2007 Toyota Camry XLE from North America - Comments

The clock panel in the center of the dash kept popping up.

The covers in A-arm on the driver side, and the roof liner are loose.

The cover on the left side of the center console is misaligned.

The front passenger seats have poor leg support for long distance driving.

The car is a four cylinder and the gas mileage is not as good as it should be: 30 mpg, or higher for the highway.

If I were to purchase a new car again, Toyota would not be one of my considerations.

I'm sorry you got taken. People need to do more research before making as large a purchase as a car. Imports no longer are anywhere near as reliable as domestics, and Toyota is pretty much the bottom of the barrel now. Even Hyundai beat out Toyota in a 2006 comparison in Car and Driver, and after Motor Trend made the disastrous decision to name the Camry the 2007 Car of the Year, they quickly realized their mistake (as Camry owners all over America were stranded by defective engines), and in 2008 they named a domestic (Cadillac) as their Car of the Year choice.

The Ford Fusion is the highest rated car ever tested by Consumer Reports (who pulled the "recommended" status of Camry and Tundra V-6's due to poor reliability).

The longest lasting vehicle in an October 2007 Consumer Reports on cars with over 200,000 miles was a Ford Ranger with just shy of HALF A MILLION miles and no problems, while the car with the LOWEST mileage in that article was a Honda Civic. In its true and biased fashion, CR put the picture of the CIVIC on that magazine's cover. It's no wonder the American car buyer is misled.

Is this the same Consumer Reports that all you domestic owners said were biased against domestic automobiles when they had (and still have) Japanese automobiles on the top of their reliability and quality lists for the last couple of decades? So I guess they ARE trustworthy now that one Ford miraculously got a good rating, (a rare mistake by C.R., I'm sure).

Guess what? You can't have it both ways. The fact is the Japanese cars and trucks ARE better than any domestic make, just like C.R. always said they were. The fact is, they have made an error in judgment giving a Fusion a good rating. A Fusion is still a Ford, which means it's doomed to fall apart prematurely and break down often. Stick with Toyota if you're smart. Or Honda. Or Nissan. Just not disposable crap like Ford or GM makes.

In spite of a very obvious bias such as putting the worst car (Honda) in a "longest lasting cars" article on the cover and not even mentioning the longest lasting one (Ford) until you actually get to the article, even CR has had to admit that domestic quality is now way ahead of imports.

Domestics have a 100,000 mile warranty, which no Japanese maker would dare offer, and very few people drive a car much over 100,000 miles. That pretty much settles the reliability argument. If a maker does not have the confidence to provide a longer warranty, it is obvious their vehicles are not as well built.

Of course if you just look at a new Camry and any comparable domestic, you can see that the fit and finish of the Camry is well below that of the domestic. It's obvious.

Sorry, but GM, Ford, and Dodge had no other choice. They had to do something to try and bring back the people the screwed over. Honda and Toyota don't need a little piece of paper to get people to buy them. They have earned their reputations for building reliable vehicles and don't need to offer a piece of paper to get people the trust that they won't have to have to spend $$$ to keep the vehicle running.

Also by your logic that a better warranty is a better vehicle, I guess you own all Hyundai products. Hyundai has the best warranty and has for over 10 years now.

12:15.

If as you seem to be suggesting Toyota will never have to worry about warranty repairs, why are they afraid to offer the longer coverage...?

Perhaps it is because of instances like these documented on Consumer Affairs:

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/automotive/toyota_engine.html

Well, Dodge has the lifetime warranty, so there you go.

I'm totally supportive of both Hyundai's excellent warranty and their vastly improved quality, which now exceeds that of Toyota and is close to that of Honda.

That said, I feel that I need to support U.S. owned industry in a time of dire financial crisis in ALL segments of our economy. The fact that U.S. companies offer better warranties is a very STRONG indication of quality and reliability. No company is going to burden themselves with the liability of offering an unrealistic warranty to entice buyers. It would be very bad business, and financial disaster. Companies only offer long warranties based on their ability to build vehicles that are durable and long-lasting.

I've never owned ANY domestic vehicle that did not make 100,000 miles with no problems. That makes it a logical move to extend the warranty to 100,000 miles.

Will the car go to 200,000 miles? That's the question that really matters. I think a camry has a better chance based on it's previous record. What else can better indicate?

20:16 Thank you for being one of the few to make sense. Any piece of crap will go to 100,000 miles today. That's nothing anymore. Better engine design, better engine oil, 100,000 is nothing anymore. But it's the Toyota's and Honda's that GENERALLY (I don't need to hear about a Ranger with 400,000 miles on it; a Ford fluke) get above 2 and 300,000 miles, NOT the domestics. That's simply a fact.

Citing examples of Fords and Chevy's with 300,000 on them won't help your case, domestic owners. It's an exception to the rule. And that fact, that RULE, is that Civics, Accords, Corolla's, Camry's, Tercels, all do this regularly. Domestics most surely do not. Period. Agree with it or not. Doesn't matter because it's still true.

Checking recent Camry reviews tends very strongly to indicate the Camry will not even make 100,000 miles without some rather major problems. The highest mileage I've ever known of on any friend's Camrys before major repairs was 130,000 on a 1989 model. I've never even seen a Camry with 200,000 miles.

I've seen plenty of Hondas & Toyotas heading towards 200,000 miles and still growing strong.

That being said, as far as the comment that the writer has never had a domestic car reach 100,000 miles without major problems - My 1995 Jeep has 140,000 miles on it and is as reliable & problem-free as any Japanese car I've ever owned.

I believe proper maintainance & care is the key.

08:00 has a great point about maintenance, as it does prolong the life of any car drastically. With that said, my imports received exactly the same attention to maintenance as my domestics and still did not perform as reliably.

Depends how you drive it and care for it. I drive a little GMC s-15 with just over 200,000 miles. I have put darn near $200+ into it to fix things that the previous owner had screwed up, among them the speedometer and odometer didn't work, there was a bearing in the engine screeching, and the fuel gauge doesn't work properly (it doesn't go all the way to full when I fill it up; and now doesn't go to "empty" even), and when you look underneath, there are wires snipped, and also some horrible examples of electrical knowledge.

Anyway, this little bugger still gets me around, it may not sound pretty, it may not LOOK pretty, but it gets around. I think that based on how you drive a vehicle, and how you take care of it, that will be a good determination on how long the vehicle will last.

As for domestics not being built to last - try a Ford Crown Victoria with 680,000 miles on the original engine! The transmission had to be replaced 2x and rest of the car showing a lot of wear, but the engine so long-lived that Ford bought this car back from the owner for $25,000. Regularly maintained and oil changed every 3K, but no major repairs needed.

It's written about right here on CarSurvey... look it up.

Domestics aren't built to last, and I don't believe even a small percentage of the high-mileage-no-repair claims that Ford and Chevy owners make on this site. Sorry, no way to prove it. It means nothing to me.

The proof I can offer you is this: go read Consumer Report's latest findings... as usual, Japanese automakers, Toyota specifically, come out on top, AGAIN. Read ANY major study, that one, JD Power; whatever. They ALL know and report what is FACT: Toyota makes a higher quality, more reliable vehicles than any of the Big 3 (what a pathetic name for them). Read any of it.

If you don't believe it, it's your problem.