I Bought A Cheap But FILTHY Toyota...

I just bought an absolutely filthy car off of Facebook Marketplace. And I mean filthy, this thing is so dirty I'm very surprised they didn't clean the interior at all before trying to sell it. Anyway, let's take a look. So here is the little 3 door Toyota Echo, otherwise known as the Yaris throughout the rest of the world. And oh god, you bet the seller didn't show any interior photos in the ad. This is truly awful, and I've seen some really dirty cars before. Did they ever wash their hands? And honestly, how does this even happen? I was genuinely stunned when I saw this, apparently this was used for food delivery as well. With any luck, I'll be able to get this a little bit more sanitary. Every surface that the driver would have touched is truly bad. So what do we have under the hood? It's the efficient little 1.3L inline 4 2NZ-FE. This particular one is a replacement from a 2006 Yaris. When it was put in here it had apparently done 113,000km, and we can see it needs a little bit of oil. I'll be doing a full oil change during this video, but for now, I just want to test the car. For a car that's just about to clock over 400,000km, it's great to see that it has no leaks at all. And this is mainly probably due to the fact that the engine was replaced of course. So let's turn our attention to the very poorly patched up exterior. Whenever you buy a new car, be sure to check that the lights and turn signals work. Only one of the three brake lights actually works, hopefully it's just a burnt out globe and not an electrical problem. And as we can see, this globe is very much blown. At the front, the left headlight H4 globe also needs replacing as only the high beam works. Now let's give that exterior a much needed cleaning. The clear coat on the bonnet is absolutely destroyed. It's literally coming off in large chunks. 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I'll progressively work at cleaning the interior over the next few weeks. I just want at least the surfaces I touch on a regular basis to be cleaned off. Upholstery cleaner can only do so much to the really stained seats. I'll likely just put some cheap seat covers over these, which will save a lot of time and effort. If this isn't a PSA for reasons you should wash your hands, I don't know what is. If you clean your car regularly, it will not look like this. This car seems pretty mechanically sound, but it came with literally no service history. The only thing in the glove box was this religious text for some reason. Taking the beauty cover off, I'll put in some new spark plugs. Clearly the first ignition coil was replaced somewhat recently. They generate the spark for each cylinder. I've definitely seen worse, but the first one could definitely do with replacing. A worn out spark plug causes more resistance, which can lead to premature ignition coil failure. New ones are dirt cheap. Just make sure you get ones compatible with your vehicle. Quality ones can last upwards of 100,000 kilometers. I like to first tighten the new plugs in by hand to make sure not to damage the thread. Then I'd do about a half a turn plus a little bit more. Not too tight, but it's also not going to come loose on its own. There was a little bit of surface rust in cylinder one. I was sure to clean this out with some isopropyl alcohol before putting the spark plug in. Let's see if it still starts up. Yes, it's still running well. Next up after warming up the engine is the oil change. I'm not sure when the last one was done, but having good oil in here is even more so important because it uses a timing chain, not a timing belt. The timing chain is lubricated by the engine oil. As I said before, this engine has no leaks at all, so it was probably reconditioned before being installed. With a 14mm socket, I undid the sump plug. Once all that had drained out, I removed the oil filter, which was also pretty easy to get to, if a little bit messy to remove. The oil capacity is supposed to be just under 3 liters, which my collection pan shows here. With your new filter, be sure to remove the plastic film and lubricate the seal with a bit of oil. Also check that the old filter came out with its rubber seal. You don't want to stack rubber seals as they'll leak like a sieve. Now I'm going to put in slightly less than the oil capacity. Once it's back on flat ground, I'll fill up the last bit, checking the dipstick to make sure it's not overfilled. And you know what? It looks like they just put water in the cooling system without any coolant, so let's put in some coolant. This engine is supposed to have the red stuff, and to drain whatever's in there, there's a little tap on the base of the radiator. Leaving the radiator cap off, I got under there and unscrewed the plug, which released the contents of the cooling system, which was pretty much entirely water. Now to get the rest of the liquid out of the reservoir, you could take off this hose, but it was on there tight and I didn't want to break it. So I simply blew the liquid up through the radiator. There's a slight red tint to it. Luckily in our climate, we don't need to worry about freezing thankfully. The entire system appears to take about 4 litres. I left the heater on before switching off the car, so the contents of the heater core should have come out with it. Then it's simply a matter of filling the cooling system. Once it appears full, get it back on flat ground. Then with the engine running and heaters on, keep topping up the radiator until it stays full. I diluted this coolant I'm putting in now, also be sure to appropriately fill the reservoir. With the engine off, let's change that blown front headlight. The filament is visibly damaged with the high beam part still intact. And now we have working front headlights once again. The wiper blades on here are pretty crusty and I got some replacement blades at cost price, being around six Australian dollars each. They come with mounts to suit most vehicles. Using old worn out blades can scratch your glass. And if your windows appear fogged over a bit, cleaning the inside will definitely help. Now with the engine cooled down and the dipstick wiped off, let's check the oil level. It needs a little bit more. I kept adding a little bit until it sat very close to the full line. With engine maintenance out of the way, let's focus on the exterior. The bonnet is one area we can improve pretty easily. After taking the grill off, we can try repainting the surface. Since the Toyota logo was stuck on pretty well, I simply masked over it with tape. The peeling clear coat and years of neglect has left it looking pretty bad. First of all, I wiped down the surface. Then I rubbed the entire bonnet with some fine wet sandpaper. I wanted to remove all of the flaking clear coat edges that I could. This gives us a better surface to work with before sanding. I focused on the areas of clear coat still remaining to roughen them up for painting. Then once again, I ran over the entire surface with fine wet sandpaper. Before painting it, it's a good idea to clean surfaces with wax and grease remover, which removes debris like wax and grease. And if there were any lifting areas of clear coat remaining, I scratched them off. Prior to painting, you should also mask up the little water squirters, as they won't be very effective if clogged up with paint. Now the painting can begin, starting off with a few very light coats. I found some cheap spray paint that was a pretty good match to the rest of the car body. And make sure to wear a mask, or better yet, a respirator, and do this in a well-ventilated area outside. It's really starting to look somewhat even after a few coats. This is definitely a big improvement compared to what it looked like before. And after waiting for the paint to dry, it was time for the clear coat, which will help protect the paint. I was running a bit low on this stuff, so I focused on doing a few thicker coats. Sadly, I got too close and scratched some of the soft paint. Either way, it's looking a lot better. Be sure to let it dry for at least 24 hours. While it sits there drying, let's take care of some of the other damage to the bodywork. Using some cut and polish greatly reduced the large scrape on the driver's side door. Scrapes that had removed paint, I simply touched up with a Q-tip, along with some leftover spray paint. The next day, it was time to see how the bonnet turned out. Since I ran out of clear coat spray, I really didn't apply enough to safely polish the surface afterwards. So we'll see how it goes over the next coming months. Unlike the Holden Commodore I made a video on recently, the paint I applied to the bonnet matches the rest of the body very well. It's not perfect, but it does look better than it did originally. A professional respray would obviously look a lot better, but it would also cost a heap more money. And it's not really worth spending that kind of money on a car that looks like this, honestly. Mechanically, it's pretty sound, and I did find some random Toyota hubcaps that matched pretty well in our backyard, thankfully. I'll take it in for a transmission service though, as the fluid looks pretty black and it doesn't shift as smooth into the overdrive gear. Oh, and after driving it for several hundred kilometres, it hadn't burnt or lost any oil. When starting from cold, it also has no smoke coming out of the exhaust, which is good to see. So what's it like driving one of these pretty tiny Toyota economy cars? This does have power steering so it's very easy to turn, and fuel economy is also decent. I'm currently getting about 38 miles per gallon, which is 6.2 litres per 100. And I'll actually be keeping this car as a cheap little runaround while we build our house. It's very practical and has a surprising amount of space with the back seats folded down. There was however something I should have done earlier, flushed the cooling system before putting in that new coolant. The new coolant must have kicked up a bit of sediment as it looks a little bit orange. It's also best to mix coolant with demineralised water, which has less minerals that cause issues in the cooling system. After opening the heater core and letting the car run for a few minutes, I was feeling confident enough to drain the system without even lifting the car up. One slightly bruised head later, the coolant was coming out. Looking a little bit rusty. To dispose of the old coolant, I put it in some empty oil bottles that I had lying around. Some auto stores will take this free of charge and recycle the contents. Now I'm going to do a few cooling system flushes, with a dilution of 20 to 1, 50ml for every 1 litre. This stuff helps remove any debris from the system. With the engine running, I put in the last of the flush. You should keep adding more until the level stops dropping. Then it's advised that you drive the car around for about 15 minutes. Once cooled off, you can safely take off the radiator cap. The stuff that comes out doesn't look too bad. That red tinge is probably just some of the residual coolant. I then repeated the process a few times, being sure to blast the heaters to get that liquid flowing through and flushing out the heater core as well. After the second flush, it looked pretty clear, and I did one more just for the sake of it. But this is definitely all the flushing that was needed. Now we'll be putting in this coolant concentrate. The instructions say to put this in first, before the demineralised water. Since that 1 litre of concentrate makes up to about 20 litres of coolant, I put in a 4 to 1 ratio into the reservoir. This will end up being pretty much the same dilution as what I put in the reservoir, since the entire system holds about 4 litres. So I started up the engine and filled the remaining amount. Once again, you should use demineralised water to reduce corrosion and rust in the system. What this car really needed were some new tyres, this one being the worst of the four, and I found a good deal on some Kumos. Four brand new tyres fitted and balanced for under 300 Australian dollars. This makes a huge difference to the driving, especially at highway speeds. With way less road noise thanks to the new tyres, it became apparent that one of the rear wheel bearings needed replacing. This meant jacking up the rear of the car, so be sure that you put some chocks in front of your front wheels. With the handbrake off, we spun the rear wheels, the rear right bearing was clearly worn, whereas the rear left was completely smooth and made no noise. Touching the shock absorber while spinning it, I could feel no vibrations at all thankfully. Now that we know that only the rear right wheel bearing needed replacing, we made sure to secure the car. You can't solely rely on a trolley jack, some jack stands are also a must for safety reasons. The rear drum brake also looks pretty good, the drum is in good shape and the pad has plenty of tread. Four bolts hold the bearing on, and you can feel that the part was pretty worn out. We started with a few light taps to hopefully loosen it off. It was in there pretty tight, a bit of force was now required, and after some time and a bit of WD-40 later, it was finally out. It looks pretty crusty, especially compared to the new shiny part. The rear wheel bearings are far easier to replace than the ones at the front. If your tyres are good and you're still feeling weird vibrations or hearing droning sounds, one or more of your wheel bearings could need replacing. So my father, who is a mechanic, drove it around and tested it out. He said it drives like a new car, super smooth and turns very easily. Not bad for a little Toyota that's nearly done 400,000km. I really enjoy driving this car around, it's small but practical. It's not very stylish or fast, or in very good cosmetic condition, but it gets the job done and with the help of some eucalyptus oil, I got most of the interior grime off. The driver's door looked way worse originally. Random grubby marks wouldn't come off with most cleaning products, but eucalyptus oil really saved the day. I'll have to keep chipping away at it, but it doesn't feel disgusting to get into this car anymore. It's also a rather odd interior, with so many rounded edges. Even the air vents are these little weird balls. To stop airflow, you just flip them all the way up. The dash cluster is also in the middle of the dashboard, and entirely digital without any gauges. That definitely took some getting used to, but now it has a very presentable interior, and there's no shortage of storage either. Just look at how many compartments there are. And after about 1000km, the oil level hadn't changed at all. The transmission service also noticeably improved the shifting between gears, especially the overdrive gear. The fact that they found metal paste across the filter and sump, means it was well overdue for a trans service. It's a great car that was cheap, and gets me around with very little fuel usage. But just like many Toyotas, it just keeps on going. The Toyota Echo is an incredibly practical and fuel efficient little car. This one has definitely seen better days, but is now pretty usable, and you'll see a lot of these used for food delivery services. Although this one was apparently used for food delivery services too, which is incredibly disgusting considering it was filthy. So I hope your food deliveries, if you get any, arrive in a car a little cleaner than this one. Anyway, thank you very much for watching, and this is the last time I'm filming on this set, and in this house. So as our house gets built, we're going to be living in a caravan. I hope it goes all good for us, and I plan to get many more videos to you in the near future. Have a good one, and thanks for supporting my channel. I'll see you in the next one.