Faults:

One minor thing has gone wrong, but has seemed to correct itself. The passenger window stuck in the open position. I finally got it back up and haven't experienced problems since. That was a couple of weeks ago, however, I haven't needed to lower that window over a couple of times since.

General Comments:

I HATE the fact that all the doors unlock when the car is put into park. I am a 57 year old woman. I do not want all of my doors to unlock late at night if I pick up my daughter from the mall, when I pull up at an ATM, or even when I pull into my own driveway. I do not like for my doors to ALL unlock when I pull into a gas station to fill up. I like to keep my driver's side door unlocked while I'm pumping gas, and to know that no one is going to jerk the door open from the other side, and grab my purse.

This feature on the Camry is no doubt meant to be convenient. It,however, is neither convenient, NOR safe.

Faults:

This car was a rental that I drove with only 2641-4050 miles on it. In my tenure, I had no faults.

General Comments:

My regular car is a 2001 Camry, and I dislike it because it needs new parts A LOT, and it is uncomfortable. This 2010 Camry is a completely different animal! I hit a deer in my 2001 Camry, and since we had to order parts, we had this 2010 Camry for almost three weeks. I hit a deer on April 25, 2010, and we got this Camry on April 26. We got our Camry back on May 13. (If you want to try to tell me my Camry is reliable, go to the 2001 Camry reviews on this site and read the one that is 8,000 words long).

The first thing I noticed about the 2010 Camry was the expansive dashboard. The radio controls were laid out well, I suppose. I only programmed a few stations into the presets and hit the preset buttons. The panel will light up an ice blue if it gets dark, and it is a nice but unnecessary touch.

Another thing that screamed out at me was the lack of fit and finish. The colors and materials Toyota used were good, but the panels were ill-fitted together exposing cracks and crevices, that, if an angry kid had entered the car, would break easily. The car was already rattling unnecessarily at 2,600 miles.

The 2010 Camry had excellent acceleration! The car only had a four-cylinder engine, so I couldn’t possibly imagine what the six-cylinder is like. My last rental car was a 2010 Hyundai Accent (which I rented about three months ago) and it constantly redlined to get up to speed. My 2001 Camry is as slow as an old, tired turtle. I could order a pizza before I reached 60 MPH!

The brakes were good; noticeably better than my 2001 Camry.

The fuel mileage left something to be desired. At 60 MPH, all highway, the car mustered only 29 MPG. Per the window sticker that was in the car, it is supposed to get 31. My Camry only gets 24 or 25, so I guess I shouldn’t complain.

The comfort was a few cuts above that of my 2001 Camry, but it could have been better. For starters, the seat belts need to go up higher. Even in the highest position, they dug into my neck. This is the case in my 2001 Camry, also.

The seats are barely contoured! They are soft and plush, but you may as well put two boards of wood together for this seat! After 60 miles in the car, I felt mentally winded. My previous car (my actual car, not a rental) was a 2001 Ford Taurus and this was never the case.

Leg room was ample in all seats, but the space under the front seat needs to be wider. I couldn’t get my two wide feet next to each other under the seat. The rake of the back seat is terrible; you literally sit with your head by the back window. It’s like doing pilates.

Also, the headrests were not centered on any seat! WHY CAN’T TOYOTA GET IT RIGHT? In the back, the headrests were too close to the pillar to be considered centered on the seat. In the front, the headrests were rock hard and I SLAMMED my head on them with each stop.

The car is downright ugly! The wheels were nice (7-point stars), but they were already oxidizing. The car itself looks bloated, obese, and like a rectangular prism. It sort of looks like a hot dog with a half-prism cut out of each end. The grille (LE edition) looked goofy, looking pronounced like the blades on a razor. If the car was a person, it looked like it was ready to puke. My 2001 Camry with the brick-like rear end and the flower hub caps looks better! I'm not saying every car needs to look like a Porsche, but, please, I don't want to be driving a hot dog!

Most Camry owners probably won't drive off pavement too often. With that being said, I had the opportunity to drive the Camry for 10 miles on gravel going to a Boy Scout camp. The Camry did well. It was relatively smooth, revealing only the largest bumps. Due to the front end design, however, rocks kept coming up and hitting the windshield (I was only doing 20 MPH). This is unheard of in my 2001 Camry. But, my 2001 Camry lets you feel EVERY road imperfection. I always know when I go over a crack in the roadway because I can feel it.

This isn't a big thing, but the trunk was incredibly difficult to close even when it is empty. You had to SLAM it down with all the force you could. The trunk, however, is cavernous! It took home 5 boxes of clothes from college. In my 2001 Camry, it barely holds 2 boxes.

The Camry still lacks a coin holder. It doesn't need to be fancy, just give me four holes somewhere for my quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies. I don't want a little drawer, give me a coin holder!

One other thing I will harp on is that the gearshift needs to be guided through a maze. It is very difficult to put it into Drive without looking.

In conclusion, Toyota has come a far way since the 2001 Camry. It is still imperfect, and I'll be the first to admit it. Would I consider it? I might, but only if it was used. I wouldn't think this is worth $30,000 new. Toyota still needs to work out the quirks, such as a continuing lack of comfort and poor fuel mileage. I can live with the styling, but I wouldn't advertise that I drive a hot dog. I want to wake up in the morning and drive a car. Realize I only had the Camry for 1,400 miles (and the end mileage was only 4,000 miles). As far as I'm concerned, the Camry should get the job done if it proves to be more reliable than my 2001.