Fine example of a well designed and built small, practical sedan
- Coolant sensor.
- Small body parts came loose/screws backed out.
For a 4 cylinder engine, it is very powerful. Brakes are excellent. Trans is good, but hunts for gears sometimes. Comfort is fine. It is a small car, but is fine for normal driving.
Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? Yes
Review Date: 11th November, 2022
Atrocious! Avoid at all costs!
Cruise control does not work well (too much variance, even on flat roads).
Automatic headlights do not work (the headlights are brighter if you take them off "auto" mode and manually turn them on).
Unpredictable gas pedal.
"Bounces" when slowing down or braking.
Key often gets stuck in the ignition.
Fuel mileage is worse than our old 2005 Taurus (a bigger, heavier car with a bigger engine).
This is my father's vehicle, and I drive a 2011 Focus. However, I do drive this car frequently as it is our family's primary vehicle.
The Camry has been reliable to a point. We bought the car used at a high mileage (55,000 at 2 years old), so I didn't expect perfection.
The recalls for the gas pedal have been done, but the Camry's pedal still sticks more often than not. I have had four Toyota technicians look at the car, and they all say that the pedal is within calibration. I am a "feather footer", so one would expect acceleration to be smooth. However, it lurches as if you had slammed the pedal. Other times, you can floor it, and it just won't go anywhere. When the car takes off on you, the brakes are supposed to override the gas. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don't. I just put the car into Neutral to coast and then try again.
The Camry has adequate power, but it is not a speed demon. My Focus, while a smaller car, feels faster.
The transmission clunks into and out of gear, particularly from reverse to drive, drive to reverse, and into park. It hunts for gears in the city. It is a six-speed automatic, but it should have been a five. Given the loud clunking and jolting of the transmission, I don't see getting too many more miles out of it.
I do not fit in the Camry (5' 8" and 225#). I have to have the seat in the highest position (and upright), and this puts the headliner at my eye level and the rearview mirror BELOW my line of sight. The seat itself lacks support and the headrest is much too large. My Focus has a far superior driving position.
The C-pillar blind spots have the capabilities of blocking out entire cars at a time. The mirrors only adjust so far and it isn't enough.
The car is not aerodynamically well-designed. It loses speed very quickly. Rocks pit the hood due to the lack of a front curvature. When the car "coasts" and slows down, or when you hit the brakes, it literally "bounces" up and down. I understand that physics will slow the car down, but it should have been a better design.
Gas mileage is horrendous at best. It is rated for 24/32 city/highway, but in the summer I get 18/25. If I am lucky, I might get it to do 20 in the city and 26 on the highway (highway speed is 55 miles per hour). Now that it is getting colder in Pennsylvania, city mileage is down to 16 and I have not yet measured highway. My old Taurus was rated for 20/27 and it would get 20 regularly in the city, and most often it would cap 30 on the highway. My Focus is rated for 24/35, but I get 26-28 in the city and 37-40 on the highway. Part of the problem might be the finicky accelerator.
The turning circle is HUGE! Not a good thing when you drive a 2000 Tundra and a 2004 Sienna at work that both turn better!
When we traded our Taurus, we had wanted a 2009-10 Fusion or Escape. We saved over $4000 by buying a Camry instead of a Ford. I now know why. I noticed a lot of this stuff on the test drive (blind spots, finicky gas pedal, awkward seating position), and figured that I would get used to it, since I have my Focus to drive.
Quite honestly, if the gas pedal worked the way it should and the car got closer to the mileage it is rated for, I could deal with the other things. The whole application irks me, and it is obvious that Toyota didn't test certain aspects of the car.
I am actually a Lot Attendant at a Toyota dealership, and I drive other Camries of this vintage (and in some cases, higher mileage) that drive and sound better than mine. I am pretty sure that I got the 1/1,000,000 lemon. We also had a 2001 Camry (LE, Automatic, 4-cylinder) that was as sour as lemons come (too many problems to even list), and I refuse to buy a third Toyota.
Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? No
Review Date: 23rd October, 2012
24th Oct 2012, 07:42
You want to drive a car with a huge turning radius, try these three - Lexus RX 300 (which is based on the Camry), Chrysler PT Cruiser (school bus comes to mind), and early model Ford Fusions & Mercury Milans (thankfully Ford improved the turning radius on newer models).