Camry vs Corolla

[supton]

All said and done.

Tomorrow the wife wants to get a pic of all three of our Camry's.

Anyhow. Speaking of road noise... we stopped at a light, and I found myself listening to crickets... and a bird chirping... despite the windows rolled up! On the drive home it was eerie: we were listening the tires on everyone else's car!

I think the wife is pretty happy. I'm merely ok as I traded the truck in and got her 225k Camry in exchange... I'm not sure I made out on that deal.

The car buying experience was ok, I took a bath on the truck as expected, but for once we turned down all the optional features and went out the door for the lowest price. F&I guy showed all the optional warranties we could get, the cheapest of which was nearly $2,800. ! We had no problem turning that down. He then knocked off a grand, I found myself dithering... then he put his foot into his mouth. "A valve cover gasket leak costs this much to replace, O2 sensors that, wheel bearings this, water pump that... and by 125k those will all have to be replaced." My wife shot him down: "225k on my last Camry and all I had to do a set of brakes!" End of that malarkey, nothing after that.

 

[levi]

... then he put his foot into his mouth. "A valve cover gasket leak costs this much to replace, O2 sensors that, wheel bearings this, water pump that... and by 125k those will all have to be replaced." My wife shot him down: "225k on my last Camry and all I had to do a set of brakes!" End of that malarkey, nothing after that.

Excellent. Can she accompany me on my next vehicle purchase?

 

[Nick1994]

All said and done.
View attachment 55627

Tomorrow the wife wants to get a pic of all three of our Camry's.

Anyhow. Speaking of road noise... we stopped at a light, and I found myself listening to crickets... and a bird chirping... despite the windows rolled up! On the drive home it was eerie: we were listening the tires on everyone else's car!

I think the wife is pretty happy. I'm merely ok as I traded the truck in and got her 225k Camry in exchange... I'm not sure I made out on that deal.

The car buying experience was ok, I took a bath on the truck as expected, but for once we turned down all the optional features and went out the door for the lowest price. F&I guy showed all the optional warranties we could get, the cheapest of which was nearly $2,800. ! We had no problem turning that down. He then knocked off a grand, I found myself dithering... then he put his foot into his mouth. "A valve cover gasket leak costs this much to replace, O2 sensors that, wheel bearings this, water pump that... and by 125k those will all have to be replaced." My wife shot him down: "225k on my last Camry and all I had to do a set of brakes!" End of that malarkey, nothing after that.

Whoa, it isn’t green though!

 

[supton]

Whoa, it isn’t green though!

In the light it is. I’m not sure if I can get a pic of it.

she had wanted something more like grasshopper green. I'm fine with a subtle green!

 

[KrisZ]

Nice! Congrats on the new purchase.

 

[supton]

Nice! Congrats on the new purchase.

Thanks!

My wife has various notifications, one of which is she gets tracking info for shipments to the house. While we were at the dealer she got an email that the seat cover for the rear seat had just showed up at the house (to keep dog hair off the backseat). She's a bit of a planner.

 

[supton]

So I've avoided driving this car until last weekend. Did not want to get the new car bug. Which hits every other week it seems... But I needed to do a tire rotation, and out of FUD I did an oil change too. Wanted to bust loose all the brake parts and put anti-seize onto everything but that will wait until this fall. According to the manual I needed to do a relearn on the TPMS, and to do that I needed to drive it 10-20 miles, so... twist my arm, guess I have to drive this thing.

Wife leaves it set on Eco mode. Which kills off the typical Toyota hyper tip-in, although I think mid-throttle it comes on and hard. Rather coarse engine IMO but it will move the car when asked.

I enabled cruise and found myself fighting the car... until I realized it was lane assist. What fun that feature is! every car should have it. When the driver gets bored they can play pinball with the car, I drove a couple miles letting it bounce between lines. [I'm sure that is a fun game that may get a conversation with our friends in blue if played too long.]

Today I got to drive it again and the radar adaptive cruise is interesting. I found myself going slow at one point, was kinda confused until I realized what was happening: I had set it, and the come up on someone, but because my wife had left it at something like 6 car lengths, I thought I was far back and didn't need to pass. Spent too much time driving in MA & now think a car length per 60mph is an acceptable distance in heavy traffic.

Will say I like these modern cars. It has this feature I wish my other cars had: get out on the highway and the car doesn't shake. Doesn't wander. Weird. There's also this other weird thing that it does: if I turn the steering wheel slightly the car turns. My other cars you have a few degrees where it doesn't do anything. Not quite on center dead spot but not quite what I'm used to.

 

[jstert]

hello supton, thanks for followup post. some quick questions for you: can you turn off lane keep assist? turn off adaptive part of radar cruise control to get plain vanilla cc only? how is auto stop/start? smooth? permanently defeatable or per driving session? what is highway speed rpm? sorry to be a bother but thanks in advance!

 

[supton]

• Lane assist can be turned off. I’m not turning it off as it’s the wife’s car and I’m not about to get in trouble…
• I believe the following distance for CC is adjustable, maybe it can be set to off or something like 1 car length, no idea (see above)
• Auto stop/start is pretty smooth. To be honest the “jolt” I’m feeling is less than “shift shock” in a conventional automatic. It stands out because the rest of the car is so darn quiet: no joke, we have been out driving around, 30mph or so, windows up and I’ll be hearing birds and whatnot outside of the car. So when the engine kicks on, it is noticeable simply because the noise floor seems so low.
• I don’t think start/stop is disable-able, nor would I, that’s part of the hybrid system. It’s really nice actually: I had to pick up my son from work, but wound up sitting for 20 minutes. Engine was off the whole time but the a/c blew cool. Really made me jealous…
• Zero idea on engine rpm. No tach. No idea if I can get it short of adding an OBDII dongle. Not that I care, it’s a CVT application, with 100% computer control. It spins where it needs to be.
• That said, I suspect the engine sticks around 2k or 2400 rpm, unless if I put my foot in it, in which case it’s probably 4-5k. IIRC the videos I’ve seen indicate that peak efficiency is around 2k or 2400 on this engine, plus/minus a couple hundred rpm, so it is going to want to live there, if the engine is on. Until load is high enough that high rpm is required. Not quite a 2 speed engine but in reality it may well operate that way. Peak efficiency and peak hp, and only occasionally veering into between, in case of long hills or the like.

 

[Nick1994]

So I've avoided driving this car until last weekend. Did not want to get the new car bug. Which hits every other week it seems... But I needed to do a tire rotation, and out of FUD I did an oil change too. Wanted to bust loose all the brake parts and put anti-seize onto everything but that will wait until this fall. According to the manual I needed to do a relearn on the TPMS, and to do that I needed to drive it 10-20 miles, so... twist my arm, guess I have to drive this thing.

Wife leaves it set on Eco mode. Which kills off the typical Toyota hyper tip-in, although I think mid-throttle it comes on and hard. Rather coarse engine IMO but it will move the car when asked.

I enabled cruise and found myself fighting the car... until I realized it was lane assist. What fun that feature is! every car should have it. When the driver gets bored they can play pinball with the car, I drove a couple miles letting it bounce between lines. [I'm sure that is a fun game that may get a conversation with our friends in blue if played too long.]

Today I got to drive it again and the radar adaptive cruise is interesting. I found myself going slow at one point, was kinda confused until I realized what was happening: I had set it, and the come up on someone, but because my wife had left it at something like 6 car lengths, I thought I was far back and didn't need to pass. Spent too much time driving in MA & now think a car length per 60mph is an acceptable distance in heavy traffic.

Will say I like these modern cars. It has this feature I wish my other cars had: get out on the highway and the car doesn't shake. Doesn't wander. Weird. There's also this other weird thing that it does: if I turn the steering wheel slightly the car turns. My other cars you have a few degrees where it doesn't do anything. Not quite on center dead spot but not quite what I'm used to.

Nice review, and yes pinball is a good example of lane keep assist. I can turn it up or down in my car, and I keep it down. It vibrates my steering wheel to let me know I'm a crappy driver and am weaving onto the lines, annoying!

What's the mpg been like?

 

[supton]

What's the mpg been like?

I think 55 is what i saw on the readout. Wife has lots of rolling hills at slower speeds for typical travel, only 2 stop lights we have to deal with here (in a 10 or 20 mile radius of home), so almost ideal mpg conditions (short of dead flat). I think yesterday i got 45 on my 30 or so mile jaunt, half was downhill so i was getting 55 and then the other half… wasn’t, and I was pushing it to get back to a party.

I’m sure winter weather, let alone snow tires, will trash that.

 

[mshu7]

Camry XSE with the 4-cylinder. Not sure if it has the option for a manual.
Anyway, I drove one and was blown away how nice it was and how it didn’t feel like a 4-banger. The auto trans was very impressive as well, making such good use of the 4-cylinders.