I guess this only would matter to the only 4 or 5 Echo’s left on the road now.
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The now deceased Echos were probably towed to death… 
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Many years ago, I had an Echo as a rental for a few days. It was a decent little car, but given its lack of power when merging into expressway traffic, I would hate to experience an Echo’s acceleration ability if it was towing even a small trailer.
Many years ago, driving down the interstate, I saw a Corvette pulling a ski boat behind it. After doing a double take, I verified what I saw. Yep.
Just because a car CAN pull a trailer doesn’t meant it SHOULD.
What’s the big deal? A Corvette can pull any small watercraft.
In seriousness, there’s an astonishing number of pictures out there of Corvettes towing things they shouldn’t.
And of course…
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If you towed anything when the manufacturer specifically says NOT TO…AND you get in an accident you could be help personal responsible for all damages. Your insurance company can deny coverage. Common sense tells me NEVER to tow if the manufacturer says not to.
At least the Corvette has the power to tow. And it’s RWD which is also a plus.
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I seriously doubt this would come into play in a court of law.
Insurance companies are cracking down on some of this crap. Some insurance companies in some states are refusing to pay your treatment for Covid if you refused to get the vaccine.
I’ve seen insurance companies deny coverage for vehicles that were modified beyond their limits. So it’s not out of the realm of possibilities.
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And great big brakes to stop all that extra weight, too!
Example…People tow on Harleys and Gold Wings all the time Mike, we both see it up here in NH. I’ve seen 250-300lb trailers behind a bike. You won’t see it in the Harley owners manual of course, but you know it’s done. But trailer on a bike is a liability as well, right? Like I mentioned before, common sense. Same exact car in Oz or Europe you can tow with a 100% A-OK from everyone (including Toyota, the manufacturer), but in the US they say no?!? (laughs)
Jeez lucky me, I have an Aussie owners manual in the glove box… Anyways, there’s enough pictures on the web showing a Toyota Echo or Toyota Yaris towing trailers, boats or whatever…some I’d agree with, some I don’t. My whole point from the beginning is you can tow with an Echo. You can tow with a Yaris. Just use common sense, that’s all. I said enough on this subject.
I still see these cars on the road all the time. In fact, I still see the 87-91 Camry, 88-92 Corolla, and of course, tons of Civic and Accord models from the late 1980s and 1990s. The Toyota Echo was not a bad car, and my father wanted me to buy a new one instead of having the engine replaced in my 91 Tercel.
The only reason I did not buy the Echo was because I could not stand the driver’s seat or the instrument cluster located in the center of the dash. Fixing that Tercel ended up being a huge mistake, because it was destroyed in an accident long before the payback period for the cost of a new engine. The only good thing was that I walked away with no injuries, even though there was not much left of my car.
I have no idea where you’re getting that it’s common sense. Common sense is logic based on knowledge. Knowledge from the experts say not to tow. Common sense follows that you shouldn’t tow.
The problem isn’t the towing. The problem is if there’s a problem while towing. A small FWD vehicle will have a very hard time getting things under control.
I will agree with you that towing a 200lb trailer probably won’t be a problem (short term). Not
too sure what the long term effect will have. We go camping pulling a trailer about 15-20 times a year. But I have the vehicle for it.
The modern definition seems to be “raw intuition absent any facts or expertise whatsoever.”
I got into a discussion once while group camping at an air show with a retired electrical engineer who designed antennas for military planes. He was busy holding court about his opinions on the economy and why a certain politician (who will remain nameless because it’s irrelevant in this discussion and Carolyn probably already wants to punch me from the weekend ) was wrong about his proposals for it. He said “Intuitively, common sense tells me that this just isn’t going to work.”
I pointed out that intuition-based decisions are only truly valuable in situations where there’s no risk in one action, and significant risk in another. For instance, if you’re an early human wandering around the savannah, and your intuition tells you there’s a lion in that clump of grass so you scamper up a tree, intuition is valuable. If you’re wrong, you got a little exercise. If you’re right, you avoided getting eaten.
But it short circuits in the modern world where expertise is required. I told the guy that intuitively if you want to transmit your signals better, you just make the antenna taller. But intuition leads you in the wrong direction, because antennas function best at certain discrete fractions of the wavelength you’re working with. Just slapping an arbitrary extension on your antenna isn’t necessarily going to help.
He grumbled and went off to find a more receptive audience.
The saying “common sense ain’t so common” has rarely been as true as it is today.
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