I looked at the car and it was in pretty good condition. Drove nice and rode well too. It was exactly as I had expected going into it- just an just a bare-boned econobox. The only thing I saw that was a slight problem was the exhaust… It must of had a leak and they got new patches put in but the original pieces looked like they would not last much longer before needing the same thing. And the rest of the underside and wheel wells was rusty as well.
Albeit, I offered $2500 but he was sticking to his original $2900. Decided not to go any higher but if I will watch the ad and see if he drops the price some.
Back in 2002, I was looking at an 8 year old Tercel . . . a 1994 model . . . and the asking price was $3300
I didn’t buy that one, but I bought another 1994 Tercel . . . with 45000 miles . . . a few months later, for $3000
Now, in 2015, you’re looking at a 18 year old Tercel . . . with more miles . . . for $2900
Please step back and look at the big picture
By the way, that Tercel I bought back then . . . it had absolutely no mechanical problems at all. No exhaust problems, no leaks, tires and brakes were okay, etc. The AC worked perfectly
Are you sure you assessed this rust situation properly? Generally there’s more that can’t be seen. I really think you want a mechanic to inspect this car before you buy it.
The standard selling price for an econobox that age is about $700-$800 regardless of condition.
Check the Kelly Blue Book and you’ll see what it would go for.
I own a 1997 Toyota Tercel with about 188,000 miles on it. It’s a fantastic commuter car. Very basic but highly reliable. The car has had regular maintenance from day 1 (got it from my sister at less than 100,000 miles) and I fully expect it will give me another 100,000 miles. Here’s the best part - this car REGULARLY gets 47 MPG (standard trans). No, that’s not a typo - fourty-seven miles per gallon! I don’t know why they ever stopped making them but if I had a chance to buy another one, I would.
I actually like the looks of the Echo better than the Tercel. And the Echo seems like it had as good of reliability as the Tercel, if not better. And the Echo is newer. So given the choice I’d choose an Echo vs. a Tercel. I’m not a fan of the Yaris. It looks like the driver is pretty cramped in there.
I love Tercels and have owned several over the years. They are great basic, reliable transportation. This generation has a finicky motor that, if the oil is not changed regularly, can develop severe oil burning issues quickly. I would make sure that you have the compression checked if you decide to pay this car. I would not pay more than $2,000 for it and it is probably not worth more than $1,200 in reality. Whoever is selling it is asking for what I would call their “emotional price”. They have owned the car a long time and have an unrealistic opinion of its value.
Just a personal opinion…Tercels, Echos and the Yaris are all from the same ilk. Very reliable city cars that are suited for long trips if you drive slowly, have a great back and are hard of hearing already. They are NOT a Corrolla. Each Time I bought a Corolla I would try one of these PoS cars out first to compare and would walk away. Expect to be blown off the road by a good gust of wind and be fighting semis for lane space while climbing grades. I would not take one as a gift unless I could resell it to some one else who didn’t know better.
These cars are entry level vehicles made for those moving up from tricycles or horse and buggies.
Look for a 2002 geo prism, a Corolla in disguise.
I test drove a Tercel for a friend who was looking for a stick shift car to learn to drive on. Just like most pre millennial Toyota, it had some steering feel. The chassis was stable at 70. The shifter was very precise for a10 year old car and the engine rev drop after each upshift was decently timed. It didn’t have much power but it could handle being flung around a corner. I wonder why Toyota thought the Echo was a better idea.
They didn’t think the Echo was a better idea. It was just time for a redesign and they decided to try another name. By then it had been the Tercel for a good many years and sales weren’t great. That’s when most auto companies slap a new name on. The Echo name only lasted for a few years before they changed it to Yaris, which is the international name for that model. Personally, I really liked Tercel as a name, a whole lot more than Echo or Yaris. A tercel is a male hawk of some species.
@MarkM The Echo was always called the Yaris in non-US/Canada markets. That’s normal; the Corolla is called something else in Europe as well,
The Echo was a sturdy little car (my niece will testify to that) but is was short on creature comforts. It’s getting better and resembles what the Corolla used to be.
. My son in law had a Tercel…for a while. It was inticing to get Toyota reliability but for the cheap price. It was still hard to live with in anything but city driving. I had much older Corrollas. The tercel and the Echo and Yaris that followed are all cut from the same cloth. The Yaris and previous Echo maybe as good as older Corollas…but it dates back more then twenty years to get any semblance of recognition. I would sooner have a ten year old Corrolla then the newest junker version of any of these three crappy City only cars. The only things I can say good about the Yaris is it roomier by a lot and the design is less suseptable to cross winds. Otherwise, same old mechanics, cheap four speed and cheap interior. Corollas compare well to their contemporaries as far as performance and value. The Yaris, Tercel and Echo ALWAYS lag behind their contemporary competition. Think of a Honda Fit compared to a Yaris and you get the idea how poorly Tecel and Echo compared to their contemporaries. Woth each year that went by, you can bet there were no engineers in the Yaris ( Tercel, Echo ) redesign team; just bean counters. If they got anything new, it was by chance.
The Yaris has been the name in most of the world, with Echo the name of that one US generation, but the car is called the Vitz in Japan. Even Yaris is better than Vitz. Tercel was used worldwide for the earlier cars.
The Starlet, briefly sold in the US in the early eighties, was also an ancestor of the Vitz. I picture a family with Mom and Dad driving a Celebrity, and their teen daughter a Starlet. The son I haven’t figured out. An Acclaim? Encore? Not quite right.
I’d like a Tercel. It embodied “old school thinking” as to how to make an efficient economy car: make it light, make it simple, give it a small engine. The whole idea behind turbos, cam phasers, auto-stop, etc is to “have you cake and eat it too”: you get both efficiency and some performance (at a higher initial price, and higher maintenance costs when some of the tech inevitably breaks.)
OTOH, the Tercel was a car with optional power steering. You can get 40MPG easily enough with a tiny car with a tiny engine.
It’s fine when you’re moving along, but parking is more difficult than with some other cars. You quickly get used to it, though
I will disagree strongly about the earlier comment about the handling. Tercels do not like to be thrown around the corners. They have skinny tires, very basic suspension, most don’t even have sway bars
I don’t know about the Tekel as my son in law called it, but our Corolla 5 speed had 25 more horsepower, was longer and heavier and got better gas mileage overall and on the highway. The same holds true for the Corolla and the Yaris. After driving our Corolla, he dumped his Terkel.
This line of cars is better suited for city driving. The base Corolla is just a little more new and is so much superior, it is not worth considering the Yaris dirivatives unless a foot less of length is that important. Comparibly, it is more then worth it to buy a Year old or more Corolla then a new Yaris for the same money as in five years, it will be worth much more while giving you better service. The same holds true for a slightly older Corolla over the similar Tercel and Echo. I had several Corollas and a Prism which was equal in cost to the Echo. So if you really want a Toyota that cheap…to heck with a junker, get a Corolla. The 1.8L Corolla motor has been a bench mark for many years in overall economy, durability and performance combination in the larger but still more economical car.
I don’t care of they call it the Tercel, Echo, or Yaris. The 97 Tercel had a decent steering feel to it. I’m not talking about the ability to corner at high speed. I’m talking about linearity in control effort. The precise shifter that isn’t found in a newer car. It’s about the basic things that it did right
I suggested the Echo to my parents after the Corolla loss its transmission after just eleven years. The Echo had a numb steering just like the Corolla, the brake felt mush, and the sheet metal felt hollow. But it was and still is a roomy, reliable car. I bought my xb a few months after the Echo. The steering was much better than the Echo, but the shifter was vague and the brake was mushy. It seemed to me Toyota had taken steps back from the 90s. Neither of those car were as driver focused as the Tercel was.
However, while the xb was lacking in manners, it made up for that in its utility. I had hauled ovens and washing machines in the car with the hatch closed. It had taken me on many road trips, including a 30 miles dirt road to the grand canyon skywalk and going up 10 thousand feet to the east side of Yosemite. It was a city car destined for Japanese roads, but it handle long road trips just fine. I just wish it had the road manners of a Toyota from the 90s, like the Tercel.
