2004 Toyota Camry from North America - Comments

Brake calipers at 18,000 km.

Major problem was the engine needed a replacement, after only 60,000 km due to the common sludge problem toyota has.

New engine starting to tick a little 1,000 km ago.

Transmission was always very touchy from new, lags at freeway speeds toyota says that's normal, problem still exists today.

Car was always maintained on time by Toyota.

Not impressed, I bought into the hype.

Toyota does not have a 'common' sludge problem.

Sludge can occur in ANY engine, and usually does because people use dirt cheap motor oil, let it run low because they rarely or never check or change oil, and what little oil that is in the engine has long ago chemically broken down. When the oil level is low, the little oil that is in there bakes into sludge.

No WAY do I believe that you had Toyota mechanics do regular maintenance, and one Toyota motor went bad in under 100,000, and now you have a SECOND one going bad too. The odds of that are next to nothing.

16:50 read extensively on Toyota reviews throughout this site... and then make a collective summary on owner experiences...not an isolated issue.

Toyota Camry had a serious sludge problem; that's why they extended their engine warranty on models from late 9x and early 0x. But I thought this was fixed on 04 models. It's no point in saving money on those $1/quart motor-oil specials; it'll just ruin your engine in the long run; sludging is just one problem.

I have never followed mfrs. oil recommendations too long in my opinion... I go every 3,000 miles or 4 months. Still I had import issues and now own domestics.

15:45; I didn't say that it was an isolated issue. Neither is a fault on Toyota's part. Look at how many hundreds of thousands of old Toyota cars are on the road running perfectly. If a relative few of them have sludge in the engine, I'm inclined to believe that it is from extremely poor or nonexistent maintenance.

I know for a fact that sludge in an engine also can come from using certain types of oil I won't mention. For example, I use only Mobil 1 full synthetic oil. If you do this, from when the car is new, you can take the engine apart (you'll likely never have to) and it will look practically new after 150,00 miles. Clean as clean can be.

If you use another type of oil I have in mind, and take the engine apart at 75,000, it will be full of what looks like tar almost every time, unless you run the hell out of the car every day and keep it burned out.

Toyota has such a great reputation that people think that you can just abuse them and nothing will happen. Almost true; in fact, sometimes true, but they are still just a machine, and machines that don't get maintained will break.

I know plenty of Toyota owners; I make it a point to talk to them about their cars, as I am kind of a Toyota 'fanatic', if you want to call it that, and I've never heard anything about any sludge problem from anyone that uses decent oil and changes it regularly. If it was actually a defect, every car built the same way would have the same problem. It's not a manufacturer defect, it's poor maintenance.

Re 20:52: every engine has a sludge inclination meaning that it has the ability to produce sludge if the conditions are right. The key ingredient is of course the motor oil:

1. Motor oil has a varying degree of chemical stability. Cheap oil will start to break down right away, some part of it will vaporize and some start to form heavier substances that in the end will become sludge.

2. Driving style. Hard driving and smaller trips when the engine never reaches operational temp breaks down the oil.

3. Internal factors in the engine. Some engines runs hotter and is harder on the motor oil.

4. Malfunction. If oil ventilation is clogged or broken sludge forms faster.

5. Mileage and change interval

I'd say about every sludge problem can be fixed by using high grade synthetic oil and keeping your car maintained.

Side note: I used to own a Concorde equipped with the 2.7 which is the sludge#1 engine. I drive hard, fast and I live in the south most of the year. These should be ideal conditions for sludging. But I kept that engine clean as a kitchen sink using high grade oil. Never any problem.

Mobil 1 is kind of expensive to have to use on an economy car. I had a 1977 Celica GT and I never see them on the highway... yet see millions of domestics. I guess they all rusted out or wore out?

To everyone saying that the Toyota sludge problem is due to lack of maintenance, for that argument to be true, you would have to be also be saying that only Toyota owners do not maintain their cars, while owners of all other cars makes/models without sludge maintain them flawlessly.

Anybody who does not have their head in the sand logically knows that the general maintenance habits of car owners for all brands are, statistically speaking, essentially the same. A generally even percentage of a representative sampling of owners for all brands maintain their cars very well, while essentially the same percent maintain them very poorly, and the remainder (arguably the majority) fall somewhere in between. Yet it is only Toyota that is having a wide-spread sludge problem.

Statistically, that indicates there is a design problem with the Toyota engines. If this was not the case, then why did Toyota extend their warranties on several late model vehicles expressly for sludge related reasons?

These are the facts, albeit they might be out of place in the midst of all the the hype on the Toyota section of this site.

22:28 Your deductive reasoning there makes no sense for plenty of reasons.

First off, let's say that this sludge problem IS a Toyota design flaw. So what!? They STILL have WAYYY fewer problems than anyone else. And when Toyota does actually have a problem, they deal with it quickly and properly, unlike Chevy, Ford, or Dodge.

Fine with me; call it's Toyota's fault. Nobody's perfect; they're just far closer to it than any other make.

And, by the way, other manufacturers DO have sludge problems, as well as historically having countless other ones that Toyota has never had. Just for laughs, I like to Google search 'Ford fires', 'Dodge transmissions', and 'Chevy headgasket' problems. Any one of those searches will present a mountain of defects that Toyota has never had and never will.

I'll keep driving them until someone makes something better; no one has yet.

What if the oil/filters have always been done at the dealership? I never do my oil just to document and hope the warranty is honored.

The old adage is; 'if you want something done right, do it yourself'. Anyone capable should change their own oil. It usually takes about 20 minutes at most. I trust no one to work on my vehicles, and I never take them in unless it's a major repair that I don't have the tools or the time to do myself.

Then again, since I started buying Toyota's, I've never had to repair anything in 15 years. I've heard way too many horror stories from people that take their cars to someone else to fix, even something as simple as an oil change.

For example; the oil or filter, or both were never actually changed, the drain plug or filter was overtightened or not tight enough, a rag was left under the hood and caught fire, oil cap was never put back on, car got scratched... I could go on.

Do yourself a favor. Change your own oil; if you can't or don't want to, at least be SURE you trust whoever is doing it. Watch them do it. If the drain plug is left loose just once; you're driving with the radio turned up, and you run out of oil and the car overheats or seizes up, it's too late, the damage is done.

13:06, Toyota's were never plagued with head gasket problems? Please, be serious... You are either misinformed, or trying to pull the wool over everyone's eyes. Toyota's were notorious for head gasket problems for many years on both their four and six cylinder engines. I know several people who have had that problem, one just recently in fact on his Tacoma truck, and it is extremely serious. Try doing a Google search on that issue.

I would definitely agree that all car makers have their good points and bad, including Toyota. All have had their share of mistakes. But my personal experience tells me that the notion of Toyota's being superior is just a myth that keeps becoming more and more ridiculous every year. Toyota is now the industry leader in recalls- recalls which by the way they were forced to make, not ones they conducted voluntarily. To me, that is not an indication of quality.

I think we would be seeing all new cars across the board having issues with sludging. I have no issues with my 3 new domestics. If enough owner surveys indicate they are having this as an issue it indicates an inherently poor engine design in my opinion. The Toyota fanatic will not acknowledge ever any issues. In all fairness I would not buy certain Chryslers that seem to have the same issue. Owners automaticatically seem easy to blame over oil changes and if its done at the dealership I guess its still the owner. I change every 3000 miles oil and filter.

Cross your fingers and hope the drivetrain lasts... this is a truck not based on the little economy import theory. Truck buyers are very discerning and not like the car shoppers.

07:26 'Toyota fanatic' here. Guess I'm stuck with that name now.

Let me set the record straight: Toyota has problems occasionally. They're machines. All machines break. What sets Toyota apart is that they have far fewer problems because they try a lot harder (and succeed) to build a quality car that lasts a long time.

GM, Ford, and Dodge (as well as many other makes) do not do this. They produce as many as they can, as quick as they can to rake in a buck, whether the car is of quality or not, and with those three, it RARELY is.

Of course Toyota mass-produces too. But the quality control is clearly much more important to them. Sorry if you disagree, but it's true. The names 'Toyota', and 'Honda' carry the reputation of being high quality vehicles, because they are. GM, and Ford especially, do not. What you hear is 'found on road dead', and so forth. They've earned their reputation for making cheaply made vehicles.

You can argue it; I don't care, because the proof is in the sales trend that's been happening for years: the 'imports' get better quality ratings, and sell more vehicles. The 'domestics' lose face every day, and are losing market share even faster. That's a fact.

If you're writing in with a story about a domestic that has very high miles and has had no major work done, then you are in the extreme minority (assuming it's true at all). That's also a fact.