2005 Scion tC from North America - Comments

I simply love the car! I love it! Fun to drive and smooth.

I have an 08 tC and the paint's not coming off, and I put a lot of miles on in the first months after I got it, so it has 9500 miles on it.

I have driven it to my brother's in Florida and stayed there for a month and driven by the beaches; still there is not a speck, nick, or dent of paint on it!

I own a 2006 Scion tC with 40,000 miles and the paint is chipping off the bumper, door jambs, and especially the mirrors. Great car otherwise, just bad paint, also seeing rust spots coming up thru the chips, I wax this car once a month just for added protection and it doesn't seem to help.

I have a 2005 Scion tC 2 toned, and I bought the car used with 37 thousand miles about 2 years ago. It was just silver then, I added the black and clear coated the paint and have had no problems whatsoever. Well except where a dumb a** hit my driver front fender.

Toyota (which makes Scion) uses very poor quality paint. It is very prone to early fading (just look at some 3 or 4 year old Corollas) and chipping off. In most cases the best bet is to have a good body shop literally strip the paint off to bare metal and start from scratch, as even the primer is very cheap. Of course that will cost about as much as the car did new.

I bought my 2005 TC in 2004. I've loved it from the get-go. In 5 years and 67k miles later, I have had absolutely NO MECHANICAL problems with only regular oil changes every 5k miles.

I have recently learned that the TC comes with a timing chain instead of a timing belt, which lasts way longer.

I've had to replace tires, brakes and both of the front head lamps once (regular stuff). I've also had to replace the plastic trunk/lamp section, which broke when trying to open the trunk. Warranty would not cover this. Cost: $250 bucks. I've also seen this part hanging off another TC recently.

Trunk does stick, and the "handle" is not of good quality (just plastic). I also for the past year have heard a rattling coming from the trunk area, in which I cannot find the source and agree with another review about the A/C smelling mildewy, but I smoke, so that might have something to do with it.

For the price of the car, it's a great buy and I have recommended it to everybody. I've owned 5/6 vehicles before this one, and I can honestly say that I will pass this one down to my daughter next year, and will go get me another one. This time I want leather seats.