2000 Echo

[Sycoa]

Hello,

I'll start by saying I really don't know that much about cars, however before taking my car back to a mechanic, I'd like to have a general idea of what's wrong with it so I don't get a bogus story costing me a lot more than I need to pay.

Anyway, I've had my Echo for almost 3 years now, my father gave it to me, and he had bought it off of someone. Ever since we've had it there has been a check engine light, however my father drives like an old man and never on the highway, so never bothered to get it fixed. The problem I'm encountering is that my car doesn't seem to have any "balls" so to speak. What I mean is, depress the accelerator more than 1/3 and the car actually feels like it's stalled, and steadily looses speed, not gaining it.

That said, this occurs off and on. Sometimes I can shift from gear to gear, and depress the accelerator and the car will have great acceleration, but other times under the same conditions, it just dies. I used to be able to get my car to jump up to highway speeds relatively easily (After warming the engine up, coming off the ramp at 2/3rd gear) however now the car starts to work and just dies, and I can barely keep it at 100km. (Shifting down a gear or two actually slows it down more, the engine does not work harder as per usual)

I have yet to go get it read, however I recently changed the plugs when the issue starting worsening, however no change.

Another interesting note is that when you take the negative lead off the battery for a few minutes to reset the systems in the car, the car runs EXTREMELY bad for about 30min-1hr of driving- I mean really choppy! After awhile it will return to normal, and the check engine light will re-appear shortly thereafter.

Any ideas?

[JNEG]

If you have an Autozone nearby, they will read the codes for free; at least you have a starting point, and will not be swapping parts needlessly. Other easy low cost possible fixes could be cleaning the MAF Sensor (do a search on this site) and treating a near empty gas tank with some fuel injector cleaner, and checking the air filter.

[Sycoa]

Thank you JNEG for the advice.

I tried everything you mentioned, and I am happy to say I fixed my car, and it cost me $20.

I checked the air filter, it is brand new. I took a trip to Canadian Tire, bought some injector cleaner and some sensor cleaner. Put the cleaner in, filled up my tank, which was conveniently empty, and headed home. The first time I "cleaned" my MAF sensor I did it wrong. Perhaps my Google-fu is weak, but I cannot find a clear guide to doing this, so I will describe it the best I can to help anyone that reads this.

My mistake was I loosened the air pipe going into the MAF sensor/air filter box. There is a plastic ring and some sort of wire hanging on the left of it. I tried to clean this, however it made no diffrence. I later realized (again, as in my first post I'm not good with cars) that you have to actually un-screw two screws on the sensor itself, unplug it and pull it out. Inside the tube, there are two tiny wires. These were filthy on my sensor. Give them a few sprays, let it dry, hook it all back up and give it a try.

I instantly had better preformance. My car doesn't resist at all when shifting gears or accelerating. I didn't actually think an echo could even go as fast as mine does now.

I cannot thank you enough JNEG, you have saved me a lot of money, and my car has never run better. The CEL is still on, but I could probably turn that off by disconnecting the battery. I think I'm better to leave it though, as for some reason when you hook it back up, the car runs incredibly horrible for a good long time. Oddly, the CEL will not come on until you shut the engine off, then it will come back the next time you start it. Beats me, I'm just happy it's running again.

Again, thank you very, very much for your help.

[toyotaman7166]

good to hear!

[JNEG]

You're welcome- happy trails!