The car ran remarkably well for 106,000 miles. At that point the manual transmission failed. I was shocked at the $2,100 price tag for the component. This was the first manual transmission failure of any car that I have owned. While somewhat disappointed, I have not observed wide spread incidents such as ours. Maybe we had a bad bearing. Based upon my experience, the front wheel drive Subaru Impreza (somewhat comparable) was far superior.
I believe the Subaru cost a lot more than this bottom of the line Echo even though it's a toyota it was still the cheapest model at the time.
There is no such thing as a front wheel drive Impreza in North America. All Subarus, regardless of model, are all wheel drive. The change occurred in the 1990's when Subaru realized it couldn't compete head to head with Honda/Toyota so needed a marketing gimmick - the beauty of all wheel drive.
That is not true at all.
The Subaru Legacy L and Legacy Brighton came in front wheel drive, and AWD was optional.
1999 and up Subes are all AWD. Anything before that could have been front wheel or AWD.
210,000 on my 2001 Echo with manual transmission. So far so good.
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