that low "grinding" from the engine at the same intervals you had. I found that when I put the clutch in it would drastically reduce the volume of the sound, if not eliminating it entirely.
A couple mechanics told me it was the clutch release bearing, since when I had the clutch in the sound was gone. One mechanic told me it was another bearing in the transmission (not sure exactly which one, I have the notes at home).
Anyway I didn't do anything about it, until one day while driving on the highway the sound instantly got louder, and a few minutes later, the bearing gave in and the plates seized together in the transmission. I couldn't put it in gear; had to get it towed to the transmission shop and have it replaced. $2000.
Do either one of you have more information about which bearing went bad? My 2000 Echo has exactly the same problem, and at first I thought it was just the release bearing. Now I don't think so
Doubt that you will get much response from the posters as that post was 2 years ago and they havent posted anything since,i do hope some one solves the Question as i have a 2001 echo with 200k and would like to know the solution just in case i get a similar problem..
Yeah, I know, the reason I posted was because I sent a PM to one of the guys and haven't heard back. I think on this board the default is to have no email notification of PMs, so maybe I'll never find out.
I'm going in on mine though, so I'll let you know what I find out. I had *hoped* to be able to wait for warmer weather but the noise is getting louder and I really don't want a catastrophic failure on my daily commute. I've removed transmissions before so I'm not too intimidated by that part. The problem is going to figure out what to do when I see what bearing is actually bad in the thing. I did help a guy once to rebuild an MT and he'd probably help me fix mine. It's just how long will it take, you know? It doesn't seem as though Toyota sells an OEM-reman MT for the Echo. All the ones on eBay are used (as are the local junkyards of course) so I'm not sure what I'm gonna do once I get it out of the car.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jambo101
Doubt that you will get much response from the posters as that post was 2 years ago and they havent posted anything since,i do hope some one solves the Question as i have a 2001 echo with 200k and would like to know the solution just in case i get a similar problem..
are you sure it is not the cv joints. if noise goes away when you push in clutch it probably the input shaft bearing. which is the one closest to the clutch.
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2008 Yaris Sedan S
2008 Matrix XR
No, I'm not sure it isn't the CV joints but there's no sound when I turn and they aren't loose when I try and turn them with the wheels steady. But of course you have to remove them to get the transmission out so I was planning on checking them out at that time (along with the hub bearings).
The input shaft bearing is what I found on some other Internet posts. I don't know if shavings/grit from that bearing will contaminate the rest of the transmission (it is hard to tell from the shop manual) so we'll see just what the scope of the repair is once I have it out.
Have you ever replaced an input shaft bearing on a transmission?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Toybilt
are you sure it is not the cv joints. if noise goes away when you push in clutch it probably the input shaft bearing. which is the one closest to the clutch.
If you have to drop the tranny and open it up to repair some internal component i'm wondering if it would be cheaper to just replace the tranny with a rebuilt one.
kschachn: can you provide a little more information about the noise that you are hearing in you transmission? When do you hear the noise? Does it changes with temperature? Speed? Load? Gear?
Yes of course. It started out as a chirping sound when on the highway, it was quiet otherwise. Then it turned into (what I would call) typical bad bearing noise, which is a rumbling or grinding sound. It only happens when the car is in gear and it stops as soon as the clutch is pushed in. It doesn't happen when the gear is in neutral.
It does seem to be a bit louder when the car is warm but you can still hear it on cold days. You hear it loudest when you're going about 30 MPH in second or third gear, after that general road sounds kind of drown it out.
Another time you hear it is when you are downshifting and coming to a stop (but still in gear). Backpressure seems to make it worse.
Like I said, I thought at first it was the release bearing but on cars I've had where that's going bad, I've always only heard it when the clutch was in (pressed down), not out. This is pretty much exactly the reverse. It's getting louder too. Now I can for the most part hear a rumbling most times while driving around. I don't think I better wait for spring to take the thing out of the car.
Toyota doesn't list a factory remanufactured MT for this car, only an automatic. The thing is, if I don't fix it myself (the transmission) then where do I take it? There's lots of transmission shops here in Milwaukee, but other than a nice looking yellow pages ad how am I to know which ones are reputable? I'm just hoping I can fix it myself because I'm not too keen on putting in a used unit. I wonder if a 2005 transmission fits in my 2000? I might consider that if I knew if would work.
EDIT: You know, I just re-read post #1 in this thread, and realized I typed pretty much the same thing. What he said has got to be the same thing.
well if the noise is not there with clutch out and trans in nuetral its not the input shaft bearing because the shaft is turning while in nuetral. i think now its in the differential portion of transaxle. like the ring gear and pinion or the diff gears inside the ring gear case. this is the section between gear sets and output shafts. try jacking up front of car have someone hold one front tire while you spin other by hand then vice-versa and see if you hear noise. if you can hear a noise it may not be same as when you drive because the is no load/power on gears. . also when trans is in nuetral and clutch out the trans input shaft is turning but the counter shaft is not, niether is the output shaft, could be a bearing on one of them shafts but then it could be hard to shift gears also. i would look closely at differential.
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2008 Yaris Sedan S
2008 Matrix XR
Thanks a lot for the suggestions. I agree, it likely isn't the input shaft, like you say.
It's got to come out. I ordered the engine support bar today and some of the misc. parts I know I'll need, so that gets the ball rolling. Maybe this weekend...
As for those sites, I may consider that once I see what the problem is. Just a question - do you have any personal experience with them?
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2001 Echo - Manual Transmission - Problem
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