6th Mar 2009, 22:54
From what I can figure out doing some web searches and reading forum comments, here is what I think happened. When Toyota decided to make a 268 HP Camry, they decided to focus on fuel economy rather than performance. Before they got some good transmission software worked out, it was time to start selling the cars. You can find on different forums lots of complaints about V6 Camrys having poor acceleration. And there are many complaints from people saying they almost got into accidents in intersections when their Camry unexpectedly would not accelerate as expected. I think the problem is confined to early models of the 268 HP Camrys.
It appears that Toyota eventually did come out with new transmission software and the acceleration improved, but they had to give up some of the fuel economy they had been trying to achieve.
Maybe someone with more direct experience with this on a Camry can comment on it. My interpretation of this may be off because I had a similar problem with a 1998 Taurus. I bought it from my sister-in-law when it was two years old. For the first month I had it, it sometimes had poor acceleration, and unpredictably almost no acceleration in a turn in an intersection. It seemed to happen when I was approaching an intersection at about 20 mph and then tried to accelerate right when I started the turn.
I heard that car had "smart transmission software" that adapted to your driving style. Maybe the problem was that I drove differently than my sister-in-law did? I never figured that out. But the problem was fixed when I brought it back to the dealer and they re-programmed the transmission. The problem never reoccurred over the next 5 years I owned the car before I sold it.
6th Mar 2009, 22:51
If you had actually read my comment, you would have noted that I said that the Camry was chosen in 2007 because it had finally (IN 2007) built an engine that could do 0-60 in less than 10 seconds. The pre-2007 Camry V-6's took about 10 seconds 0-60 according to most sources, and I know this is about right because my 4-cylinder Grand Am will beat a pre-2007 V-6 Camry by about 10 car-lengths in a typical block. CR lists the 0-60 time for the post-2006 V-6 Camry as 7.5 seconds (provided it can be kept running for 7.5 seconds, which has been a bit of a challenge for many of them).
"Nearly every company replaces transmissions in vehicles before 30,000 miles --- "
Well, DOMESTIC companies DON'T. I have NEVER had a transmission replaced (or even worked on) on any of my numerous domestics, including some that made over a quarter of a million miles. If I EVER had a transmission fail before 30,000 miles I certainly would never buy another car from THAT company, foreign OR domestic.