Faults:

Nothing has gone wrong on it (yet), and I hope this car will be a lot better than my crappy Accent.

General Comments:

Best ever sporty, sexy, speedy, and manual FTW!!!

I use to own a 2001 Hyundai Accent GS with a 1.5 SOHC 12V engine, which was gutless compared to the Paseo, and it only generated 89HP. Also the transmission was automatic and was starting to fail on me; it was practically going into neutral by itself and staying stuck in 3rd gear; how crappy is that? So I traded it with the Paseo.

My family except my older brother thought I was crazy to trade a 2001 with a 1992. Well Toyota has a lot of quality compared to a Hyundai, and my Accent had about 163000, 2 years of ownership equals 2 year in hell. I never really liked that car, but the Paseo is a whole different story.

The only major thing I did to it was an oil change when I got it, and to swap the cassette AM/FM to a Pioneer CD player, which I had on my Hyundai (I put back the original CD player before trading it teehee!). Also the Hyundai car key broke in the driver's side door handle, when in fact the key was made of weak white metal, and it bent in my pocket, seriously!!!

So... yeah the Paseo is great, sporty, and sexy... man I could go all day commenting on that car.

Faults:

It hasn't let me down yet. Replaced water pump, timing belt, PCV valve, clutch & pressure plate, and rear main seal when I first got the car. None of the parts were bad; I just wanted to replace them as a preventative measure so I don't have any problems to deal with later.

The original clutch had 189k on it, and had plenty of material still left on the driven disk! Amazing!

The AC doesn't work and hasn't for several years according to the previous owner. It is still setup for R12, and would need to be converted. The compressor is bad and would need to be replaced, and I'm confident that would fix it back up along with a R134a retrofit.

The front struts knock a little when going over bumps, but I bet they have never been touched. The car still rides good, so I'm just going to leave it that way.

The valve seals are a little worn out, so oil leaks past them into the combustion chambers. It will smoke a little if the car sits for a week or so right at startup. It quits smoking quickly after startup after it burns what little oil dripped into the cylinders. Not a big deal to me. A little oil needs to be added between oil changes, probably due to this. The rings seem okay because I can floor the car with a friend behind me, and they say no smoke exited the exhaust at all. The spark plugs do not show signs of bad blow-by, so I'm not too worried about it. If I get bored one weekend, maybe I'll pull the head and replace the seals.

General Comments:

I bought this car for $800 as a commuter car. I have a 2005 diesel 3/4 truck that is my baby and it just wasn't practical to drive it to work and risk getting my doors dinged and all. My truck gets around 13mpg, while this car gets around 40mpg with the manual transaxle. It paid for itself very quickly, within a few months, in fuel savings over driving the big truck.

Having another Toyota based vehicle in my family, I knew they were super reliable. Even though this car is over 18 years old, I know that I can jump in and it will crank up and drive every single time.

I rate this car so much higher than a Honda Civic. It's handles great for an economy car, but is slightly underpowered to be called a sports car.

I've always only driven trucks, but this car gets me from point A to B just the same as any truck I've ever had. When I drive it, I notice such a huge different in fuel costs. I feel like I can drive around the world for a few bucks in this thing.

What amazes me is that all of these car manufacturers are producing cars full of lithium-ion batteries and hybrid technology to get hardly any more fuel mileage than the Paseo! Put this in perspective: Check out the fuel economy on the tiny itsy-bitsy SmartCar's versus the Paseo and you'll see the Paseo get's quite a bit better fuel mileage. It's too bad Toyota doesn't make a cheap bare-bones no-frills car like this anymore.