One problem related to manual transmission has been reported for the 2004 Subaru Forester. The most recently reported issues are listed below. Please also check out the statistics and reliability analysis of the 2004 Subaru Forester based on all problems reported for the 2004 Forester.
Our 2004 model, manual gear-box Subaru Forester 2. 5 x stalls far too easily in first gear. Recently, my wife narrowly escaped a horrendous accident when the Forester's engine stalled on a busy highway trying to accelerate onto the highway from the side road which she has to use to access the highway from her place of work. We have spoken to other manual gear-box Subaru owners, including the Subaru wrx and liberty, who have told us that they experience the same problem. We believe that this may be a fundamental design issue affecting most recently built manual gear box Subaru passenger vehicles, built by Subaru at their main factory in japan, and distributed globally, including but not limited to the USA.