Reviewed: 2010 Toyota Camry

[cgraff]

Just thought I'd brighten up your day with a review of a Toyota Camry...hope you enjoy....


To give you some background, I had a client in Massachusetts for a period of about 1 month, and needed a rental to get to/from home in NJ to Mass, along with transporting some colleagues. Going to the local AVIS, I was given a 2010 Toyota Camry 4-cylinder, appliance-mobile.

My initial thoughts: Great, I can do my own R&D testing of gas pedal (just joking! tongue in cheek!). In reality, I figured that it'll be reasonably reliable (9500 miles on the odo so far), and get me and my colleague to/from Mass in reasonable comfort, and be ok to do stop-over by our NYC offices in mid-town.

Conclusion: Man, was I wrong. This is the WORST car I have ever driven. Period. I will NEVER recommend a Toyota product again.

1. Exterior Design: Bland. Semi-bangle-butt. Slab sided. The color and paint was nice though.

2. Interior Design and ergonomics: The seat was awful, not supporting and got uncomfortable in any trip over 2 hours in length. I'd hit my legs on the emergency brake anytime I'd get in or out. The wiper stalk would go the wrong way (push down to increase speed? WTH?). The cruise stalk would move with the steering wheel (again, WTH?). The instrument cluster was simple and clean though. I couldn't find the fast-forward button on the radio/CD player for 2 days... the reason being that is the only feature that doesn't have a stand-alone button, but which is #5 and #6 on the pre-sets, and is only indicated when the CD player is playing.

The AC has a mind of its own...it'd switch off the re-circulation at random times, when I didn't want it to switch it off. You can't get max cold temperature without turning on the A/C.

The 'design by committee' interior was at least well put together and didn't rattle. Oh, the cubbie holes were nice as was the cupholders. That's about it.

3. The Engine:

Awful 4-cylinder racket above 5k rpm. Otherwise decently powerful for such a heavy car. Probably a 160 bhp 2.4 liter unit, IIRC. Mileage seemed ok...I think I got over 30 mpg (maybe 31mpg)... but that's nothing to write home about since I get 27-28 mpg in my ZHP with the same average speed and highway travel.

Cold idles is at 1500 rpm....yikes...try 'creeping' in an auto-tragic equipped car with a cold idle at 1500 rpm...sheesh.

4. The transmission:

One of the WORST aspects of the car. The transmission would upshift at 2000 rpm in most driving except foot-to-the-floor. You'd be idling at 40 mph in the over-drive 6th gear. Oh yeah, the car has '6 speeds'....in reality it's a 5-speed automatic with an overdrive. And it'd stick into overdrive at every possible moment.

Whereas a new BMW auto trans will generally hold its gear, so you can be in 4th or 5th at 40 mph and use the throttle to adjust the speed of the car without banging in and out of OD, or shifting between gears, or needing to brake (i.e. use engine braking), this one would bang in and out of OD and between 'gears'... awful...I could never be smooth in the car just using the throttle pedal to adjust speed +/- a set speed.

Oh, this trans also had a "SPORT" mode...which all that meant that it'd use the first 4 gears instead of all of them. All prior observations apply.

The ONLY way I could drive the car was to use the +/- selector and select my gears. The problem with doing that was that if you were anywhere above 80% throttle, the car wouldn't upshift when you wanted it too. It'd wait until you were at 5000 rpm+ to upshift...or it'd take 3 seconds to upshift. So if you were trying to be efficient by accelerating with large throttle opening and short-shifting, it WOULD NOT let you!

Oh, the +/- was the wrong way too. Push forward to upshift, and back to down-shift. BMW learned...oh, what was it...like a decade ago! It's push forward to downshift and pull back to upshift! I lost count the number of times I downshifted to 3rd when I wanted to upshift to 5th at highway speeds.

And the finale...the shifter has no detent or lock button, but is gated, much like a MBZ shifter in that respect. So you'd expect that you'd need to press on the brakes to shift between PRND... haha, you'd think so! But no. You only need to depress the brake pedal to shift out of P. ANY OTHER SHIFTING CAN BE DONE WITHOUT PRESSING A BUTTON OR DEPRESSING THE BRAKE PEDAL. I can be in D, stopped at a light, remove my foot from the brake pedal, and as I creep along forward, throw the shifter into R, and the car will shift into reverse and start backing up! And then I can go back and forth to D and R, all without touching the brake pedal. Imagine this at 30 mph. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that this is highly unsafe! Quite unbelievable...

5. Steering and suspension.

The best thing I can say about the suspension is that it's comfortable over NYC potholes... that's it.

It's wallowly, uncontrolled, soft, and has a response time-delay of about a century or two.

You can shake the steering wheel (shimmy) by about a total of 45 degrees without ANY response from the front tires. Either when you're in a straight line, or while in a turn.

You can move the steering wheel with just your pinky... At parking lot speeds... did I mention there was no feel in the steering? I could have a flat tire and not feel it.

Oh, there is one thing though that's really great. More than once I would hit mid corner bumps, and by these let me first explain that NYC/surroundings highways and overpasses have pretty massive expansion joints, for good reasons. But sometimes you get these 'heaves' at the expansion joints. In any BMW if you would hit these mid corner 'bumps', you'd feel some bump, the suspension working, and potentially the car would 'skip' sideways about a foot. Maybe. Well planted, controlled, etc. I went around a well traveled overpass that was a left hander at posted 40 mph, and while doing 50 mph (not *that* much over the speed limit), hit the bump and ended up halfway into the next lane! Oh, and the steering wheel registered the most bump-steer I've ever seen in my life! It nearly took my fingers off!

Oh, another good point to the suspension: The Michelins were good in the rain.

Conclusion:

I've driven my fair share of appliances...mostly Hondas. I had to live with a Pontiac Bonneville 5 years ago for 3 months while on a research internship. I've rented european econo-boxes too. I even went in with an open mind with this car...I rented (and drove mostly straight-line highway) a '09 Camry Hybrid too. Hated the throttle/brake response on that car because of the stupid Hybrid system, the pedals never reacted the same way for the same throttle or brake input. Thus, I held judgment on the overall car, the steering and suspension until I got another one to try.

Our 60k mile, 2005 Honda Accord is TEN TIMES better than this 2010 Camry. Heck our old 150k 1998 Accord with a trans that hated going into 2nd was ten times better. And the new Accord is probably light years better.

I cannot in good standing recommend such a product anymore - to anyone. Other Toyotas may be better, have more features, etc, but no way. No how. Never gonna happen anymore. If you want an appliance, get a Honda. Get a Nissan. Get a Ford or a Hyundai even! Just not a Toyota.

Honestly, I don't believe there are bad drivers anymore on the roads. They are simply all Toyota drivers! The car is bad enough for me to consider even that bombshell conclusion as a matter of fact (sic)!


-Chris

[Scottinva]

Seems to be most new cars man. For daily's, and especially for woman I like the mazda products. I think they look decent, are cheap, and somewhat sporty and fun to drive.

[Snakeyestx]

Wait... you got it over 29 mph?

So maybe it REALLY is just retarded drivers in my area. I always thought Toyota left the brakes partially applied right off the assembly line, and they only did 29.

[ldsbeaker]

If you want an appliance, get a Honda. Get a Nissan. Get a Ford or a Hyundai even!

Yes. I agree with this most of all.

(I drove Nissan's overseas cousin (Renault Megane) for awhile. That car was pretty awesome for a strippy.)

p.s. you forgot to mention the tank-like feeling.
Not safe tank feeling.
Tank feeling like you're looking out of gunslits. I couldn't see shit out of that car.

[cgraff]

Wait... you got it over 29 mph?

So maybe it REALLY is just retarded drivers in my area. I always thought Toyota left the brakes partially applied right off the assembly line, and they only did 29.

Suffice it to say I did my own R&D testing at 'highway' speeds. Mr. Wozniak's Prius has got nothing on me!

-Chris

[Mike W.]

Wow, I thought I was the only one who could rant about new cars like that. I figured the goofy controls were just on oddities like the first gen Prius I drive at work.

The wiper stalk would go the wrong way (push down to increase speed? WTH?). The cruise stalk would move with the steering wheel (again, WTH?).

The cruise stalk moving with the wheel is just nuts, who puts on cruise in the middle of a corner?

I would have expected more from Toyota, by contrast the Hyundai Sonata I rented on vacation a couple of years ago was a pleasant appliance. Good seats and good ergonomics. Of course another Hyundai rental, an Elantra, was just a basic POS penalty box, not nearly up to appliance standards. Still, I would have expected more from Toyota's standard bearer.

[stuartinmn]

I had a Nissan Versa rental car last week...it was like driving around in a toaster oven. What an appliance that thing was.

[BDK]

when Ivo was in town a few weeks ago,
he had rented a Toyota of some kind,
I can't remember which now,
but that friggin thing made more noise than my 250K M20...
the car didn't have many miles on it at all and the heat shield was rattling all to hell to boot....
The car didn't impress me at all....

[stuartinmn]

To be fair, many rental cars have led a cruel life. In general, though, it's true the rental companies aren't going to have exciting cars in stock.