From this…
That’s right folks, I am the hated, the misunderstood, the multiple Toyota leasee. I once drove what we all think are interesting cars (including the 1983 Porsche 928S in the picture above) and now I have a 2014.5 Toyota Camry SE in black and a 2015 Toyota Sienna LE in white. Believe it or not I love the minivan and like the sedan, although I tire of sitting low to the ground, and may want an SUV for my next car.
To this!
Oh What a Feeling!
Anyway, I haven’t posted in a while, but Curbside Classic is still my favorite web site! Here are some of the cars I’ve owned:
1979 Honda Accord – Confessions of a Spoiled Rich Kid
1988 Saab 900 – Don’t Look a Gift Horse in the Engine
1976 Chevy Caprice Classic Coupe – Cheap, Big, California Classic
1974 BMW 2002 – Rust Bucket Resurrected
1983 BMW 633csi – Beginner’s Luck
1999 Saab 9-3 – Doomed Despite Distinction
1993 Mercedes 300E – The End of the Line for the German Way
2003 VW GTI – Suddenly It’s 1983
1966 Ford Mustang GT Convertible – All that Glitters is not Gold
2009 Kia Rondo – Korean Renault, or What Americans Don’t Want
1983 Porsche 928S – No Such Thing as a Cheap Porsche
2009 Cadillac SRX – The Whole is Slightly Less than the Sum of Its Parts
Hi Matt. I understand the feeling, although I spend my days in a Honda Fit and my evenings and weekends in a Kia Sedona. At least there is still a Miata sitting snugly in the garage waiting to come out to play (hopefully) soon.
I remember when I could simply not understand my father when he said that the main things he wanted from a car is for it to start every time and to not have to mess with it. But I find that as I get older I am becoming that guy.
Hey JP! The other side of it is that cars have become so incredibly capable these days! My minivan rides better than a Cadillac (at least than the 2010-2016 SRX!), has nearly 300 horsepower, an excellent transmission and precise, hydraulic steering. My Camry corners flat at 45-50 mph on a highway ramp, accelerates faster than most sports cars did when I was a kid, and gets 35-38 on the highway. Someday I hope to drive something more “interesting” but for the time being, conventional and average is pretty incredibly good.
Another Sedona owner here, and absolutely overjoyed with it.
Say what you want about sports cars (or motorcycles), but if you want to camp at the racetrack, or haul canvas, muskets and powder to a historical reenactment, you can’t replace a van.
My Sedona has the most pleasant engine/transmission combo I have driven since the 383/Torque Torqueflite in my 68 Newport. Torque aplenty from the 3.5 V6 and a 6 speed auto that almost makes you forget it’s there.
Probably you aren’t really sitting low, just other vehicles get higher these days. When I can barely reach the newer ATMs, maybe it means average height of vehicles increased quite a bit, since the WWII. Keep driving a long, wide and low car is increasingly inconvenient these days.
This!
Self fulfilling prophesy! Additionally, tinted windows seem to get carte blanche on Minivans, CUVs and SUVs, so unlike the days when most people were driving real cars around mine, it’s ridiculously difficult to see what’s happening ahead of the giant moving wall you’re behind, namely in bumper to bumper traffic.
Quite simple: legally, those are trucks and can have tinted glass.
The question is…why? Would be interesting to see how the market would respond if they had to comply with the draconian law and enforcement cars have with tint.
Or if it was reversed, tint allowed only on vehicles 55″ tall or *lower*.
Off the top of my head…it would mean the end of panel vans! Trucks can have tinted windows, because they are not required to have WINDOWS, period.
Last. I heard, a truck designation was not required for legal heavy tints in some regions. Cars could have it too, so long as there’s a passenger side rear view mirror.
Depends on the state…but trucks can have it from the factory.
My first car was a 1988 Toyota Camry LE wagon. It was a fun car to drive. Like most Toyotas, it was quite reliable. I’d buy another of the same generation if I could find one in decent condition.
I am in the same boat. After years of driving 2 generations of old vw vans, 1st gen German GTI and a nice mark 2 Jetta. I now have a 96 Toyota previa that I like driving better than my Nissan Altima. It has a lot of get up and go compared to the old hippy van, as the previa has the supercharged engine. My only complaint is it’s not standard, can’t win em all I guess. If I want to row my own I hop in the car.
Not so easy to work on that Previa engine though!
Happy Motoring, Mark
It is not as bad as you would think once you get the passenger seat and cover out of the way. Also all the accessories are accessible from under the hood. It also has a timing chain so no belt changes.
I’m in my sixties and getting a bit creaky, and my spouse is right behind me. Our Camry Hybrid fits us and our lives pretty darned well. It starts every single time, without fail. It’s comfortable, and even my husband finds the seats comfortable. It’s easy to get into and out of. We can carry passengers comfortably. It’s utterly reliable, and with nearly 95,000 miles, everything still works–all the power accessories, the climate control, the sound system, etc. It hasn’t been quite “nothing but oil changes,” but it has been close. (The water pump needed replacing, and we’re looking at replacing the front struts soon.) It’s reasonably quiet, and loafs along beautifully on highways. It’s not particularly exciting, but that’s not what we want at this point in our lives. What we want is reliability, comfort, reliability, good fuel economy, safety, and reliability. (Fuel economy for this 2009 car is about 34 in the city, 36-38 on the highway.)
Regardless of how much crap someone flicks you for ‘questionable’ choices, don’t give in! At the end of the day, if youre the one paying the note and the insurance bill then you get to make the decisions…you gotta do whats right for you.
If you like cars, we’re living in good times though. Toyotas ARE dead reliable and economical to own, you cant take that away from them. But we’ve come a long way from the days where if you wanted something reliable it had to be boring or if you wanted something ‘cool’, you had to pay for it with a pound of flesh in the form of expensive repairs, horrible mpgs, or something else. My near 400 hp Hemi powered ballbreaker looks like business, sounds like its coming for your soul, and is capable of unspeakable mayhem…and yet it too starts every time reliably, has fit and finish light years ahead of anything made just 10 years ago, delivers mpg in the low to mid 20s if I’m not honing too bad and is surprisingly easy to live with as a daily driver. We’ve come a LONG way!
Very good points!
Since I don’t buy new cars, for me the issue is, how reliable will it be when it’s 10 – 15 years-old? My current Camry is now 21, my Altima is 19, and both cars have needed mostly normal repair and maintenance. (Of course it does help that I can still work on them)
Not sure that a 19 year old Hyundai or Chrysler product would hold up as well.
I’ve had my fun cars.
I’m at the point now, where comfort and reliability, without the new-car payment, can be ‘fun’!
Happy Motoring, Mark
For years, I loathed Toyota because I felt they didn’t try to make their cars interesting and that they were simply bought by non-enthusiasts who wanted simple A-to-B transport. Interestingly, this site has made me appreciate a lot of Toyotas more but Toyotas of this century have never been at the top of my preferred lists… I’d take a Sonata, Fusion, Malibu, Mazda6 or Optima over a new Camry, for example.
But, I’m appreciative Akio Toyoda has said he wants to make Toyotas more interesting. They can’t skate by on a reputation for quality and reliability when other automakers have made such strides, like Hyundai. And interior quality hasn’t been much to write home about, like the previous-generation Camry.
I like the latest crop of Toyota designs, for the most part. The RAV4 looks great. The Highlander is handsome, the Corolla looks the best it has looked in well over a decade and I really rather fancy the new Avalon.
A friend of mine just bought a brand new Corolla Hybrid hatchback and she loves it. Interior quality is decent, it feels quite refined, it’s a hybrid… Not a bad car.
Also I want to point out that Nissan seems to be taking the mantle of soulless, passionless motoring. A lot of their recent products seem like they’ve been designed to be average, nothing more. The Sentra hasn’t been near the top of the class since the 1990s but it keeps selling extremely well on account of its reputation.
At least there are some bright sparks like the Maxima (although I dislike CVTs) and the ageing 370Z. Oh, and the amazing GT-R. But with Toyota reintroducing sports cars and the Z car’s future in doubt, it looks like Nissan is heading towards mediocrity while Toyota is becoming more dynamic.
I get new-to-me fun cars a couple times a day here at CC, so my own (paid-for, not leased) 2016 Toyota parked curbside in front of my house is just fine with me.
Matt if “misunderstood” is directed at us in Europe who are befuddled by the Camry phenomenon in the US, well, to begin we are in Europe where conditions are different than in the US and, secondly, it just does not matter given the legendary reliability of these cars. A VW Passat may have a nicer interior and a more “together” exterior but what good is that if it spends days in the garage every couple of months (particularly if you have to pay for the repairs). Plus, I am becoming aware of the fact top-spec Camrys now posses almost muscle-car performance; here in Europe the Avensis (which is the nearest thing to the Camry Toyota offers) has OK acceleration and top speed, but nothing like the Camry, so if you want anything equaling it, you need to go to Lexus and then it gets expensive very fast, too…
T. Turtle, nothing was directed at anyone, it was mostly self deprecating, as I used to find fault with toyotas like many of the folks here.
If I were in Europe, I quite doubt I’d drive a Toyota as I love European cars. I think I’d search out a local choice!
Matt, in this case I have the car for you, Skoda’s Superb Tsi 4×4. Other than the reliability, it’s the nearest I can think of as a sort of a European Camry. At least when it goes wrong the locals know how to deal with it and spares are nearby:)
Sweet!!
“Other than the reliability”
Is there a current European car that has a great reputation for reliability?
Happy Motoring, Mark
Audis are better than some, and Opel (which you get as Buick in some cases in the US) has also improved by leaps and bounds. My boss bought an Opel Insignia (=Buick Regal) about 4 years ago and at 100,000 miles he had nothing done to it other than regular servicing. Mercedes can also look back at the horrible late 90s early 00s as a thing of the past. Volvo is also not too bad.
But VW… The problem with VW/SEAT/Skoda (other than Audi) is that the group sacrificed reliability chasing the goal of topping Toyota as the company producing the most cars globally. Here in the EU until the early 2000s VW had a very good reliability record. As things stand, I would not buy any product made by the VW group (or at the very least avoid anything with an automatic box).
All 1.6 liter BMW diesels, as long as they’re under the hood of a Toyota model. Can’t go wrong, it’s all about the badge on the grille. DO NOT buy (or lease) a BMW model with that engine !!
Ditto for the Toyota-Peugeot-Citroën panel van & MPV triplet and their joint A-segment hatchback models. As we all know the PSA versions will fall apart at the end of the dealership’s driveway, while the ones with the T-badge will outlive us all.
Wow this mirrors me. Have a ’09 Odyssey that I hate to admit how much I like. Just this fall picked up a ’12 Camry SE and it’s the second favorite car (not truck) I’ve ever owned which again – I hate to admit. Shockingly responsive and fun to drive, quiet, excellent gas mileage – the works.
“I tire of sitting low to the ground”
This scares me! I hope I never come around to this. There is no feeling like being one with the road around us. I hope to be a sports car guy until the very end.
There is a lot to be said for comfortable reliable transportation. My wife and I have owned half a dozen Toyotas over the years and all of them have done what they were intended to do. So far we have had three Camrys, a Celica, a Solara, and my wife’s current vehicle is a 2009 Highlander. I seldom drive the Highlander except on road trips but it is certainly a competent vehicle, with plenty of space for everything that we need/want to take with us. It certainly is not a hot rod (it has the 2.7 liter four/six speed auto combination) but I have never felt unsafe merging onto the Interstate. Toyota has done an excellent job of matching the transmission’s shift points to the torque curve of the engine. We typically get around 16 MPG in town and 24-25 MPG on the highway, running at 75-80 MPH. None of our Toyotas have ever left us stranded on the side of the road, which is more than I can say for some other cars we have owned.
We rent lots of cars and a few years back got a 2014.5 Camry SE 2.5 for an entire weekend and were expecting to be wowed by it. Sadly it didn’t wow us for much other than greater than expected rear seat legroom and we were shocked at how much equipment it lacked compared to a rental 2015 Sonata SE we had a month later. Worse it’s interior quality was lacking which was something both C&D and Motor Trend picked up on in some of there test cars also. It certainly wasn’t a bad car but it really did nothing well and overall we were more impressed with the 2015 Sonata SE and a 2015 Nissan Altima S, especially for powertrain performance, mileage and interior quality/ambiance.
For the record we achieved 26 overall with the Camry SE 2.5, 27 with the Hyundai and a whopping 30.1 with the Nissan in basically the same exact 150 mile driving loop.
Joe, in my experience, the Camry can be a very fast car when you step down on it. It handles flat around corners and can move pretty fast. My initial impression was later confirmed when I found this article: http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/05/review-toyota-camry-se-2-5l-track-tested/
The last time I rented a car, they offered me a Corolla. I said I’d rather have something else if you have it, and then they stuck me with a Versa.
That day I learned that sometimes you should just embrace the Toyota!