Faults:

I only owned it for 10 months, or 9,000 miles. During this time...

The hood latch broke. Couldn't go over 40mph without it flying up.

The power windows all went out.

The power locks all went out as well.

Tape deck broke.

Huge oil leak.

Torque converter failed.

Rotors had to be replaced, along with calipers.

There was a constant thumping in the steering wheel anytime I braked, and on a couple occasions, the car simply wouldn't stop (I thank the hand brake for my life - and all this was after extensive brake work).

Speedometer and odometer went out (so the 185k is an estimation).

Reverse gear stopped working.

Transmission had trouble shifting gears.. would slip shifting up into second and third.

The steering was very loose and unstable.. a lot of parts had to be replaced, with very little improvement.

The power steering went out on a regular basis.

The A/C went out.

General Comments:

Mechanically, this car was awful - it was one problem after another. I was extremely impressed with the interior and exterior, however - after 14 years, the body and paint looked brand new, and the interior was in stellar condition. So comfortable, too. There was ample room inside, and seemed well equipped.

The engine was great.. the V6 really had power, accelerated very quickly.. but it came with a price. Gas mileage was terrible! 18mpg.

I was expecting a lot more out of this car, as all I ever heard were rave reviews about Camrys.. but I sold it less than a year later, very disappointed.

It's possible that this was just a bad egg, or wasn't taken care of properly by the previous owner.. though that doesn't make much sense, considering all maintenance records were complete on the car, and the transmission had been replaced a couple years before.

Faults:

The automatic seatbelt on the driver's side has been making grinding noises ever since we bought the car, but has no stopped working.

The bumpers on the car were deformed and the paint on them was faded from too much exposure under the sun.

Had to change the water pump at around 150,000 miles.

Needed a valve job at around 150,000 as well.

Passenger side rear door only opens from outside. I talked to the mechanic about this and he said that it was probably a 5-dollar part that needed to be replaced, but it would still cost me about 130 dollars to replace it because he would have to work on it.

Whenever the car is started and you open the passenger front door and close it, the central locking system unlocks the doors and then locks them again. I just noticed this recently, but it doesn't realy bother me.

When the driver's door is opened all the way, you cannot operate the rear passenger side electric window. The problem is proably a faulty connection or a bad wire somewhere. It doesn't bother at all since it works fine when the door is closed.

The last time I took it for regular maintanance, I had the mechanic run a full check on the car. He told me he found oil in the spark plug wires and under the distributor. This would only cost about $100 to fix. He also told me that I needed to replace the rear struts on the car. This is about a $400 job.

I was switching to a CD player in the car recently and I blew a fuse. After I replaced the fuse the fuel gauge didn't move from 1/2 full. After I filled up the car with fuel the gauge went up to full and has worked fine ever since.

General Comments:

This is the most reliable car I have ever driven. Even after 180,000 miles the engine runs great and I have not had any major problems with it. The car has never ever died on me, except for when I had the fuel gauge problem I ran out of petrol.

After I had the valve job done at around 150,000 miles, the car could accelerate much faster and had more power at any RPM. It also got better fuel mileage. Right now it gets about 30 miles to the gallon (rougly 7L/100km)

Altough the gear lever on the transmission is very dull looking and has long travel, I have never driven a car that has such a smooth transmission. The gears are very easy to change and I have never missed a gear. Even after so many miles it shows no signs of stopping. The clutch is also excelent and doesn't slip at all.

The fabric on the seats is high quality and hasn't ripped at all on any of the seats.

The car is very roomy and has a HUGE trunk. Even if you have a subwoofer system in the trunk there will still be PLENTY of space for groceries.

The steering wheel doesn't feel very connected to the front wheels, but then the camry isn't a sports car in any way.

The engine is very very good and lasts a long time. Even though mine has 180k miles on it I still think the engine has AT LEAST another 180k miles of life left if maintained properly.