Transmission. Jerky low speed shifting. When approaching a yield then accelerate, the car slams into 1st gear like a young kid learning to drive a clutch. Also a long pause between 1st and 2nd gear.
Lack of throttle response. There is a delay between when you press the gas and when the car picks up speed. Passing on the freeway seems to be the worst. It takes 3-5 seconds for the car to realize that you have pressed the pedal to the floor.
All of this is related to the drive by wire system. The older cars used cables and linkages to control things... it worked much better back then.
Dealer says nothing is broken so they can't fix it. Toyota says that's how they all are and I should just live with it.
Uncomfortable to drive in stop and go traffic. My wife says either get it fixed or get rid of it (it's her daily driver). I would take a $5000 loss if I tried to sell it.
My advice is wait till they have all the bugs out of the drive by wire systems.
Do you know what test drive is.
Uh, are you sure you've got the right car there, Chuck? '06 Camrys have 3.5 litre V-6s...not 3.0.
We've driven the Highlander (which has the same underpowered engine as the Camry) and we were amazed at how slow it was. It was actually dangerous trying to merge onto a freeway. We took the car back to the dealership immediately and went directly to an American car dealership and bought a real SUV.
Even Car and Driver rated the Camry as slow and boring. Considering how biased they are in favor of Honda and Toyota, that says a lot.
Whatever size the engine is, most 4s out there are faster. The Camry V-6 is not exactly a racing engine.
Looking at the comments on the various Toyotas I notice that there are brake problems, air bag problems and sticking accelerator problems. I don't know which is scarier: That there are thousands of these dangerous and unsafe vehicles on our roads or that people still buy these things.
The Camry (as well as everything else in the Toyota line up) has been grossly over rated for years. I appreciate the honesty of Toyota owners who dare to blaspheme the "religion" of Japanese car superiority by honestly reporting their experiences with these unsafe and unreliable vehicles. A perusal of the comments on the Camry and Highlander sites, as well as all the current news stories about Toyota's problems with bad air bags, sticking accelerators, bad brakes and faulty transmissions is ample evidence that domestics are vastly superior and a far better (and safer) alternative.
Toyota denies any problems with the drive by wire system. If you don't want to be stuck with a car that you don't like, rent one for a week and you will experience the jerky shifting for yourself.
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