2012 Toyota Camry SE Long Term Test: What's It Like to Live With?
Read the latest updates in our long-term road test of the 2012 Toyota Camry as our editors live with this car for a year.
What do you want to know about?
- Introduction
- NHTSA 5-Star Side Crash Test Videos
- Band of Brothers
- Seat Heater Report
- Wants Versus Availability
- For Grownups
- I Like Big Buttons and I Cannot Lie
- Not the MPG Readout for Hypermilers
- Not Enough Room to Maneuver
- Not Really Like Other Camrys I've Known
- Who Am I Kidding?
- No Longer Terrible
- Getting Started With Entune, the iOS Version
- Fancy for a Family Sedan
- Un-Dew It
- Could You Be More Specific?
- Getting Picky About Quality
- Favorite Time of the Year for Driving
- Easier Entune in the XLE
- Clean Set of Gauges
- Something's Missing
- Track Tested
- Sparkly
- Trunk Features
- The Sales Crown
- AUX Friendly
- Wobbly Knobs
- Superb Headlights
- Navigation Woes
- OG Ultrasuede Seats
- Stereo Sound Separation
- Excellent Preset Design
- Ten Things I Like About You
- Feels More Expensive Than it is
- Super Bowl Bound
- Textures
- You Need Entune for Traffic
- Additional Matters of Sound
- Super Bowl Ad
- Cabin's Kinda Noisy
- Best Camry Driver Seat Ever
- Radio Days
- Useless Cupholder Contraption
- Ladies Love the SE, Apparently
- Ugly Engine Performs Well
- Keep the Change
- Video Review
- Are You Fooled? Do You Care?
- No Triple Blink?
- Well, It's No Camry SE
- I Love this Seat
- Ugly, But...
- Not Even Close
- The Microwave Clock
- Good HVAC Controls
- Maintenance Time
- Hmm...
- In a Nutshell
- First Service. Sort Of
- Now THAT'S American
- Spill-lunking
- Will The Bike Fit?
- A Pleasant Surprise
- Fair Enough
- Serious Sun Visors
- Bumps
- Subtle Logo Placement
- Get the Leather-Wrapped Wheel
- Another Camry Convert
- 5,000 Miles and Then Some
- One More Note About Traffic Updates with Entune
- Point of Visual Interest
- White Light
- Suspend Them All This Way
- Thieves Like Camrys
- 2.5 or Six to Four?
- Highway Fuel Economy
- Is "Canadian" Really a "Type" of Music?
- What Exactly is Personal Data?
- MPG Gauge
- Scratched
- Sleeper
- In Case of Key Fob Failure
- Somewhere for Everything
- Road Trip Comparison
- Ride and Noise
- Like The Transmission
- Hard Time Choosing
- Child Safety Seat Fitment Test
- Sign That I'm A Grownup Now
- Comfortable Backseat For Adults
- The Three-Box Design
- Thoughts On Fuel Economy
- A-to-B Car, But Better
- Not Fond Of the Touchscreen
- Need More in Your Back-up Display?
- Overall Thoughts
- The Good and the Bad of Audio Controls
- Friend of Commuters
- Nice Materials
- What's In There?
- Beep
- How Much Car Can You Afford?
- Driver Seat Minority Report
- Greater Than the Sum
- The Price of Popularity
- Camry, Explorer, Quest or 3: Which One For Me?
- Groove Hunting
- This Isn't Broken
- You Kids Get Off My Lawn!
- The Nook
- Wide Write
- Passenger Perception
- A Lovely Bouquet of Dirty Socks
- Still Waiting for First Oil Change
- 10,000-Mile Service Complete
- Road Trip to Dodger Stadium
- Third Vote for the Seats
- 10k Milestone
- Gone Soft
- Limitless
- The Wife Takes a Drive
- The Knight in Shining Cosmic Gray Mica
- Unassuming, But Still Well Liked
- Thoughts After 650 Miles
- Trip Mileage
- Crushing The Competition
- How Embarrassing
- Thoughts On Entune
- Carpool Rescue
- Still Looks Good to Me
- Non-Rental Car
- Trunkload of Good Will
- Fold Down Rear Seat
- Toyota Camry SE: A Tale of Two Seats
- A Look Underneath
- Would It Have Beaten the 2013 Honda Accord EX?
- I'll Make an Exception for the Center Stack Trim
- Broken Buttons
- Definitely Broken Buttons
- Show Me
- I Was Wrong
- There's a Reason
- Not One of the 7.4 Million
- Ready for an Oil Change
- The First 15,000 Miles
- L.A. to S.F. Twice
- 15,000-mile Service
- 15,000-Mile Service Complete
- Feeling Patriotic
- Low Profile
- The Case for a Dull Dashboard
- Or...
- Chicago Bound
- Wrap-Up
Introduction
Like 313,212 people did in 2010, we have just gone and bought ourselves a brand-new Toyota Camry. It's not just any Camry, mind you; it's a fully redesigned 2012 Toyota Camry. Maybe you've seen the commercials.
Although the Camry isn't exactly an enthusiast's dream, its status as the best-selling car in America means that a redesign is a big deal. And as if that pressure wasn't enough, Toyota is counting on the new sedan to pull it out of a rut that started with the old Camry's sudden acceleration problems. The earthquake in Japan last spring certainly didn't help, and then floods hit many of Toyota's suppliers in Thailand.
If ever Toyota needed the Camry to be a hit, now is the time.
What We Bought
There are four trim levels of the 2012 Toyota Camry. You've got your stripper model dubbed the "L," a nicely equipped midgrade LE, a loaded XLE and the sporty SE.
"The SE is far and away our favorite, with larger tires, 15 percent stiffer springs and 50 percent firmer dampers.... It's composed enough that we think it could serve as the base setup and no one would complain." That's what our director of vehicle testing, Dan Edmunds, said about the Camry the first time he drove it.
It's rare that Mr. Edmunds (no, he doesn't own the company) gives such high praise to the suspension setup of a high-volume family sedan. With that in mind, we figured the Camry SE was worth testing for the long haul.
And as much as we love the 3.5-liter V6 that's also available, it's no secret that the four-cylinder — capable of an EPA-estimated 25 city and 35 highway mpg — is the volume motor. It's also cheaper. Seemed like a better deal to us.
This particular car started life at $23,000 and came with the aforementioned inline-4 which makes 173 horsepower (thanks to its PZEV rating) and a six-speed automatic (with rev-matched downshifts). The SE model also includes 17-inch alloy wheels, sport-tuned EPS, sport-tuned suspension, SofTex-trimmed sport seats, 60/40-split rear folding seats, tilt-and-telescoping wheel, Bluetooth capability, 10 airbags, 6.1-inch touchscreen display and a six-speaker stereo.
But, as usual, we couldn't leave well enough alone. We really wanted to try out Toyota's new Entune system, which integrates smartphones and apps into a handy and hopefully safer-to-operate-while-driving package. To get that, though, we had to settle for a car that had more options than we initially wanted.
Entune is wrapped in the $1,050 "Display Audio with Navigation and Entune" package that includes HD radio with iTunes tagging, USB port with iPod connectivity and control, text-to-speech and navigation. Further, the car we found had the $1,195 Convenience package with a smart key on the front doors, trunk and start, and an integrated back-up camera. Finally, this one also had the $1,490 Leather package, a $915 sunroof, $130 for carpeted floor mats, a $49 cargo net and a $69 rear bumper appliqué.
Sticker price: $28,658.
Our guys who buy the cars are good, though. Real good. We paid $26,397 for our 2012 Toyota Camry SE, which is exactly invoice for the car. That's better.
Why We Bought It
So we know what we got, but how did we get to the decision to buy a Camry? Go back to the first paragraph of this story for an efficient answer to that. The 2012 Toyota Camry can't get by on name alone anymore. Toyota has been too tarnished in the media, and the competition from the Korean, German and American automakers these days is just too darn good.
Without the bulletproof shield of the Toyota logo, is this 2012 Camry good enough to compete in the highly competitive midsize sedan segment? Moreover, is it good enough to focus people's attention back on Toyota as a carmaker and not as a target of federal investigations?
We've got 12 months and 20,000 miles to see if this new car lives up to the Camry name. Follow along on our Long-Term Road Test Blog for daily updates on our long-term test fleet.
Current Odometer: 1,148
Best Fuel Economy: 30.1
Worst Fuel Economy: 23.0
Average Fuel Economy (over the life of the vehicle): 28.5
Edmunds purchased this vehicle for the purposes of evaluation.
Yesterday, the 2012 Toyota Camry scored an overall five-star safety rating from National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Sure, the popular sedan has taken some blows to the ol' reputation thanks to a series of recalls. But when the redesigned Camry arrived we all knew the chances of it scoring well in crash tests were high seeing as how it not only has a high-strength and ultra-high-strength steel unibody but three more airbags — passenger knee and rear-seat side airbags.
Hit the jump to get a sense of how safe you'd be in the event of a side impact by watching the videos where NHTSA threw a barrier at the Camry and then ran it into a pole.
For the frontal crash and rollover tests, the Camry scored four stars. And last year it got an overall score of four stars.
I recently drove our spanking new 2012 Toyota Camry to my local bank on a busy afternoon, where the only open spot I found sat between three other Camrys.
Including mine they spanned 3 generations, and as I looked around the lot I saw several more. Say what you will about the car and its performance, but these things are everywhere. There can be no doubt the Toyota Camry has been and remains to this day a hugely successful product.
The car to the right of ours represents the 2002-2006 model, of which 2.2 million were sold in the USA. It sold more than 400,000 units and was the #1 selling car in each of its five years.
The bookends represent the 2007-2011 edition, which will end its run with about 1.9 million sold. This generation came out of the gate stronger than any ever Camry ever had, with 473,000 sold in its first year. Its overall numbers sagged somewhat in the latter part of its five-year run because of things like the housing market collapse, the UA debacle and the earthquake/tsunami.
Despite all this chaos this generation of Camry maintained its #1 sales title from 2007-2010 and enjoys a clear lead going into the last month of 2011 over the Nissan Altima, the up-and-coming Hyundai Sonata and others.
To date, the Toyota Camry has won the sales title every year since 1997, with the sole exception being 2001, the last year of a rather homely generation.
How will the new generation fare, represented here by our 2012 Toyota Camry SE? There is every reason to believe it will continue the trend, because certain weak points that were starting to get noticed have been addressed. Interior quality has been improved, the seats are nicer and there's more usable interior space. MPG is up even as power has increased slightly, handling is better and the model lineup and pricing structure have been greatly simplified.
And the hybrid model has made huge strides. At 41 mpg combined the 2012 Camry Hybrid LE hybrid is fully 8 mpg better than the 2011 model.
The only question mark for me is the EnTune system and how it fares in real-world usage.
If you asked me 12 months ago I wouldn't have said the following about a Camry, but I'm looking forward to the next 12 months.
These are the first seat heaters I've seen with a scrolling adjustment. Most cars have on/off, low/high, or multiple distinct levels. The Camry has this scroll that you can stop anywhere in between greater and lesser.
I had them on full, of course, and I can report that they get nice and toasty. I have no need for the lesser end.
Our Camry purchase has triggered a lot of discussion about the options we chose for our test car. When we buy cars for the long term test fleet, we decide what trim level and options we want, and weigh that against what we can afford and what is actually out there on the dealership lot.
You can use a configurator all day long and design the car of your dreams, but what you'll find on the dealer lot is rarely what you had in mind. Dealers order vehicles not for the sake of variety, but instead they choose options and colors that they think will sell the fastest and maximize profit.
Each time you choose a color and an option, the pool of cars that will match that description gets smaller and smaller. And since we were one of the first to get a Camry SE, there were even less available to choose from. If you aren’t willing to budge on your options, you can always custom order the car, but you're going to wait 8-10 weeks on average.
We knew that we wanted a four-cylinder SE and that we wanted it with the Entune system. But the cars out there didn’t just come with Entune. They also came with a moonroof, and the convenience and leather package. This added $3,601 to the MSRP, in addition to the $1,050 that the Entune already cost.
Next we had to find a Camry with those options and in a color that wasn't the typical black, silver or white. We could've had a silver Camry sooner, but we decided to wait an extra week for the Cosmic Gray Mica (which looks more like a midnight blue) we ended up getting.
A Camry with an MSRP of $28,656 may seem pricey for some people, but keep in mind we didn't pay that. We negotiated and ended up paying the invoice price, which was $26,397.
For those curious, the V6 model, though not in our original game plan, would have cost an extra $1,300 and pushed the price out of reach. We are a big company, but we still have to follow a budget like everyone else.
When buying a car, you'll have to strike a balance between what you want, what is available, and how soon you want it. If you set out to buy a red car, with a sunroof and the upgraded sound system, will you be able to find it in the real world? And if not, are you willing to order and wait for it? Or would you be willing to consider the black one sitting in the showroom with the sunroof and leather package?
This weekend I had our 2012 Toyota Camry as my ride about town. As a comfortable conveyance to run my errands, it performed well. I stuck to surface streets, hit up brunch in Mid-City, a party in Hollywood, Christmas card shopping.... Nothing too exciting. Cushy seats, effective seat heaters and decent power made it all bearable.
Only thing is that the Camry didn't feel like me. Ever put on a piece of clothing that so wasn't you? Think the Big Lebowski being forced to wear a suit. That's sort of how I felt in our Camry. It was too "grownup" for me.
Not that that's a bad thing. I can appreciate how it would work well for small families or my parents what with its roomy interior, decent mpg (25 city/35 highway/28 combined), conveniences (Entune) and plush ride. Folks who just want to get from Point A to Point B will like the Camry.
But I want a car that makes my heart skip a beat. Where you can feel the road and get a thrill from driving it. Again, not that the Camry is bad, I'm just not ready to grow up.
Oh, my, gawd, Becky. Look at those buttons. They're so big. They look like one of those Fisher-Price toys.
What can I say? I'm a big-button type of guy.
Seriously, Toyota has the most legible buttons on the market, and that's a good thing. The buttons are so big, I'm pretty sure I could operate them with an oven mitt on. Maybe it's not the most attractive center stack out there, but in this regard, I would choose function over form any day.
The buttons on the steering wheel are also large, but perhaps not as ergonomic as they could be. The volume buttons are too far apart and I'm pretty sure no human thumb has that much range of motion to use them without shifting the hand position. I was also thinking that they could've eliminated the volume buttons altogether and used the vertical directional pad buttons for volume and horizontal for skip functions.
Just my $0.02.
This is how the gas mileage is displayed in our 2012 Toyota Camry. I think I prefer the digital readout of mpg, which is more precise. I know there's really no reason to know what your mpg is to the tenths, unless of course, you have a little contest with yourself. Then this wouldn't be satisfying but at all. Hypermilers care to chime in? Here, I read the mpg as around 24. Eh.
Due to a major life event, I now wear a ring on my left hand every day. And every time I adjust the power driver seat in our long-term 2012 Toyota Camry SE
V6
, I realize how little room there is between those controls on the side of the seat and the door panel.
The panel includes a pretty generously sized door bin in the revamped Camry, and it kind of sticks out. My ring also kind of sticks out. And so it invariably scrapes against the plastic panel. It's not the nicest plastic, either.
And so in this case, I would prefer the Camry offered less storage space in this location, so the panel wouldn't extend out as much, so I'd have a little more room to maneuver my hand when adjusting the seat. Even without a ring on your finger, these quarters are tight.
Last night a friend and I ran a bunch of errands in our long-term 2012 Toyota Camry SE. It was a mix of city driving and freeway travel, and at every store, yet more bags were loaded into the midsize sedan. In short, it was like any other day in the life of a Camry, which took it on without complaint and without drawing attention to itself. It really is the Marcy of cars as the great Dan Pund once wrote.
Except twice it did draw attention to ourself. See, for the first time in my memory, the SE really feels like an SE. The ride borders on firm. When you hit a major expansion joint or bump on the freeway, you really feel it once, and then it's done... it's not some floaty, drawn-out affair. In this regard, it's like no other Camry I've ever driven, and my Camry experiences go back a couple decades.
I think the ride quality on our Camry SE is an improvement. I think. Sometimes I'm not sure the world is ready for a firm-riding Camry... so, well, are we?
I could pretend (and sometimes I do pretend) that I find mid-priced, midsize, front-drive sedans boring, but the reality is I have a huge soft spot for cars like our 2012 Toyota Camry. They are easy to drive, they have just the right amount of room for four people and, more often than not, they have exactly the features I want.
After yet more Camry time over the weekend, I've decided that I like the suspension calibration on our SE. Indeed, it's firm by historical Camry standards, but I like how this car expediently deals with bumps and seams instead of flopping around for a couple beats.
Also, after a family dinner and a sightseeing tour of Pasadena residents' holiday lights, three of the car's four occupants were sacked out on the drive home — real-world evidence that the ride quality is just fine.
Incidently, I drove our long-term Camry as an alternative to my (future) father-in-law's 2001 Toyota Avalon XL... he expressed skepticism when I told him the Camry only had a four-cylinder engine, but I insisted with the transmission's extra gears (six-speed here versus a four-speed in the Avalon), the acceleration is better than you'd think.
Interior dimensions are pretty similar between these cars, until you look at the rear-seat legroom.
The old Avalon has more than an inch more in back, and the difference was obvious during the dinner/holiday lights cruise. One 5-foot-9 passenger was unable to slide his size 9.5 shoes underneath the Camry's driver seat (due to tight vertical clearance) and wasn't able to stretch his legs to the same degree when seated behind a 5-foot-10 driver. So it was comfy back here, but still not as comfy as a 10-year-old Avalon.
2012 Camry SE
Length: 189.2 in.
Width: 71.7 in.
Height: 57.9 in.
Wheelbase: 109.3 in.
Front track: 62.0 in.
Rear track: 61.6 in.
Cargo capacity, all seats in place: 15.4 cu.ft.
Front headroom: 38.8 in.
Front shoulder room: 58.0 in.
Front hiproom: 54.5 in.
Front legroom: 41.6 in.
Rear headroom: 38.1 in.
Rear shoulder room: 56.6 in.
Rear hiproom: 54.5 in.
Rear legroom: 38.9 in.
EPA passenger volume: 103 cu.ft.
2001 Avalon XL
Length: 191.9 in.
Width: 71.7 in.
Height: 57.7 in.
Wheelbase: 107.1 in.
Front track: 61.0 in.
Rear track: 60.0 in.
Cargo capacity, all seats in place: 15.9 cu.ft.
Front headroom: 38.7 in.
Front shoulder room: 58.4 in.
Front hiproom: 55.2 in.
Front legroom: 41.7 in.
Rear headroom: 37.9 in.
Rear shoulder room: 58.1 in.
Rear hiproom: 55.1 in.
Rear legroom: 40.1 in.
EPA passenger volume: 106 cu.ft.
Yeah, I'll say it, the last Toyota Camry was terrible. Let's put aside the utter forgetability of driving it that made me depressed before even turning it on. The Camry has always been boring, I'm not talking about that.
I'm talking about the fact that every last-gen Camry I ever drove had misaligned interior panels that were always and literally different shades of grey. Oh, and they often had sharp flaring on them. I'm talking about the center stack switchgear that looked removed from a child's toy. I'm talking about the shapeless seats. I'm talking about the suspension that would bob and float over road undulations and slap its wheels over bumps. I'm talking about steering devoid of any semblance of feel. I'm talking about a general feeling of cheap that didn't permeate past Camrys. I'm talking about the perception that the entire car was just phoned in for people who'd never cross shop anything else. I'm talking about it being worse than every family sedan not named Sebring, Avenger or Galant. I'm NOT talking about floor mats, unintended acceleration and people who don't know what Neutral does.
Then I drove our long-term Camry SE last night as well as a lesser equipped, non-quasi-sporty Camry LE last week. I am happy to report the 2012 Toyota Camry is not terrible, far from it. The interior is a gargantuan improvement, though not quite the nicest in the class. Better built, better switchgear, better looking, better functionality, better pizza, Papa Johns. I really like the seats; comfortable and their thin profile frees up backseat room. The suspension is better sorted and provides a more solid, substantial ride. The steering on the LE is still devoid of feel and utterly lifeless, but hey, at least the SE offers a bit of feedback and response for people who see the value of having some idea about what their tires are doing.
In short, I will not be feeling depressed every time I get our Camry SE for night as I was with our last-generation Camry long-termer or any other time I had the misfortune of driving that ... um, let's be nice, automobile.
We've had our 2012 Toyota Camry for a month, but until this week, we hadn't been using its Entune system, which is part of a $1,050 Display Audio with Nav/Entune option package on our four-cylinder SE model. It turns out the process is a little bit involved to set it up if you have an iPhone, as most of our editors do.
When it initially launched, Entune only worked on Android, BlackBerrys and Windows phones. Then, iOS 5 came along and it became compatible with Apple phones as well. But there are caveats.
The big one is shown here. You have to hook a hard line up to the Camry's USB input to make an iPhone work with Entune for this particular audio-navigation unit; you can't stream via the Bluetooth connection (although you do have to pair your phone as your normally would for Bluetooth and then enable music streaming). Android phones are exempt from this requirement, and Toyota officials tell us the iPhone will work wirelessly, too — but only with the higher-end Denso navigation system available only on the XLE V6.
OK, fine, I've got the cable hooked up.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. First, we had to go to myentune.com and set up a staff account linked to our Camry's VIN. Then, we had to enter and save that username and password in the Camry's audio-nav unit. And then, we had to set up a staff Pandora account linked to the Entune account. Finally, I had go to the App Store and install the free Entune app on my phone.
All that done, I plugged in my iPhone, opened the Entune app on my phone (have to do this before you interact with the Camry's Entune menus, we're told), and that brings up this screen:
Click yes. Now we're in business. What's the point of doing all this? Well, you'll get to read many posts about Entune's features over the next 11 months, but my main motivation was a desire to use the full Pandora integration to create playlists that would delight and/or annoy my coworkers.
So naturally, I've started out with the Beatles, Mike Patton and a John Denver holiday radio station. Anyone using our Pandora account can thumb up/down any of the songs, and if so motivated, the mean editors on staff could even choose to delete my John Denver station.
If you do try to use an iPhone wirelessly (as my phone indicates I can do) and attempt to "Connect for Internet," this is what happens. No Entune. Undoubtedly, this situation will change in the future... hopefully before the dawn of iOS 6.
However, you can certainly use Bluetooth streaming audio if you don't care about the Entune integration and just want to use the personal Pandora account (or other audio apps... like NPR) that you already have on your phone. Regular BT Audio only requires you to hit that "Connect for Music" button (shown above) — you don't need the internet connection.
We'll put up a separate "getting started with Entune" post that's specific to Android phones.
P.S. The USB and aux ports are in a cubby (with a door) under the Camry's center stack, so you can easily get the phone and the cord out of the way, and out of sight.
If you saw this detail shot and someone asked you what car it was from, what are the chances you would say "Toyota Camry"?
I'm figuring pretty slim. Or maybe none. The interior of the previous Camry was far from elegant. In fact, it was one of the more bizarre mixtures of colors and textures I've ever seen in a family sedan.
Toyota redeemed itself this time around with a more traditional design and higher quality materials. It's no Audi, or even a Lexus, but it's far more inviting than I expected. Surprising how far a little stitching goes when you're not expecting it.
Our new Toyota Camry is super quick. Super quick at defrosting/defogging, that is.
Several times I've gotten in the Camry when it was covered in dew or fogged up from the cold. I put the wipers on to clear the front windshield. Then I rolled down the windows to clear the side windows but nothing doing. They came back up just as opaque as they went down. When I pushed the buttons for the window and mirror defoggers, they cleared up in seconds. I've never seen a car clear up that quickly. The back window literally took about 3 seconds. Now, that's service.
Any of you have a Camry is a colder climate? Does it work this quickly when there is actual frost on the windows?
Because blowouts are such a bummer, it's really nice to have a warning light illuminate to let you to make the rounds and check your tires. Tire pressure sensors get even better when you have a fancy display to tell you the pressures of all four of your tires. That makes filling them up even easier.
But you know what's even better, and I'm looking at you Camry, is knowing which tire pressures on the fancy new display correspond to which tire. So close...
Think you could pencil in an update for that sometime soon?
We're often criticized for harping on build quality issues with domestic vehicles. So, in the interest of fairness, and reduced overall whining from the peanut gallery, I figured I would take a moment to recognize a lapse in build quality in our new Camry.
As you can see, the trim piece on the passenger dash vent does not fit squarely on the dashpad. There's a little wiggle room there toward the top. Not much, but it's not perfect.
Took this on the way in to the office earlier this week. This is the one time of the year in Los Angeles when it's possible to commute at regular freeway speeds, when the on-ramp stoplights are green and when we measure travel by miles instead of minutes. Gotta love the holidays. Here we actually got to drive the 2012 Toyota Camry at 70 mph!
Erin detailed the steps necessary for pairing an iPhone with our Camry SE's Entune system, and noted that the device needs to be connected via a USB cable. I recently tested a 2012 XLE model with the $1,550 Premium HDD Navigation system and found it much easier to get Entune up and running with my iPhone 4. And I didn't have to attach the phone to the car with a cable to get the system to work, as in our SE with the $1,050 Display Audio option.
Premium HDD Nav also adds a 10-speaker JBL audio system. But besides letting you go wireless via Bluetooth, it doesn't add a lot to the Entune experience.
I had to go through a set-up similar to Erin's, but was a few steps ahead since Toyota had already established an account for the car. All I needed to do was create a username and password for my own sub account. And I already had the Entune app on my iPhone from a previous test in a pre-production car that
was a fail
didn't go so well since the system couldn't communicate with my phone. I previously had linked my Pandora account and set up and linked OpenTable.com and MovieTickets.com accounts in order to test Entune.
The setup and learning curve were simple enough. And I liked certain features of Entune. Pandora is much easier to use on the Camry's 7-inch screen than my iPhone's small one, and having Bing search onboard is pretty cool, although the voice recognition feature is hit or miss (see videos below).
But after using Entune for a few days I really didn't see the point. Most of these apps are available for a smartphone anyway and, except for Pandora and I Heart Radio, you can't use them while the car is in motion. The Entune system just gives you a convenient in-dash interface for its five apps.
Toyota needs to provide more apps to make Entune essential. And automakers need to loosen their death-grip on the dash so that third-party developers can create cool apps.
I'm not usually one to comment on something as simple as a gauges cluseer, but hey, my last post was about a slightly ill-fitting piece of trim on the dash so anything goes these days. This time I'm going to commend the Camry people for the simple, yet still classy looking set of gauges in our Camry SE.
All too often, the designers of otherwise nondescript sedans try to liven things up with overly busy gauges. Here, they added some nice textures but otherwise went with a fairly basic design. It looks good, it's easy to read everything at a glance and blends in well with the rest of the interior. At night, the needles get cool, blue backlighting that's much better on the eyes than the overly bright white lettering in our Kia Optima.
Overall, the Camry is a pleasing design that favors simplicity over flash. Nice.
My first observation about our longterm 2012 Toyota Camry had nothing to do with the way it drove (a big improvement over the old car, by the way), because at the time I hadn't yet even plopped my svelte yet curvaceous backside into its driver's seat.
What I noticed was a tiny detail. Rather, the lack of a tiny detail — a trunk grabby thing. You know, the little plastic handle you grasp to close the decklid so your hands don't get covered with road grime.
Now, I fully acknowledge that this is not a major thing by any stretch of even the wildest David Lynch-ian imagination. A nit that's getting picked. [insert your own huffy dismissal here]. It's just an odd omission nowadays, especially in a car that sweats the user-friendly details like the Camry does.
And, hey, this French manicure isn't going to maintain itself.
As a matter of policy, we test all of our new long-term cars when they enter the fleet. Yes, even if they happen to be of the Toyota Camry variety.
Thankfully, our Camry is the "sporty" SE edition. The SE bundles together larger tires, 15 percent stiffer springs, firmer dampers, sport-tuned electric power steering and SofTex-trimmed sport seats. Unfortunately, we got ours with the mainstream, volume-selling 2.5-liter inline-4 instead of the sauce-having 3.5-liter V6. And since we bought it in California, it's PZEV rated and thus produces 173 horsepower instead of 178.
So we've got the sporty suspension, the less sporty motor and a six-speed automatic transmission that kind of does rev-matched downshifts. How'd it do?
Vehicle: 2012 Toyota Camry SE
Odometer: 1,316
Date: 12/6/2011
Driver: Mike Monticello
Price: $28,658
Specifications:
Drive Type: Front engine, front-wheel drive
Transmission Type: Six-speed automatic
Engine Type: Inline-4
Displacement (cc/cu-in): 2,494/52
Redline (rpm): 6,200
Horsepower (hp @ rpm): 173 @ 6,000 (PZEV)
Torque (lb-ft @ rpm): 165 @ 4,100 (PZEV)
Brake Type (front): 11.7-inch ventilated discs with single-piston sliding calipers
Brake Type (rear): 11.1-inch ventilated discs with single-piston sliding calipers
Suspension Type (front): MacPherson strut, stabilizer bar
Suspension Type (rear): Independent multilink, stabilizer bar
Tire Size (front): P215/55R17 (93V)
Tire Size (rear): P215/55R17 (93V)
Tire Brand: Michelin
Tire Model: Primacy MxV4
Tire Type: All-season, low rolling resistance
As tested Curb Weight (lb): 3,238
Test Results:
Acceleration
0-30 (sec): 3.2 (3.2 w/TC on)
0-45 (sec): 5.5 (5.7 w/TC on)
0-60 (sec): 8.6 (8.8 w/TC on)
0-60 with 1-ft Rollout (sec): 8.3 (8.5 w/TC on)
0-75 (sec): 12.6 (13.1 w/TC on)
1/4-Mile (sec @ mph): 16.3 @ 86.6 (16.5 @ 85.6 w/TC on)
Acceleration comments: Strong for a naturally aspirated four-cylinder, revs hard. But for some reason (perhaps our California PZEV car?), was 0.5 second slower to 60 than the last four-cylinder Camry we tested. Sport mode (with power braking) was quickest, as it lets the car rev to 6,200 rpm instead of 5,800, and shifts quickly. Manual shifting is via console lever (pull back for downshifts) or paddles. Does not hold gears to rev limiter. Sort of blips the throttle on downshifts.
Braking:
30-0 (ft): 31
60-0 (ft): 123
Braking comments: Very firm pedal and not too much ABS commotion or tire squeal. Moderate nosedive, but the rear tires would lock up enough to cause the rear to kick slightly to the right each time. First stop was 124 feet. Shortest was fifth stop at 123 feet.
Handling
Slalom (mph): 64.6 (63.9 w/TC on)
Skid Pad Lateral Acceleration (g): 0.81 (0.80 w/TC on)
Slalom comments: This is a Camry? Seriously, it's not that bad at all. Steering has some feel, even if the effort is a bit artificially heavy. Suspension has good damping and it corners pretty flat. The tires are the letdown, as they give up and start sliding pretty easily. The Camry needs to be manhandled, thrown around the cones, to reach its max time. But with ESC on, you need to be very smooth to keep the system from stabbing the brakes. Thankfully, the intervention point is pretty high.
Skid pad comments: Good steering effort around the skid pad, could actually feel what the front tires were up to. Still, not much you could do about it, though. It just wants to understeer. ESC has high limits when on. But it's rather abrupt about cutting in when it does come on.
Db @ Idle: 39.4
Db @ Full Throttle: 69.7
Db @ 70 mph Cruise: 63.7
This picture shows a close-up of the paint on our 2012 Camry SE. It's called Cosmic Gray Mica.
My passenger this weekend remarked on the strange color paint on our Camry. I said "What do you mean? It's black, or sort of a charcoal gray."
"No, it's weirder than that. Not in a bad way. Just different."
I never really thought so until I saw the Camry in glaring sunlight this morning. It's like a really cool nail polish. And it goes well with the lurex sweater I'm wearing today. <end of girl talk>
I've been enjoying driving our Toyota Camry SE for a few days in a row. It's always nice to get into a car long enough to span weekdays and a weekend, so I get to live with it as a commuter and a weekend errand-runner. I find it to be comfortable and have a good driving position for a shorty like me. It also has toasty seat heaters, a decent-sounding audio system and a roomy trunk.
With 15.4 cubic feet of cargo space with all seats in place, the trunk is spacious and right in the middle of its class. The Honda Accord and Chevrolet Malibu have slightly less space; the Kia Optima offers the same; the Hyundai Sonata and Ford Fusion have more.
The removable stretchy mesh cargo net (pictured above) hooks in two places on each side. When you don't need it, you can lay it flat on the floor or fold it up and keep if off to the side.
There are two levers at the mouth of the trunk opening. When pulled, they release the seats. I was expecting them to drop down but they do not. The trunk is too deep for me to push them down from the back, so I walked around and pulled them flat from the back seat. I asked Dan if I was doing something wrong, that perhaps they weren't latched properly in the first place and that's why they didn't spring down. He said no, that's the way they work and it's not an uncommon design. He can't reach the seats to push them down from the back either.
Here's a video of me opening the trunk.
What's that? You don't care for our long-term 2012 Toyota Camry SE? Well, there are many people that do like — and even buy — the Camry.
The name "Camry" is an Anglicized phonetic transcription of the Japanese word kanmuri (冠, かんむり), meaning "crown" (Wikipedia). How appropriate.
The Camry was not only the best-selling mid-sized car of 2011, it was the best-selling car of 2011 with over 300K units sold. (The 2011 figure includes 2010-2012 MY with 2012MY starting in Sep.)
But that's not all.
Not only did the Camry outsell its mid-sized sedan rivals, the Camry outsold Subaru, Benz, Mazda, BMW, Lexus, Cadillac, etc...
Yes, that's right. Camry by itself outsold the entire model lines of those brands.
Here's the list:
Yup. The Camry is a great mid-sized sedan, but it may not be the best choice for you and me.
However, it seems that more than a few people like it.
In my last Camry post, I noted a small annoyance. This time around, I'm pointing out a small perk.
A few other cars in my memory banks have this feature, and I hope more are to follow. This little bin has the USB and auxiliary audio jack built-in (sorry for the blurry photo, but it was dark and the Mountain Dew was starting to give me the shakes).
If I had an iPod in addition to my iPhone, I could simply leave it in the car. It'd be out of sight of prying eyes, yet easily accessible. Now, if it had a lock of some sort to keep the valets in line, it'd be perfect. Sure, some other cars (Audi mostly) put the USB in the glovebox, but what happens if you need to do a quick reset?
Open letter to other manufacturers: Please do more of this. Thanks.
The interior of the latest-generation Camry is a definite improvement over its predecessor. Soft-touch surfaces abound and the stitched and padded dash lend a slight upscale air. But the climate control knobs? They can use some help.
I noted in a previous post that I appreciated the big legible typeface on the infotainment pod, and I stand by that assessment, despite the fact that Magrath called me an old feeble man because of it. But the climate control knobs and buttons seem like they were plucked from an old parts bin.
The quality of the plastics on the silver knobs and buttons remind me of a child's toy. They lack a substantial feel and have a slight wobble when touched. The detents also have a plasticky feel. The black buttons are fine, and perhaps that's why I'm nitpicking the silver controls.
I've always been a proponent of the three-knob climate control layout, but the Camry's doesn't bother me that much. Then again, if our long-termer had automatic climate control, this wouldn't even be an issue. I normally just set it and forget it.
I'll admit that this photo doesn't mean much without something to compare it to, so you're going to have to trust me on this one. This generation Toyota Camry has awesome headlights. This photo was taken in high-beam mode where both the reach and coverage are better than virtually any car I've driven recently — and far better than anything else with this kind of price tag.
Here's the best part: all that light comes from a standard Halogen 55-watt H11 bulb which can be found on eBay for about $20 per set.
Not sure what it is about this car's reflector design that makes its headlamps so effective, but it's refreshing to run across so much light from such a modest package.
This weekend I went to a concert about 22 miles from my house. I wasn't familiar with the venue so I Google-mapped it and printed out the directions. It looked to be a little tricky at the end so I also attempted to put the address into the Camry's navigation system. Some guidance to find the last couple of turns would be very helpful.
The nav system did not recognize the zip code of the concert hall and would not let me type it in. It presented me with only one possible zip code option for the street address which was one digit off. I took a chance and pressed OK and it changed the street address to something else entirely. I was looking for a certain Drive, it changed it to Place.
I started over and it seemed to accept the street address without a zip code. The route it offered looked correct so I pressed start guidance and went on my way. While I was heading to the freeway, it tried to get me to make a u-turn and then I realized the navigation changed to a different address in the opposite direction. Perhaps it defaulted to the most recently used address instead? I have no idea.
The Camry's nav system does not accept information while the car is moving so my passenger tried to re-input the address at the next red light. But it accepts each letter and number so slowly that we could not complete the operation before it was time to move. I also tried to find the venue by POI but it was no help. I decided it wasn't worth pulling over for and cancelled the navigation. I used my paper print out instead. On the way I got detoured because of construction and had to get off an unfamiliar freeway exit. I could really have used some guidance at this point.
After the concert was over, the navigation system did help me get back to the freeway because it found my home address acceptable. But it could not get me to my first destination. It was 50% useless to me.
Our long-term 2012 Toyota Camry SE has leather-trimmed Ultrasuede sport seats. They're part of the $1490 Leather Package which includes those seats, leather door trim with seatback pockets, heated driver and passenger seats, and 8-way power driver's and 4-way power passenger seat.
They are functional and look racy. But I really like these seats because they remind me of my 2001 Lexus IS 300 (nee Altezza). That ultrasuede center section in my IS felt smooth, and wasn't too hot in the summer, or too cold in the winter.
So I love the ultrasuede in our Camry's seats. But not nearly as much as I loved my OG Altezza.
(2005 Lexus IS 300 photo courtesy Toyota Motor Sales, USA)
(2005 Lexus IS 300 photo courtesy Toyota Motor Sales, USA)
There's someone on staff that I won't mention here (Chris Walton) who prefers the sound in cars set to have just a slight rear bias. He digs it. It drives me nuts, I feel like I've walked past the band and am now walking out the door with the cool stuff happening behind me. Thankfully, this can be solved simply by adjusting the fader.
The problem with our Camry's stereo isn't so easily fixed. See, the trouble is that when you really start listening to the stereo and not just coasting along with NPR there's a super annoying separation of sound. Usually this happens in a fore/aft left/right but our Camry with the six-speaker stereo has a different separation: top/bottom.
Our Camry has two speaker grilles on top of the dash and one in each door. The sound never meshes it simply hits you from four different locations at roughly the same time. Unfortunately, they hit you from drastically different places and it sounds like someone's playing two radios at the same time with one above your head and one right around your feet.
Now, there's a 10-speaker JBL unit available but I'm not sure that would solve this problem. My car? Yank out the top speakers and chuck some reasonably priced 6.5 components behind the stock grille. The effort would be well worth it.
I know in this age of portable music devices, the radio is old-fashioned to some people. Great, good for some people. I like listening to the radio, both terrestial and satellite, and Camry makes it easy with the way it lays out presets.
This is totally a play on GM's Favorites system, which mixes and matches AM/FM/XM on several different lists of 6 presets. If there is a problem with GM system, is that the favorites button is often placed too far away from the preset buttons (see Volt), and I've always wished there was a redundant favorites button includedon the steering wheel.
Well, withToyota's new touchscreen layout, both issues are satisfied. The directional buttons on the steering wheel, as well as the touchscreen icons next to the preset list allow you to go through the favorites list. Toyota goes a step further by allowing you to go forward and backward through the favorites lists. GM only can go forward.
This is a great example of taking a really good idea and making it even better. Well done.
I've had some nitpicks with the new Camry but overall I like it very much. Here are some things I appreciate about this car:
1. strong seat heaters with a scrolling adjuster
2. roomy interior and trunk
3. good pedal placement for a person with short legs and small feet
4. excellent headlights
5. nice stitching on the padded dash
6. comfortable optional leather-trimmed seats
7. firmer than expected suspension
8. overall five-star safety rating
9. much improved interior materials
10. simple clean gauge design
As you can imagine (and you've probably heard from us before) we get the "what car should I buy?" question more often than we can count. While this isn't all-inclusive, there are three general types of people who ask. First, there's the person who wants confirmation that the car they want is a good bet. "What's a good car? I'm looking at X. Do you like that?" Next is the person with absolutely no idea what's going on or what the automotive industry has done in the past 20 years. "I'm looking for a new car. The old Chevette's had it. Blew a tire back in '93 I don't know that I trust Chevy anymore. Also, Audis catch fire; don't want that."
The last type is the one that is the easiest to deal with and the one most people can relate to even if it means thinking outside the automotive sector. These are the people who just want a good car for a good price. They don't need to screw a dealer they just need to feel like their money was well spent.
At $23,760, our 2012 Camry SE is money well spent.
I wouldn't have made this claim about the last Camry. It was a nice car and a reliable way to get from point A to point B, it just didn't feel like a deal. The interior wasn't this nice, the ride wasn't this composed and if memory serves me, it wasn't this quiet on the road.
Here's a list of some standard features:
Projector Beam halogen headlamps
Integrated fog lamps
Heated power mirrors
17-inch wheels
6.1-inch touch-screen stereo with AM/FC CD with Six speakers, USB port and Bluetooth
Remote entry
Sport Fabric Seats — 6-way driver, 4-way passenger
60/40 split folding rear seat
Cruise control
Tilt/telescoping sport steering wheel with paddle shifters and Bluetooth controls
Power door locks and windows
Two 12V aux outlets
10 cup holders
10 airbags
And of course there's the 2.5-liter, 178-horsepower (173 horsepower in California thanks to CARB) I4 and six-speed automatic transmission.
So it works out to be a good deal on paper, too. It's not sexy and it's not the kind of car you lean on at the beach hoping people will notice it's yours, but it feels like the kind of car where you'll know where your monthly payments are going. I would recommend this to person #3 and confirm this decision for #1. Type 2? Just back away slowly, they're going to buy a used Chevette again anyways. No sense letting that garage full of spare parts go to waste, right?
Two of our Long Term Cars, the 2012 Toyota Camry and the 2012 Chevy Sonic, will have ads at this year's Super Bowl.
This year's all-new Camry has a much-improved interior. I think you'll agree when you enlarge the picture above.
I like the way each of the textures work together in our Camry SE. A padded and stitched dash is a welcome surprise in a car of this class. The plastic elements blend in well as do the brushed aluminum pieces. There is a nice symmetry to the gauges and dials.
What do you think about the interior of the new 2012 Toyota Camry?
I got into our long-term 2012 Toyota Camry SE yesterday for a drive to the San Diego area for a work event. I hadn't been in this car for a few weeks, so my phone had long since been deleted (the Camry only allows four paired Bluetooth devices at a time... which is a little low, as most cars give you five or six slots).
Of course, pairing my phone was the first order of business, and then I hit the Apps button to enter an address in the navigation system. I plugged in my phone via the USB port, but didn't think to boot up the Entune app on my phone because I wasn't planning to use Pandora.
Then, I realized the map wasn't showing any traffic data... that is, I was seeing the map above but without the green (and yellow and red) highlighting.
Then, I remembered something about the entry-level Camry navigation system using Entune/your smartphone for traffic updates. And sure enough when I started the app on my phone, toggled to the second page of the Apps menu, I found a Traffic button.
Upon clicking it, the car ask if I wanted to establish an internet connection. I clicked yes. That resulted in this traffic incident list, and when I went back to the map, it now had the telltale green, yellow and red highlighting along the freeways.
This is a slightly more involved process than usual for getting traffic updates, but it's not a big deal really if you have a decent data plan on your phone. Of course, there's always the Garmin portable argument — certainly compelling given the $1,050 price of our car's nav/Entune option package. (You'll note that our Camry SE came with a 90-day XM subscription, but it's actually the "XM Select" package, which doesn't include traffic. As best as I can tell, only XLE V6 models are eligible for XM-based traffic updates.)
Magrath and I sometimes disagree on cars, but definitely not on our long-term 2012 Toyota Camry SE's audio system: It's really not very good and I'd be tempted to ante up for the optional JBL system (or aftermarket stuff) just to listen to NPR. I, too, fiddled with the equalizer settings, couldn't get it to sound how I wanted, and gave up.
Similarly, Toyota doesn't give you enough steps for the navigation system's guidance volume. (I've noticed that a lot of my coworkers mute the navigation system's verbal guidance, but I always turn it back on, because I end up missing turns if I have to pay attention to what's happening on the screen.)
So I entered a destination into our Camry's system and then had to sit through some low-speed traffic. The first verbal prompts from the nav system nearly deafened me, so I hit the sound icon, brought up this little display and tapped it down to the minimum audible setting. Still too loud.
Then, speeds picked up on the freeway, and the minimum sound level was a bit too quiet. But I wasn't about to turn the volume up and have it blast again the next time I slowed down.
Curiously, the situation is a lot better for Bluetooth-enabled phone calls...
Admittedly, I don't make a lot of phone calls anymore. (And why would I with stuff like Whatsapp and iMessage?) But I happened to call the same person on consecutive days from two different cars. The first was a 2012 Civic EX and I was admonished, "You sound like you're just talking on speaker phone." The second was our Camry, which drew a rave review for phone call sound quality. So there's that.
Also, when I'm on a call, I can adjust the call volume by twisting the audio system's main volume knob, so there's plenty of stepped adjustability. Why can't I do the same when the nav system guidance lady is speaking?
Yes, this is a screengrab from the Super Bowl ad for the 2012 Toyota Camry. Yes, those women are acting as end tables. Or as armrests of a pretty sweet lady couch. Or they're practicing their Yoga cat pose.
I'm not sure my 250-mile trip to San Diego this week really qualifies as a road trip, but it was my longest stint in our 2012 Toyota Camry SE to date. In general, I like the changes that happened to the Camry during this redesign — the more controlled ride quality, the extra precision in the steering. And I still think our car rides comfortably enough for an SE model.
But I sure wish the cabin was quieter. The previous two generations of the Camry were really serene, really sealed off from the noise of highway travel; although, in fairness, the last couple older-gen Camrys I drove were LE models.
Our SE is not serene to my ears. I felt like I was hearing everything around me, as if someone had pulled out some of the sound-deadening material. It was like being in an Accord or Altima.
Of course, I could be wrong about all this (I went to a few too many concerts with mosh pits back in my youth), so we'll have to see what other editors have to say as we rack up more miles.
My experience with the Toyota Camry goes back a few generations, and in all that time, I never liked the driver seat in any of the cars. Space was never the problem — I'm 5-foot-10; most cars are designed to fit someone my size. Rather, it was the shape(lessness) of the seats themselves usually combined with a lack of firm support and adjustability.
The driver seat in our long-term 2012 Camry SE rights pretty much all of those wrongs. The shape is great for me, and there's ample adjustability (I can raise the seat without being dumped toward the pedals, I can telescope the steering wheel toward me, etc.).
And although I'll need to take a longer trip to know if the seat is really supportive enough, it felt fine during the drive to San Diego.
Initially, our 2012 Toyota Camry SE comes across as inhospitable for AM/FM radio listeners. After all, it has the same ridiculously long reach to the tuning knob as our Sienna did. If I need to tune a new public radio station while driving (weaker stations don't always come up in seek/scan), I have to lean way forward in my seat to work the knob. It's uncomfortable and annoying.
However, the Camry's radio has one feature I really like.
And that is the ability to disable the HD feature for FM radio by simply hitting a button on the touchscreen.
Why bother with this? Well, because I've found that when driving in far-flung suburbs of L.A. (Orange County, Inland Empire), HD coverage is spotty, so it will go in and out — and when it does this, it's hard to hear newscasts and music because the volume and sound quality fluctuate so wildly. Disabling HD radio is a beautiful thing in these situations.
Oh, I know, this plastic piece does serve a function of sorts, it just doesn't do it very well.
Snap it into place and you get spring loaded thumbs that theoretically hold your drink in better. Need more room? Just pull it out and you get one gigantic receptacle that could possibly hold three drinks if you're really that thirsty.
In reality, the spring loaded thumbs don't grab all that well and when you pull the thing out it doesn't really give you that much more room. Would much prefer a more basic setup that concentrates on doing one thing well instead of two things poorly.
(photo by Scott Jacobs)
With January sales showing a 56-percent increase year-over-year, the Camry is enjoying a bit of a hot streak, and the model owes much of its current success to the SE trim. SE models accounted for only 7 percent of total sales in the previous-generation Camry, but in the wake of the car's 2012 redesign (which recast the SE as the line's most performance-oriented trim, with larger tires and a sport-tuned suspension), SE sales have swelled to 35 percent of the Camry's mix.
During an interview on Monday at the recent National Automobile Dealers Convention in Las Vegas, Bob Carter, Toyota's group vice president of U.S. sales, said that the manufacturer plans to exploit the SE's popularity by bumping it up to 40-42 percent of total Camry production. Carter noted that the SE is especially popular with younger female buyers, and their presence has lowered the average age of all Camry buyers to 45 — a figure that's lower than the segment average.
This might be the single ugliest engine bay in our fleet. I mean, just look at the size of that oxygen sensor. And what's going on with that plastic toupee on the cylinder head?
Luckily for the Camry, none of this matters whatsoever. Few owners are every likely to bother popping the hood and even if they do they're not going to care what the exhaust manifold looks like.
What they do care about is how this engine feels like from behind the wheel and in that capacity I'd say it's pretty solid. No raspy noises, no odd vibrations, just a reasonable amount of power when you need it and decent mileage no matter how you drive it.
I think it would feel much peppier if the transmission was a little more aggressive, but I can see why it's tuned not to kick down too quickly. It's certainly enough performance for the average driver, so I imagine that V6 sales are going even lower than ever these days.
No, this is not an innovative feature. It is not something that no other car in the class has, nor is it anything even remotely new. But that doesn't mean I can't commend our Camry for its conveniently located change holder, a felt-lined one at that.
Various family cars have attempted to reinvent the change drawer over the years and most of them failed. I don't need separate, spring-loaded cylinders for my dimes, nickels and quarters thank you, just somewhere to toss coins when they throw them my way at the drive thru. No need to over think it and thankfully Toyota didn't in this case.
Since our Camry is a super sporty SE model it comes with metallic trim. Or should I say, "metallic-like" trim?
You see, this is really just plastic made to look like metal. Actual metal trim would cost too much and most likely weigh more too. This is pretty convincing stuff at first glance, though.
Made me wonder if most people really care what the trim is actually made out of provided it looks good. It's still better than plain old grey plastic right? In this case, I'd say "yes" give me the plastic "metal" trim.
Sure, our Camry has auto headlights (an essential these days) but no triple-blink automatic turn signals? Is that why so many Toyota drivers aren't signaling?
Not a deal breaker by any means, but something that, if I were to buy one, I'd yell about every time I went to change lanes quickly on the highway.
Through circumstance and misadventure, I found myself on a tour of California in the Kia Optima SX Turbo last weekend. Up to Santa Clara from L.A., then across to Sacramento, back to L.A. and then a short hop to San Clemente and back.
The Optima isn't my favorite sedan, but it worked out fine.
And then right after I returned, I found myself in the 2012 Toyota Camry SE. And within minutes, I was amazed to discover just how good the Kia had become.
The Kia's turbo four-cylinder engine is weak at low rpm and sounds bad besides, but it cruises the freeway effortlessly and quietly. The Camry's four-cylinder always seems to be two gears away from where it needs to be, so you wonder where the power went.
The Optima SX Turbo's suspension is snubbed down a little too firmly and there's a lot of noise from the tires. But the Camry SE's sport suspension is all spring and no damping, and so every bump from the highway makes it weave down the road.
The effort level for the Kia's steering is very heavy, more evidence that carmakers have been listening too closely to all the chest-beating journalists who believe tractor-style steering is a key indicator of a fast car. There's some stiction in the action of its electric-assist steering, but it only makes you crazy part of the time. Meanwhile, the Camry SE's electric-assist steering has so much stiction that it makes you crazy all the time, especially when you can't get the steering in phase with the chassis.
The Optima's interior is a bit glitzy, and the driver seat doesn't look like much although it works well once you dial in the adjustable lumbar support. The maps of the navigation system aren't quite detailed enough when the scale gets close up. The Camry's interior has a grab-bag of unpleasant elements that makes me think of a 1980s Chrysler K-car, and I started squirming in the driver seat within 20 minutes. The navigation system's maps might be better than those on a cell phone, but not by much.
So over the course of a couple days, I've been reminded just how far Kia has come.
When I first drove a Kia in Japan in the in he early 1980s, the company had a relationship with Ford and the cars were cast-off old-tech Mazdas made in Korea. Later, Kia came under the Hyundai umbrella, apparently because a scion of Hyundai's family-related executive board needed something to do, and the cars were old-tech Mitsubishis with names that no one could remember.
And now the Kia Optima SX Turbo is a car that attracted notice at every hotel, gas station and stop-and-rob snack mart that I visited in California. So far, no one has asked me anything about the Toyota Camry SE except for directions to the nearest Starbucks.
I know Erin Riches has already sung the praises of the Camry's driver's seat. Well, I've decided to second the motion.
I'm 5' 11", 185 lbs and I love everything about this seat. Its shape. Its size. Its placement. And its adjustability. I like the density of its padding, the feel of its upholstory and really like the way it looks with the contrast of its white stitching and its suede-like inserts.
Toyota is getting its game on.
Today we ran an article called The 100 Most Beautiful Cars of All Time. And no our long-term 2012 Camry did not make the list. In fact there's only one Toyota on the list, the 1967 Toyota 2000GT.
Those with an eye for cars won't find this surprising. Toyota has never been confused for a boutique design house. Sure the Supra had its moments and the Lexus LFA has its following, but the fact is that for the most part Toyotas fail the "I saw one and I just gotta have it" test.
What might surprise you is that two other midesize sedans in the Camry's pricepoint are on the list, the Volkswagen CC and the yet to go on sale 2013 Ford Fusion. Some commentors are already calling us fools for leaving off the Kia Optima and Hyundai Sonata.
My point is that a midsize affordable four-door no longer needs to be unattractive, which our 2012 Camry undeniably is. Toyota can't seem to figure that out. Although our Camry's dark color hides much of its homeliness, anybody that finds its shape appealing needs a new set of bifocals.
But ugliness is not new to the Camry. Once simply innocuous, the Camry made a turn from just boring to downright ugly two redesigns ago when its snout took on the shape of a sick rhino. The new 2012 Camry looks better than that, but not much.
Shame really, because this is the best driving Camry since the mid-1990s. I've driven it many times over the last few months, and I still cannot find something to complain about. It isn't even boring, which has been the dig on Camry's since the Reagan administration. Fact is, I like driving this car as much as or more than driving our long-term Kia Optima and Hyundai Sonata. Yeah, I'm surprised too.
But this Toyota really is that good, regardless of what our Executive Editor Michael Jordan says.
Now, if they could just fix the way it looks.
Nope, the Camry's rear seat backs don't even come close to folding flat. I admire this car's practicality on many levels, but this is a shortcoming that bugs me. Fold-flat rear seats greatly increase utility when it comes to carrying long or bulky cargo like a bike.
I admire the forethought required to put hard pastic on the part of the seat that becomes the cargo floor when the seatbacks are folded. That should, to some degree, protect this surface from the inevitable " cargo wedging" that will happen because of its angle.
Still, I'm guesiing, Mikey won't like it.
It's a general Toyota policy that the vehicle's clock should be a stand-alone display. (Yes, I do know this.) Many people deride this display as the microwave clock. Stylish, it's not.
But it's quite functional. No searching around for the time buried somewhere in the Navi display, or worse, entombed in the reconfigurable display between the speedo and tach.
And changing the time (e.g., during Daylight Savings Time) is a breeze. I've had to bust out the book and RTFM on some cars just to do that simple task.
The only thing I would change on this clock is to make it a nice analog model, but that might increase the cost too much when multiplied by 300,000 units.
Of course, many Camry owners...
Of course, many Camry owners are Boomers and parents of Boomers, and they want to know the time, and change the time, without any fuss. I know you Generation Z people don't even need a vehicle clock (or a watch for that matter) and will just check your phone for the time between sending SMS and Tweets.
But shouldn't this be a case where function triumphs form? Maybe we can have both with a nice, stand-alone analog clock.
What do you say?
Sure, it's not as simple as manual control systems can be (three knobs, three buttons), but this setup appeals in its own way. First, the fan speed and temperature knobs flanking the buttons are huge and solidly built. They don't squirm around in your hands like the cheaper controls in our Juke did. Also, the most critical mode buttons are huge.
Simple and effective.
The Camry's Maintenance Required light started blinking at me today when I fired the car up after getting it washed. It blinks on and off for about 15 seconds, then leaves you alone (thankfully).
According to the owner's manual, the light will come on "approximately 4,500 miles after the maintenance data has been reset." The odometer just passed 4,800 miles.
The warning light is telling us the Camry is due for its 5,000-mile service, apparently a fairly minor affair of mostly inspections and tire rotation. We'll get it taken care of soon.
Besides the road tests on Inside Line, we also produce tests for the main Edmunds site. Every now and then, we'll use one of our long-termers as the test subject. My latest piece to go live was on our Toyota Camry. While we, as a group of editors, are generally in agreement on our take on vehicles, occasionally we disagree. By "we," I mean Magrath and myself. And that's good, I think.
There's a good portion of things that Mike and I disagree on, yet we both acknowledge that there is rarely a definite right or wrong in our opinions. It keeps things fun and lively around here. I'm all about dry-aged beef, while he's convinced grass-fed is the way to go. I like Scotch, while he's into Gin. I'm into cars that are fast, inconvenient and dangerous and he has more luxurious leanings. You get the idea. It's a civil discourse, and it rarely ends in fisticuffs or tears.
It's similar to how I approach movie or restaurant critics. I find the ones that closely match my tastes and follow them. When things get more subjective, finding that black or white delineation gets difficult. So I just take everything as an opinion in shades of gray.
And that brings me back to my Camry test drive. I contend that the 2012 Camry just barely moved the needle, while he argues that it's a big step forward. To me, the Hyundai Sonata and Kia Optima represented a big leap forward. Those models went from backmarkers to frontrunners overnight. Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
What do you think?
Just picked up the Camry from its first "service." At 4,888 miles there wasn't any actual service needed, but this check up comes at no charge with the 2-year/25,000-mile maintenance plan which is included in the purchase price. A tire rotation and fluids check are the only jobs performed during this visit.
There was no drama.
I use car horns quite a bit. People just seem to be in their own little world when they're behind the wheel, and I try to do my best to keep our worlds from colliding. As a frequent honker, I've become a bit of a horn connoisseur.
I like the two-tone Italian horns best. As uncommon as they are, I think they also draw a lot of attention; and that's the point of a horn, right? I also like the big horn blasts that come from classic American cars. I have a classic piece of Detroit iron from the 1950s that sounds almost like a train when I need to make my presence known.
What I hate are the wimpy little beeps that are associated with little econoboxes. No. That defeats the purpose of a horn. It's like having a Chihuahua as a guard dog. I have a couple of Japanese sportbikes that suffer this indignity, too, but I use some sharp revs instead of the horn, and that seems to be much more effective.
And that leads me to the Camry. I was at a red light behind a driver who was texting. The light turned green and their head never popped up, so I gave the horn two quick beeps. I was expecting a wimpy beep, but was pleasantly surprised that it instead burst out with a distinctly American-sounding horn.
Perhaps I shouldn't be too surprised, though, as the Camry is the "most American" car being made today. According to Toyota, 80 percent of the parts that go into it are made right here. I'm willing to bet the horn falls into that majority.
One downside to the Camry's deep, enormous trunk: When the groceries spill, you need to have long arms or a willingness to climb inside to reclaim your ice cream, bratwurst, tortillas, etc.
And yes, I do need lessons in how to use the cargo net.
Jacquot was pretty sure I wouldn't like the Camry when it came time to see if a bike would fit.
He was right, sort of, but for the wrong reason.
See, Jacquot was thinking the problem would be that the Camry's rear seats don't even come close to folding flat.
But the bigger issue is the narrow pass-through window. It makes sliding the bike in a bit of chore, trying to get the rear wheel through this tiny opening without lowering the bike's seat.
Luckily, the Camry's trunk is exceptionally wide, with a correspondingly large opening. Which made the mountain bike's wide handlebars less of a problem.
In the end, I was able to do it. Just took a little bit of monkeying around to get pedals, rear wheel and seat to all cooperate with the opening at the same time. But, it should be noted that my Lenz Leviathan, although with big 29er wheels, is only a medium. Folks with larger bikes will almost for sure have to drop the seatpost to slide their rigs into that pass-through.
Not gonna lie to ya: I was a little put off as I was about to head over the deliciously twisty Ortega Highway when I realized I hadn't turned off the Camry's stability control system before I left my garage. Fun Police, release your rage upon me in one, two, three...
Anyway, when I pressed the ESC-off button, I was quickly reminded I was in a Toyota, which generally means you can't turn off the ESC once you've started moving. You can turn off traction control if you're driving slowly, but not stability control.
Oh well, I wasn't about to pull over just to turn it off. I mean, I'm in a Camry, so how much excitement was I really going to have in this thing anyway?
Turns out, far more than expected. Two aspects stood out:
First, the stability control never once cut in on me (to add brakes or cut power), despite the fact I took some of the turns pretty aggressively. My fears about the system being overly controlling were unwarranted.
Second, the Camry SE's handling is more than respectable. Steering is fairly precise, has reasonable feel and body roll is decently controlled. We're not talking sports car speeds here, but there's enough precision to actually have some fun through turns.
Kept finding myself muttering, "This thing is a Camry?"
This is the warning label on the Camry's trunk cargo net. Thirty pounds seems generous enough to me. After all, that'll let you carry three gallons of milk, 30 dozen eggs or a modestly sized trunk monkey.
I like these things. Use them every time I go to the store. And the Camry has a good one.
Now that's some coverage. OK, nobody needs pull-out sun shades that block the rear-view mirror, but having enough flexibility to take up the gap between the mirror and the visor is nice. And the Camry certainly offers that utility.
And then there's side protection...
It's good there, too. I'm short torsoed and this visor has the adjustment necesary to suit me quite well.
The next block down from my house has two really annoying bouncy rubber speed bumps. It doesn't seem the type of block that needs speed bumps. It's not highly trafficked or tempting to drive quickly, nor does it have a lot of kids playing outside. But I guess the neighbors got together and petitioned for them. I would think they would have more important things to complain about, like the guy who keeps six Crown Vics parked on the block for spare parts. But whatever. If you don't have annoying neighbors then you probably live in the middle of a field somewhere.
I was driving our Toyota Camry slowly over these bumps with a 6'1" passenger sitting next to me. He hit his head on the ceiling over both bumps. Even though the Camry has been redesigned for 2012, the front headroom allotment is unchanged from the previous model at 38.8 inches. At 5'4", the top of my head comes pretty close to the headliner as well. But not close enough that I have to worry about bumping my noggin.
Front headroom in the Camry is lagging behind most similarly sized cars. It's nemesis the Honda Accord offers 41.4 inches. Here's a chart showing how other midsize sedans compare to the new Camry:
| 2012 Toyota Camry | 38.8 inches |
| 2012 Chevrolet Malibu | 39.4 inches |
| 2012 Ford Fusion | 38.7 inches |
| 2012 Honda Accord | 41.4 inches |
| 2012 Hyundai Sonata | 40.0 inches |
| 2012 Kia Optima | 40.0 inches |
| 2012 Mazda 6 | 39.4 inches |
| 2012 Nissan Altima | 40.6 inches |
| 2012 Volkswagen Passat | 38.3 inches |
I like this tiny Toyota logo and nameplate which are subtley placed on the Camry's rear bumper just below the trunk. In fact, near as I can tell, this is the only place the Toyota name actually appears on the outside of the Camry SE. The trunk says "Camry" on the left side and "SE" on the right, but the name Toyota appears only here.
Hit the jump to see just how subtle it really is.
Subtle. Just like it should be.
The steering wheel in the Toyota Camry is one of the cabin's better features. Largely, this is because of the smart layout of its entertainment controls. It's also pretty comfortable to hold.
However, that's only when you opt for the leather-wrapped wheel. Notice how the leather nicely meets the silver plastic? Well, with the standard wheel I sampled a few months ago, the lack of leather reduces the thickness of the grips at 3 and 9. That means that silver plastic is essentially raised and tends to dig into your thumbs.
You probably would've wanted a leather-wrapped wheel anyway, but here's another reason to.
I didn't like the last generation Camry. It may have been a smooth performer and probably as reliable as an anvil, but that exterior styling! It was such a turn-off (was the hood inspired by a Bottlenose dolphin or what?) as was the downgraded interior.
This new one still has a few styling details wrought from the School of Disjointed Design, such as where the dash meets the door panels (looks like they're from two different cars) and the similarly mismatched taillights (thank you BMW for championing this horrid trend).
But overall, it's fairly clean outside and there's better quality inside. Yet it's under the skin where the new Camry shines brightest. Add me to the list of those impressed with this car's driving dynamics, especially the performance of the four-cylinder/automatic powertrain. Along with the expected refinement there's crisp overall response with plenty of grunt down low and through the midrange. When the tranny should downshift, it does so pronto. Higher speed passing power is surprisingly strong too. Yes, we have the sporty SE trim, but like Monty pointed out, the handling is also solid.
Our long-term 2012 Toyota Camry passed the 5,000-mile mark this week, and we barely noticed as it happened in the midst of a five-car comparison test that saw us rack up hundreds of miles. The Camry SE is one of the five.
I drove our long-termer last night, and as in the past, it's the Camry's total package that impresses me — the engine is, well, rather stellar among the four-cylinders this class (now that the Passat has lost the 2.0T motor).
In addition, the automatic transmission is well programmed (i.e., shifts quickly enough and smoothly enough to keep me happy), the seats are comfortable, the controls are simple... but you know, I'm not sure I'd get an SE if it was my decision. I don't care for the SE styling flourishes, and the combination of the suspension calibration and the tires makes for a busy ride on I-10 and California 60 — the two freeways I use the most.
You might remember an earlier post from me about the slightly involved and somewhat counterintuitive process of getting traffic data to appear in 2012 Toyota Camrys that have Entune and the base navigation system. If you don't go through that process, you get the above display — a map with no green-yellow-red traffic data.
However, while running errands this week, I became aware of one particular convenience — at least for iPhone users. If you stop for gas or something, and leave your phone hooked up via the USB port (which is required if you want to use Entune with an iPhone) and running the Entune app, then, when you turn the car back on, it remembers that you that you'd turned on the traffic data function.
So then, all you have to do is hit yes to connect to the Internet and, after a warning about racking up data charges, it takes you right back to the map with traffic data. Which is obviously more convenient than if it didn't do that.
Of course, the situation could be different with Android phones (which generally don't need to be hooked up to the USB port to use Entune), and as soon as I get my hands on a friend's Galaxy S II, I'll let you know how it works.
This is one of my favorite parts of the Camry's cabin. Love the nicely grained surfaces, the crisp white stitching and the clean metallic accents.
Huge, huge step up from the previous-generation Camry, whose cabin had all the visual appeal of a pair of hospital scrubs. Function is important, but form is the icing on the cake. Nice to see that Toyota got the memo.
While it might not stand as a particularly imaginative choice, I dig the white illumination seen in the Camry's cabin after dark. It's easy on the eyes, and lends the cabin an air of Zen-like tranquility when the sun goes down.
The lighting also seems right in step with the Camry's spirit, which has always been about providing an effortless user experience that never threatens to challenge or offend. Hooray for consistency.
What do you think of the cabin illumination? Clean and soothing or dull and boring?
Add my name to the list of editors that thinks our longterm 2012 Toyota Camry SE is, dynamically, a nice improvement over the outgoing model.
Now, I can't say for certain how much the SE trim level's suspension calibration is responsible, but I can say this: there's no reason not to spec every Camry suspension like this one. I can't imagine anyone objecting to the SE suspension calibration since it strikes the sweet spot between tautness and compliance without ever, ever feeling harsh.
The same base-vs-SE situation applies to the Sienna, come to think of it.
The Camry is popular with consumers, so it's not surprising that the Camry is also popular with thieves.
LoJack Corporation recently released its third annual Vehicle Theft Recovery Report. The company makes a vehicle recovery system that was instrumental in the recovery of some 10,261 stolen vehicles in 2011; the report's findings are based on statistics garnered from these recoveries. (By the way, according to LoJack, its recovery success rate is 92 percent).
The Camry was the most stolen and recovered 2011 model last year, according to LoJack. The Camry also made a couple of appearances on the list of most stolen and recovered models that are five years old and newer, with the 2007 Camry in the number one spot and the 2009 Camry coming in at number four. Overall, the most stolen and recovered model last year was the Honda Accord, with the Camry in second place.
Do you consider statistics like this when deciding which vehicle to purchase?
I didn't drive our long-term Camry this weekend. Instead, I signed-out a short term V6-powered Camry SE just to see for myself if there's an appreciable enough difference to justify the $3,640 jump in price.
The short answer: No
As it is, the Camry is one of the quickest four-cylinder family sedans out there. I don't mean to underestimate the Camry's audience, but I contend that the vast majority of potential buyers will find the power more than adequate. I suppose if I lived on top of a very steep mountain with passing lanes, the V6 would make sense, but then again, it's not like the four-cylinder would be a pig. It would just sound a little ragged as you floor it.
If it's performance you're looking for, well, you probably shouldn't be considering a Camry in any guise. For the equivalent $30k we spent for our Camry SE, and if I was interested in more performance and personality, I'd choose the Dodge Charger or maybe spend a bit more for a Nissan Maxima.
What would you consider?
So I went on a bit of a road trip this weekend. The trip up was 228 miles door-to-door and the Camry (despite craptacular traffic escaping L.A.) earned 33 miles/gallon, or 2 mpg shy of the official EPA estimate. While there, I logged about 35 miles around town and drove back, earning 28 mpg, or exactly the EPA combined figure. The near-500-mile drive averaged 30-miles per gallon. I was about to claim "best tank" for my 33 mpg until I glanced at the entry belonging to "JD" who managed to eke out a 36 mpg average over a piddly 174 miles.
I also found a trip screen that reminded me very much of one in the Toyota Prius.
According to Sirius/XM, it is. There, sandwiched between Latin and Comedy is Canadian, eh. The channel is produced in Toronto and features (mostly) new and emerging rock bands from Canada — which explains why I had never heard of Tokyo Police Clu(b). Now, back to the search for "News/Public Radio" which I believe should be separate categories, but that's an entirely different problem for another day.
It's tempting, isn't it? And in this era of identity theft, I thought, "Yeah, what the heck," and pressed delete after a few days in the car. What did I delete? According to the manual, here's the list: Phone Book Data (great), Call History and Speed Dial data (fine by me), Phone Sound Setting (?), Bluetooth Data and Devices (D'oh!).
"I'm sorry" to the other four (?) staff members who had their phones paired. At least it's easy-peasy to pair a Bluetooth device in this car.
This is the Camry SE's mpg gauge, which displays average fuel economy — a useful enough metric. But it bugs me that it tells me I'm getting 32 mpg while sitting still, which is when this picture was shot.
Getting the Hybrid XLE buys you an incremental LED gauge to the right of the needle's sweep, which shows instant MPG.
This is how the passenger front door on our 2012 Toyota Camry looks. Somebody scratched it. The white gash in the picture runs about 4 inches in length and beneath it ithere is an ever-so-slight crescent-shaped crease in the metal.
My attempt to rub out the blemish removed the white and shrunk the visible damage to roughly 2 inches in length. The crease remains. This sort of thing makes me sick, no matter how often I see it.
Paddle-shifters. In a Camry. The absurdity gives that Mayan thing some credence.
This isn't our long-termer, but rather a V6 that came through the short-term fleet recently. Here I thought the RAV4 V6 was a sleeper. But this — this is guaranteed to emasculate most dopey modified Civic drivers (kelly green New Era Yankees cap cocked to the side, gold sticker still affixed) from a stoplight.
You might even worry a Mustang V6 driver for about 1,000 feet or so in this car. This Camry posted a 14.7-second quarter-mile at 98.3 MPH in our testing. By comparison, we tested a Mustang V6 Premium at 14.1 seconds (100.3 MPH) and a Mustang V6 Sport at 13.9 seconds (101.2 MPH). Both were 2011 models.
Maybe we can agree that paddles have crossed the threshold of gimmickry in many cars. But these actually give the Camry V6 some heat. Maybe even a hint of soul, something that begs to be taken seriously and not written off simply as a six-speed refrigerator.
This tag fell out of the glovebox of our 2012 Toyota Camry when I was removing the owner's manual. It explains how to start the car in case of key fob failure. I found it to be interesting.
This is the first example I've seen of the work-around being as simple as holding the key over the ignition button. In the early days of keyless technology many OEMs built hidden slots someplace in the car. If the key died, you'd stick it in the slot to allow the car to start.
As I remember it Nissan's spot was left of the steering wheel, low on the dash. GM took a similar approach. The C6 Vettes had a nook in the glovebox, and it was tucked away in the center console for the STS. The Mercedes solution was removing the 'push' button manually to expose the slot behind it. Even Toyota used to use a slot in the dash, near the start button.
I'm going to go out on a limb here, a short limb, and say that of the versions I've experienced, I like the approach in our 2012 Camry best.
I love it when cars offer places for all my stuff between the front seats, facilitating grab and go. Yes, even though I carry a big purse, I still need a spot for my garage key card, iPhone, the occasional smoothie and, in our 2012 Toyota Camry's case, the key fob. And the Camry has all that, including a felt-lined change drawer and the storage areas in the door. So even when you have a passenger, you don't have to get creative with where you put your paraphernalia.
1) Front of the gearshifter: perfect for smartphones (it's where the USB/aux jacks are located), keys, wallets, and stuff that you'd otherwise put in a cupholder if both weren't already taken.
2) Cupholders
3) Shallow dish with door for keycards, change, keys.
4) Huge center console
It's something car owners adapt to with regard to their own cars. You don't have a change drawer or a bonus storage area forward of your gearshifter? No big deal. But if you jump in a bunch of different cars like we editors do, you learn to appreciate extra storage when it's offered.
I did a road trip over the weekend with my family. Actually, the one-way trips were split between two vehicles, the Explorer and the Camry. Those aren't two vehicles you would normally compare, but it was interesting to me nonetheless to notice the differences.
I was a little worried at first since I had the Explorer to start out. As I have two small children, there's no such thing as a small load for a road trip. After packing up, the Explorer's cargo area wasn't at capacity, but it was pretty close to being at my comfort level (not putting stuff higher than the top of the second-row seats). Would it all fit in the Camry?
The Explorer rides really well on the freeway. And the front seats are pretty comfortable. But because of the rear-facing child seat issue, my wife had to move her front passenger seat up a few inches, which she wasn't thrilled with. I'm not exactly sure what kind of fuel economy I got, but based on the in-car trip computer I'd estimate the low 20s.
The Camry, in contrast, had no issues taking on the rear-facing child seat. There was still plenty of room for my wife to stretch out. And I'll be honest — after having driven our Explorer for about two weeks prior to the switch, it was a very nice change to get into a normal family sedan. Wow, you can actually see out of the thing! Hey, some semblance of road feel and handling! Oh, and look — simple, normal controls for the radio and climate!
Plus, I was able to fit everything I brought in the Explorer into the Camry. No doubt, the Camry was packed tighter. And the Explorer still offers more theoretical capacity. But for a three-day holiday trip, the Camry was all I needed and much preferred. Topping it all off was fuel economy — figure it got around the low 30s, or a 10 mpg improvement.
I've got a couple follow up thoughts about the Camry after yesterday's post. One, I'll agree with Erin — the cabin is a bit noisy at freeway speeds. Not terrible, mind you, but certainly noticeable. There are quieter midsize sedans out there.
Then there's the ride quality. We've written a lot of positive posts so far about our SE's suspension tuning. And I'd agree that it's the ideal Camry setup for people who at least like to drive a little (likely, everybody reading this). But I can also picture many Camry buyers — the multitudes who previously bought a Camry for the car's appliance-like personality — being happier with the regular suspension tuning. The SE does let in a fair amount of road imperfections that those buyers might find objectionable.
In the end, though, it's nice that Toyota gives you a choice.
One of the more appealing aspects to our Camry, at least in my mind, is the shift programming for the six-speed automatic transmission. So many automakers these days seem to have implemented a dull throttle response and delayed automatic transmission downshifts in the hopes of eking out better mpg. It can be annoying or even aggravating.
The Camry, however, is prompt in its responses to your extra inputs and snaps off quick one-gear downshifts. The sport mode works well, too.
Maybe some people would say this means the Camry is just shifting too much, but I like it this way. The shifts are inperceptible, and overall the Camry feels alert and makes the most of its four-cylinder's power.
The result is annoying (or even aggravatingly slow responses to your throttle inputs.
The Cam
I really do like our Camry SE. It'd be on my list were I planning to purchase a midsize sedan sometime this year, But I also like the Optima, Sonata, new Malibu and Passat. Then there's the new Accord, Altima and Fusion for 2013. Got to wait to see how those turn out, right?
I know I'd have a hard time choosing.
What catches your eye for this segment?
After the underwhelming results from testing child safety seat fitments in our Ford Explorer a few weeks ago, I figured I'd try out our Camry next. After all, it is a family sedan.
Toyota versus Britax, read on.
As usual, there's not much to report about the Recaro booster seat pictured above. It fits fine, although I quickly realized that our Camry's rear head restraints are fixed and not removable. That means the booster seat isn't flush with the seat back. Not a huge deal, though it's more noticeable with a front-facing child seat.
Here's a Britax Marathon seat, which can be installed either front facing or rear facing. Normally with a front-facing seat, I really do like to get the seat flush up with the car's seatback so I can really tighten down the LATCH anchor straps. That almost always means removing the head restraints. Can't do that here.
Detail shot of the head restraint.
Things get better with the seat in the rear-facing position, which is kind of funny because often it's the opposite for a lot of cars. Really, no problems here. There's enough rear legroom that I doubt many people would have a problem with a child seat interfering with the comfort of the front passengers. I'm 5-10, and the driver seat is positioned for me. There's still about 4 or 5 inches of clearance.
The Camry SE's LATCH points are pretty easy to get to and snap in the safety seat's anchors. As with most sedans, there are only LATCH points for the outboard positions. The owner's manual does not make any mention of using LATCH for the center position, so for the middle any safety seat would need to be secured with the seatbelt.
I also installed a Britax Companion reverse-facing infant seat. Since fitment is pretty similar to the Marathon seat, there weren't any problems.
Overall, it seems like the Camry should work out well for families with small children. Of course, just about any midsize family sedan these days will work out fine, but it's interesting to see how little details (like the Camry's fixed head restraints) still crop up to make it a little tricky.
Safety seats in use!
Earlier this week I turned 40 years old. I don't feel old. But remember when you were a kid and your parents turned 40? You thought they were pretty old, right?
Then there's this: I really like our Camry. It drives well, it's comfortable, it looks pretty good, it's very useful for daily life, the four-cylinder's powerful enough with good fuel economy, and it's not an SUV or a minivan. I even look forward to driving it in a odd sort of way.
A few months ago Caroline wrote that the Camry wasn't her, that she wants a car that makes her heart skip a beat. Is the Camry for 40-year-old me, then? I'm not sure if I want the answer, for fear of result.
If you don't have kids and child safety seats to schlep around, the Camry still works out fine. In fact, I think the Camry's got one of the more comfortable back seats in the midsize sedan class.
Now, everybody is going to be different, but for me, the Camry's rear seats are angled in such a way to give more thigh support and a more relaxed overall position than the norm. This helps out comfort during long drives. There's also enough legroom and headroom that most adults should fit just fine. Padding for the door armrests is also decent.
The lack of adjustable rear head restaints is the only issue that I see. They're properly positioned for me (5 foot 10 inches), but someone taller might want them to go higher.
In my "Hard Time Choosing" post last Friday, brendan_m made a comment that caught my eye. He wrote: "I'd take the Camry over just about any other car in the midsize segment. (Passat and Accord are too big for my tastes.) It's the closest to the traditional three-box sedan shape. Larger greenhouse, better visibility."
I find that interesting because, if you look at the cars in that photo collage, the Camry does have one of the most traditional designs (three box refering to "boxes" for the engine area, the passenger compartment, and the trunk area). A lot of other automakers are going with a more coupe-like sloping roofline for their new sedans.
The Camry's more upright rear glass does make a difference. There's better rearward visibility than the norm, for sure. Entry and exit from the rear seat is probably a little easier, too.
Got a couple random thoughts on our Camry's fuel economy for Earth Day. For starters, our Camry is not doing very well in matching its combined EPA number. In the last Fuel Economy update, it was at a 24.1 mpg average, compared to the EPA's 28 mpg. No other actively blogged about car in our fleet is further off its target right now. Other than it hasn't been used for any really long trips yet to boost its average with more highway mileage, I'm at a loss to explain why.
I've been doing a lot of city driving recently, and at least the in-car gauge is pretty close to the EPA's 25 mpg city. Maybe I'll check to see if I can easily match EPA highway later this week.
I've come to like the fuel economy gauge in the instrument cluster. At first it seemed silly to me to dedicate space for a gauge like this when a trip computer can tell you the same thing. And why wouldn't it show you instant fuel economy, too? But having it there all the time has made me more aware of my average fuel economy and, sort of like with a hybrid, makes it more like a game to try and keep my average near a particular number (30's been my goal recently). And while it only shows average economy on our car, you can see instant fuel economy (plus past economy in one-minute increments) on the main display screen.
Our Camry is an excellent A-to-B car. It's comfortable, the controls are logical, there's plenty of interior storage and the trunk is decent sized. There are also some nice conveniences or upgrades on our car like keyless access, leather/faux-suede upholstery, heated seats and the Entune suite of features. I was thinking about this today as I picked a friend up from the airport. You just get in it and drive, no thought required.
But the nice thing is that the Camry doesn't bore or annoy me like the stereotypical A to B car. It goes around corners acceptably, has decent power and responds willingly to my throttle inputs. Our car's $28,658 MSRP (or mid 26K for Edmunds TMV) seems like a very agreeable price to me. I'd buy one.
There are only a couple things that I don't like about our Camry. The touchscreen is one of them. Mainly, I get annoyed with its lack of sensitivity to touch. It reminds me of our Explorer's touchscreen in the way that I'll touch a virtual button, but occasionally nothing will happen. Then I have to touch it again, still wondering if it will take for the next touch.
I find it distracting because it just takes that much more concentration away from driving.
After experiencing all the different types of backup cameras in various long-termers, one can't help but get used to certain features and miss them when they're not available in other cars. Like for our 2012 Toyota Camry's view via the back-up camera. It's a clean, straightforward display of guidelines. The thin, red horizontal line shows how close is too close, while the blue vertical lines shows where you are in relation to the space you're backing into.
But what the guidelines don't do is react when you turn the wheel (like in the BMW 528i), which, even though I don't really need it, I still find helpful when parallel parking. Nor does the Camry display have the helpful green, yellow and red zones you find in a Ford Mustang, Nissan Juke or Kia Optima (when it works). But that's me, what say you? Do you prefer simpler?
I got a lot of quality time (three weeks straight) with our Camry recently. Normally, you'd think that an extended duration in a Camry would be the result of some kind of long-term test car banishment. But even if true, I wouldn't mind — I actually did enjoy driving it.
The previous generation Camry was outclassed by a lot of other midsize sedans. This one holds its own. Whether its driver comfort, fuel economy, performance, interior quality, styling, handling (SE trim) or rear seat comfort, the new Camry does very well in my opinion. I suppose a possible downside is that it doesn't really excel in any of these areas. You can likely find another midsize sedan that beats the Camry in a particular area. The latest Camry is not going to be a flashy choice in this segment. But it's a smart one.
The Good and the Bad of Audio Controls
OK, so Brent Romans already covered the insensitivity of our 2012 Toyota Camry's touchscreen, but I wanted to add that I also dislike how tiny the "buttons" on the screen are as well as how the scrolling button doesn't make it obvious when you're changing the station. The small "click" you feel when you turn the knob to advance to another station is soo subtle that you can easily click over two Sirius stations. And when driving in stop-and-go traffic, you definitely do not want to take your eyes off Brakey McBrakerton in front of you (I'm talking to you. Mr. RAV4).
Fortunately, the Camry's steering wheel is equipped with an "excellent preset design" as Riswick noted so you really don't have to sit through that really annoying commercial and/or The Offspring song if you don't want to.
Only thing is having to share the Camry with a bunch of other people means that these are not your presets. But obviously actual owners of the Camry won't have this same issue.
Earlier this week, circumstances necessitated that I wade right into evening freeway gridlock at an ill-advised time of day and drive to an unfamiliar part of town (not pictured above since I ended up parking in front of a bail bonds agency; instead, enjoy the gloomy Pacific coastline as seen from this parking lot in La Jolla, California).
When it was my turn to choose a car, I knew I was taking the long-term 2012 Toyota Camry SE if it was still available. It was indeed.
Although I profile myself as a lover of compact hatchbacks, I really like the Camry as a commuter car, and this particular SE model is set up just right for me. The simulated suede/leather driver seat is really comfortable. I like having a factory navigation system (especially since this one costs a little less), and I don't mind using Entune to get traffic data and Pandora integration (when I want it) — it's a bit of a process, yes, but now that I have everything set up on my iPhone, it's easy.
More substantively, the 2.5-liter four-cylinder provides good throttle response in traffic, and for the most part, the six-speed automatic shifts when and how I want it to — I never really think, "hey, I'd like a manual in this car."
Ride quality is comfortable enough over the rain-grooved concrete slabs on the 405 freeway. And while steering feedback isn't so great, the ratio feels right for the car and the steering offers good precision in normal traffic.
Honestly, it's the overall experience that keeps me coming back to Camry. No one of these attributes is particularly special on its own, but they come together in our SE in a way that I really like.
This overall-ness stood out to a lot of us who participated in the recent 2012-'13 Midsize Sedan Comparison Test. No doubt, the Camry's a great package for commuters — trouble is, the Hyundai Sonata offers darn near the same experience and, even when you adjust for equipment, it's cheaper. Of course, that doesn't mean I wouldn't buy the Camry if it was my own money.
That's something I haven't been able to say about a Toyota — any Toyota — in quite some time. But our Camry with its $1,490 leather package inlcudes these "Utlrasuede" covered sport seats.
And they're genuinely nice.
Today I discovered a hidden compartment at the back of the Camry's glovebox. As if to conceal something truly important, it's got two covers. This is cover number one.
And this is cover number two. After fully removing cover number one this hinged affair releases on the right side to reveal...
A cabin air filter. And this one was full of debris so I emptied it.
You never know what you're going to find in the glovebox.
Toyota likes its cars to beep. Perhaps you've noticed. Lock the doors: Beep. Unlock the doors: Beep. Open the trunk with the fob: Beep.
Beep, beep, beep, beep.
It's possible this is annoying. It's also possible it can be partially disabled. Whatever. It's a lot of beeping. Especially if you happen to drive a Sienna, which beeps when you look at it.
Also, Toyotas beep if you put your laptop bag on the passenger seat and drive to work. Used to be they'd beep indefinately. Now, however, they only beep for maybe 30 seconds while flashing the seatbelt light. Then the light goes solid and the beeping stops.
Until you get to work. And lock the doors.
Beep.
I was playing around with the affordability calculator on Edmunds. I put in how much I was willing to pay monthly, how much I could put down up front, how many years I wanted to spread it out, and took a guess at a financing rate. I just wanted to see what it would spit out.
When testing the long-term fleet, we get to drive a lot of cars above our means. You start to lose a sense of reality for pricing, at least I do. Our calculator said I should look for something in the Toyota Camry range. Huh? I'm a professional woman.
Now maybe I put in numbers that were way too low. I didn't put in how much I could afford but how much I was willing to pay. I can't see having an enormous car payment when I don't own a home. But this got me to thinking about how much people put into their cars. Are we all living above our means in the U.S.? Can you really afford that car you're driving?
My colleagues love the seats in our Camry. I like the surfaces, the bolsters and the heater, but the driver seat is too deep for me. The front edge bumps up against the back of my knees and calves, and I feel like a little kid who's been plopped in a chair that's just too big for her.
I'm 5' 4'', which is the average height for U.S. women. My legs are short, however, and I guess that's the problem. It's just a minor discomfort for a half-hour drive, but think it would bother me over a longer trek.
A 2007 Edmunds feature story talked about the difficulties carmakers face in pleasing everybody when it comes to seats:
"Thigh support is the peskiest aspect of cushions. 'If your thighs don't have enough contact with the cushion, you create a pressure point where you're actually sitting on your tailbone, and your weight isn't distributed,' explained [Michael] Sweers [general manager of engineering design for Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America]. 'An hour or two along, you get "tailburn" — a lower backache. Most people associate that with not having enough lumbar support, but it's really the pressure on your tailbone.'
"So seat designers can make cushions longer or wider, or make them electrically movable. But they also have to watch out that the calves of shorter drivers don't come into contact with the longer cushions..."
That's me: a cushion contactee. Probably a misdemeanor in several states.
Here's a realization I had this week: The 2012 Toyota Camry SE might be my second favorite car in our long-term fleet right now.
I'm putting an asterisk next to the Acura NSX, which I really like but don't find practical to drive every day. My No. 1 pick is, wait for it, the Mazda 3. Since I claim to enjoy driving, our 5.0 Ford Mustang and turbo Chevrolet Sonic really should follow in order behind it.
And on some days, they do. The Mustang is fast and sounds fantastic, and the Sonic is, well, like driving a mini GTI.
But both of these cars have a few annoying compromises (bad sightlines and silly instrumentation in the Mustang; dead throttle response in the Sonic to appease the EPA), and this week, I wanted to drive a car that's all about the packaging, all about the total experience. And that's the Camry.
There's nothing to obsess over when you drive this car. The ride is fine; the car feels buttoned down through faster entrance ramps. The cabin is not what I'd call serene, but it stays reasonably quiet. The steering is acceptably accurate, but too electric to offer much feedback. Brake pedal feel is fine. The controls are never confusing.
Seat comfort really is very good (with the optional UltraSuede upholstery), so I always do remember that, probably because I've never liked past Camry seats. And, OK, I fixate a bit on the audio system, because it's pretty weak and makes you want an upgrade even if you're just listening to NPR.
But other than that, I don't do a lot of extraneous thinking in the Camry. I just relax in its comfy seats and focus on driving, with news or the Dodgers in the background. I like my boring life.
As I approached the Camry with an armful of groceries in the Whole Foods parking lot on Saturday, I wondered why the key fob wasn't opening the car's door. Tap, tap, tap. Nothing.
Then I peeked in the window and realized this wasn't our Camry. It was its doppelganger, another dark-colored model.
The same thing happened to me in another parking lot on Sunday. When every other car on the road is a Camry, it's easy to make that mistake, I guess.
Some people shy away from the most popular models because these cars tend to come with greater risk of theft. Also, as my experiences illustrate, they don't exactly stand out from the crowd.
How do you feel about this? Is a vehicle's popularity a factor that you consider when car shopping?
The past few months I've spent a lot of time in the Explorer, the Quest, the Mazda 3 and the Camry. Notably, these are all vehicles that I think car shoppers with families might consider. I can certainly see the appeal of all of them, but if I had to choose just one of them for my personal use (as a parent), I know what I'd be.
Explorer: At first I liked the Explorer, and it does sort of seem like a no-brainer choice at first glance. But the more time I spent with it, the more its appeal waned. It is comfortable on the highway, and MyFord Touch — once we finally get it updated — is a pretty cool feature in my opinion. But I grew weary of its "drives big" persona, occasionally overtaxed turbo-4 engine and tight second-row seat space. No thanks.
Mazda 3: I'll start with the 3's biggest drawback first: it's just a little too small inside. But it's not that bad, and I think I could enjoy owning one, especially if my kids were out of the bulky child safety seat phase but still young enough that rear legroom doesn't really matter much. At that point, 3 is pretty appealing. It's the most nimble in the group and certainly the most enjoyable to drive. The hatchback body style also offers up extra versatility. Plus, the 3 is the cheapest car in this group.
Quest: The Quest, I suppose for obvious reasons, works a lot better for family use than the Explorer. It also doesn't have nearly as many drawbacks. It drives very well thanks to its V6/CVT combo and compliant suspension tuning. And I really like a lot of the features that are on our van, such as the easy-to-use nav/audio interface and push-button open sliding rear doors. The main drawback for me is that, yes, it's still a big minivan ... and an odd-looking one at that.
Toyota Camry SE: Well, this is the car I'd buy. It's still seems odd to say it — a Camry. How prosaic. But the new Camry is so much better than the previous car that I don't mind the stereotype. It drives well in a modestly sized sort of way (especially in comparison to the Quest and Explorer), is very comfortable up front and in back, and has some nice features. Fuel economy is also very good. The big downside within this group is the inability to haul bulky items. But I'd live with that in exchange for all the other benefits. Go Camry.
I took an unplanned trip to Fontana this week, and our LT Camry was my ride. Previously, I've only driven the Camry during slow-speed scenarios, but this foray to Fontana allowed me to drive at real highway speeds. It was during this jaunt that I noticed the Camry's tires' tendency to hunt over the rain-grooved Southern California freeways.
It was like trying to fox trot while your partner insists on waltzing. I wanted to holler, "Will you just let me lead!?"
Any Camry owners having the same experience?
Why is it that I can remove the shift knob of virtually every Toyota, yet I can't on virtually every other car? Just twist it left and off it comes. Is the prevalence of people putting aftermarket shifters on their automatic-equipped Camrys, Corollas and Avalons that great?
Is this some brilliant feature every other brand is missing out on? Let me in on the secret Toyotaphiles.
So there I am driving down the street in this perfectly nice 2012 Toyota Camry SE, the latest expression of the Toyota's most influential automobile. It's been reinvented and everyone loves it.
Except me. No matter how much I drive this car, it still rubs me the wrong way.
Not that anyone should care, really. I feel like just another cranky old guy standing on his porch, waving his cane at the sky as if to warn off invisible alien invaders, and yelling, "Hey, you kids, get off my lawn!"
As soon as you roll down the road a couple hundred feet, you can feel that the Camry is screwed together a little tighter than before. And that's really the whole message of the car. It's meant to have a little stronger personality in the way it looks and the way it drives. It's meant to be a little more like the other cars in its class, like the Honda Accord, Hyundai Sonata and Nissan Altima.
Only I think this is totally the wrong thing to do.
First of all, the Camry's former persona as a silent (even impassive), trouble-free apotheosis of pure transportation has been a good one, even though it might not make your heart beat faster. The Camry has been the perfectly average automobile, only in a good way. It's the automotive idea refined to a kind of perfection.
To abandon such a unique position in the marketplace to become more like other cars seems like a bad idea, and I suspect that it has more to do with whining from automotive journalists than any genuine change in the priorities of the average American driver.
What's worse, the Camry isn't particularly good at being like other cars. In terms of style, it's a total wallflower compared to the Hyundai Sonata and doesn't even set itself apart in a class full of wallflowers like the Honda Accord and Volkswagen Passat. The interior is just as uninspired, combining some nice materials with tawdry bits of shiny plastic in an overall design that has so little cohesion that other car designers look away in embarrassment. Really this interior treatment is no better than the awful plastic sheath of the last Camry.
The new Camry goes down the road all right, and it can even be coaxed into producing some useful performance numbers, both mph and mpg. But it does so without the same standard of quiet and refinement delivered by the last Camry. It's like they didn't even try.
The transmission hunts and surges as gear ratios and lock-up clutches are engaged in the quest for optimum mpg, and the clumsy results are particularly noticeable in commute traffic. (We've seen the same in the BMW 5 Series and Chevy Cruze.) When you put your foot to the floor, the transmission thinks way too long and then has to downshift two gears to get where you need to go (so unlike the quick, intuitive Mazda CX-5 crossover). And when the transmission finally makes a decision, the engine makes the same kind of sounds that you hear from someone whipping some batter down at the Waffle House. Plus the electric-assist steering has just enough stiction that you find the car effectively wandering from side to side in your lane on the freeway as if you were driving a Ford LTD from the 1970s.
Really, the 2012 Toyota Camry isn't a bad car. In fact, there are plenty of people around here who think it's a great car and even the best in its class, as you can read in this Inside Line comparison test.
But to me this car seems like the fourth-place finisher in a Camry lookalike contest. It offers more style, but not more quality. It makes better numbers, but doesn't actually drive better. Whatever this car is trying to do, I think everyone else is doing it better.
Then again, what do you expect from some old guy trying to chase the kids off of his lawn.
During a recent trek in the Camry, my passengers in the second row were intrigued by the rectangular nook shown above.
One passenger thought it made an ideal holder for her sunglasses case. Another thought it provided a great resting place for his burrito. Another thought it could serve as an informal trash receptacle until the end of the trip.
How would you use the nook?
Remember big armrests, the kind both driver and passenger could use? The Cadillac Fleetwood and Lincoln Town Car kind? The Camry has one like it. And I like it simply because it gives me room to set down a notebook and write.
For this job, it's handy to jot down notes after a drive or while filling up. Most modern cars offer no place to set down a pad and scribble, forcing you to balance your intellectual cropdustings on a knee or thigh.
By comparison, the Camry nearly gives you the surface of an oak desk, one that slides forward no less. The stitching's pretty nice, too.
It's interesting how your perspective on a car changes when you've got passengers. Our long-term Camry SE for example, with livelier steering and stiffer suspension than the vanilla Camry, seems a no-brainer for our staff. And I'd never spared a thought for our SE's rigidity until chauffeuring the wife and kid around recently.
This is all relative to one's perception of the Camry, of course. Without thinking, you assume the Camry is a docile, compliant ride around town. The SE isn't exactly track-day ready, but neither is it a cream puff. It cleanly transmits vibration from those speed bumps you're trying to skirt at the local big box parking lot. Push the Camry out of a driveway onto the avenue with conviction and you'll notice the car's stiff rigging while watching your passenger hold steady on the door pull.
The Camry SE compromises as best it can, trying to balance a big cabin, fuel efficiency, benchmark reliability, and Lexus-lite highway manners with crisp and lively handling. Tall order for around $24,000.
The A/C in the Camry is starting to smell a little swampy. Dan says that usually comes from recirc being used too much. The system will start smelling like dirty socks because moisture builds up, etc.
I mentioned to him that I couldn't get recirc to turn off, so perhaps that was the culprit. Dan also said that if the temp was set to Max, the recirc would not turn off.
I didn't think I had it on Max but I went down to our garage to check. And, it turns out I did have it on Max. So, I changed the temp and switched off recirc. Hopefully, the stink will clear up. It may take a little time though.
The "MAINT REQD" light has started flashing at startup in our long-term 2012 Toyota Camry.
This is a mileage-based indicator (rather than one based on an oil life sensor) that prompts you to observe Toyota's recommended, normal-duty 5,000-mile service intervals for the car. There's evidently an early warning feature built in, as we last reset the light at 4,888 miles after the car's first mini service — and we're still a good 300 miles away from putting on another 5,000. (I suppose the light will start staying on all the time as we get closer to the threshold. Had I waited for that, I would have been able to take a sharper photo.)
Although we won't be going as many miles between oil changes as we have with various (hapless) BMWs that have passed through the fleet, 10,000 miles between oil changes is still a pretty good deal... at least, for the first two years (or 25,000 miles) when the Camry is covered by Toyota's complimentary maintenance plan.
After that, cheapskate Camry owners (like my future self?) will be scouring the big-box stores for deals on the 0W20 synthetic that enables that long interval.
We'll fill you on any details about our 10K service visit after we have it done.
I had some time yesterday afternoon, so I decided to drop our long-term 2012 Toyota Camry SE off at the dealership. Actually, I called the dealer (Santa Monica Toyota) first, around 12:30 p.m., to see if it was feasible to have our car's oil changed and tires rotated by 5 p.m.
After I was on hold for a minute or two, a service advisor picked up and said they could "probably" have the car done by 5.
"So how likely is it that it will be done by 5?" I asked. "I have tickets to the Dodger game tonight." (I did in fact have tickets.)
"Likely," he said, "but we can't guarantee it."
I decided to go ahead with it, because I had the time, and a back-up car was available if the Camry wasn't ready to go at 5.
When I arrived, I stood in the driveway for a minute or two, until a service advisor came out to help me. He was friendly and quickly understood that the "MAINT REQD" light was flashing at startup and that I wanted a 10,000-mile service, which per the owner's manual includes an oil change, tire rotation and various inspections (including a driver's floor mat inspection).
I asked, "Will this all be covered by the Toyota Care complimentary maintenance plan?"
"Yes," was his answer. He then said he could have the car finished by 5 p.m.
I had signed up for the Sienna shuttle to get a ride back to work when I arrived, and the driver came up to me and advised me to wait by the van when I was ready. I did and he came right over and drove me two miles back to the office. It was a very efficient drop-off experience.
At 4:15, our service advisor called to say the Camry was ready. I arrived about 15 minutes later and he had the paperwork ready for me. I waited 5 minutes for a porter to bring the car around and I was on my way. Very easy. This was apparently a good time to go to this dealer, as they weren't very busy on a Tuesday afternoon. I'd go back here with a personal car.
The one notable thing about the service receipt is the amount we would have paid if the 2-year/25,000-mile Toyota Care plan wasn't active — $92.35. Seeing that, I realize that the $89.95 estimate I got for basically the same services on our departed 2011 Mazda 2 wasn't as out of line as I'd thought. Here it seems to be a combination of the relatively high price per quart of 0W20 ($7.99), plus a hefty labor rate, that drives the cost up. (On the Mazda 2, the price on 0W20 was apparently $9.54/quart.)
Earlier this week, on Tuesday, my commitment to the Los Angeles Dodgers was seriously tested, and I happened to be driving our long-term 2012 Toyota Camry SE.
The test had nothing to do with the final score, as some key calls by the umpires and clutch hits by Ethier and Rivera resulted in a 5-2 Dodger victory. Instead, it had everything to do with the horrific traffic going to the stadium... starting on the 110 freeway, continuing on the surface streets. After we entered the parking lot and paid our $10, there was another 15-20 minutes of traffic — in the parking lot — before we could park the car and hike back to the other side of the stadium to get to our seats. Door to door, my travel time was 3 hours, 20 minutes. Total distance? 20 miles. Never again will I go to a weeknight game when there's a (Mike Scioscia) bobblehead giveaway.
On the upside, I couldn't have picked a much better car for the occasion. As my blood pressure soared, the Camry remained calm, relaxed and at ease with the world. The driver seat never got uncomfortable. When All Things Considered ended, we switched to the Dodger pregame show, and then, sadly, to the radio broadcast of the game itself.
And I decided that I really like the navigation system in our Camry. At times, it's a little slow to respond to human touch, as Brent wrote, but for the money ($1,050 and part of the Display Audio package), it offers a lot of functionality that I like.
Before I went to the stadium, I needed to pick up my friend who'd left his car in Chinatown (didn't want to pay double for parking), and the aforementioned traffic necessitated a lot of rerouting. Some of the streets were unfamiliar to me, so I really appreciated the nav system's little graphic with arrows to show you which lanes are OK to be in for the current route (and grays out/shrinks the ones that aren't).
You'll notice in the above photo that I only had 0.7 mile to go to the pick-up point. Unfortunately, it took about 30-45 minutes to cover that distance. During that time, I noticed that nav software animates the checkered flag that marks your destination as if it's being waved by an omniscent track worker. It's a small touch that both cheered and depressed me, and during one particularly long red light cycle, I directed a short video shoot.
Here's the traffic going up the hill to Chavez Ravine. I'll never give up on the Dodgers, but man, it is not easy to be a fan of this team if you actually want to go to some games.
Both Erin and Scott have singled out the Camry for its excellent seats and now it's my turn to jump on the bandwagon. After a two-hour stint behind the wheel yesterday I agree that these buckets offer excellent support and plenty of adjustability. They don't look half bad either, and in a Camry that's saying quite a bit.
I also noted that after nearly 10,000 miles, the interior still looks brand new. Not a big deal really, after all it's only been six months. Still, there are lots of shiny bits and stitched seams that I expect to show some wear eventually, so far they're holding up well.
It took seven months for our longterm 2012 Toyota Camry SE to crest 10,000 miles. So far, so good. For me this car has been a pleasant surprise, what with its do-everything-very-well demeanor. And look - a metric fuel gauge. Base 10 increments. Yeah, I'm a geek.
Is there anything we've not adequately covered on this midsizer that you'd like to know about? Add a comment below.
I have, I admit it. No amount of pharmaceutical is going to help. These days, I'm easily impressed with things like keyless access and the "smart key" feature on our Camry. Approach the car, thumb the door handle and voila - access. It's like practicing to be a Jedi. Such a simple, lazy feature and one that, once accustomed to it, you start looking for it on every car.
You find yourself getting indignant. Why doesn't this $15,000 Hyundai Accent have it? Why not this $11,000 Nissan Versa sedan?
But keyless entry's getting harder to miss these days, especially in the Camry's class. It's
standard
included with the Convenience package on our SE. Standard across the new Altima range. Standard across most Kia Optimi. Standard on the Acura ILX but, oddly, not the Accord. With the Accord redesign around the corner, we figure this is a short-lived oversight.
Eventually, I will require that the car bring itself around to my door, extend the driver seat out on a rail, and convey me into its quiet cocoon. It's happening. In 2012, they'll unlock the door for you, but some won't let you do a burnout. That's how it starts. Rise of the machines and all that. See you on the human farm.
Though I drove our Camry to a friend's birthday party on Saturday night, my wife drove home because I was, um, tired. Yes, let's go with that, tired.
"This steering isn't responsive at all!" she said mere seconds after pulling away. "Look at this."
She sawed back and forth on the wheel, demonstrating the yaw delay.
"And this is the sport model," I offered, rather amused.
"Yeah and I don't want to drive the regular model."
Yep, the wife just got hotter. True, she's really only driven Mazda 3s and Mini Coopers over the past seven years, but count her thoroughly unimpressed by the Toyota Camry — even the sport model. Bodes well for the future.
One of the cars pictured needed a jump. Was it: A) the nearly brand-new Toyota Camry; or B) the 1999 Volkswagen Passat, a car whose reliability history on Consumer Reports looks like a Dalmatian's coat. Hmm. Even the dimwits on Jay Leno's Tonight Show street interviews could get this one.
The long-term Inside Line Camry: graciously coming to the aid of my neighbors, one car at a time.
Unassuming, But Still Well Liked
We've got some pretty cool cars in the fleet right now. FR-S, JGC SRT8, NSX, XF ... but our Toyota Camry SE is still one of my favorites.
Yeah, I know. Lame, right? But it's a lot like Erin wrote a couple of months ago in her Greater Than The Sum post. The Camry doesn't knock you on the head with anything dramatic, but it's supremely competent and easy to to live with. Sometimes I like getting in and just driving, not having to worry about scraping on speed bumps or how I'm going to fit a child safety seat.
Yes, our Camry is boring, applicance-like transportation. But it's really good at that. And it's not too boring, like the Camry used to be.
Over the weekend I did another road trip with our Camry. It was pretty much the same route I did back in April when I compared the Camry to the Explorer, though this time round-trip. As I expected, the Camry was an appealing companion. A few thoughts on why follow.
Composed and quiet ride. The Camry's not the quietest sedan out there, but it's still pretty good. My wife and I could talk easily. Our kids slept in the backseat. Oh, and at one point, I had to perform some unexpected maneuvering due to a tire blowout from a semi-truck ahead of us. The Camry's not the sportiest out there, but the SE is composed enough, and certainly preferable (in this situation) to some of the other family haulers in our fleet, such as the Explorer.
Comfortable front seats. We've covered these before in various blog posts, but I'll still call it out. I could drive the Camry all day and still be comfortable.
Plenty of storage space. The cupholders are nicely sized, as are the door bins and center console bin. We never had a problem trying to find a place to put something.
Decent power and responsive transmission. Sure, it's just a four-cylinder, but I wasn't ever left wanting for power. Having the responsive transmission certainly helps, as it did driving over the I5's 4,000-foot Tejon Pass. (I haven't calculated fuel economy for the trip, but will do that later this week.)
The only things that I found to be negative were the dim-witted touchscreen interface and trunk space. Trunk space is certainly adequate, but because of the bracing at the front of the trunk (behind the rear seats) and the gooseneck trunklid hinges, it's not as optimized as I'd prefer.
Looking this over, it reaffirms to me what I summed up back in April. The Camry doesn't really excel in any particular area, but it doesn't drop below a B anywhere, either. And for me, that's pretty impressive.
Trip Mileage
For the 650-mile trip I wrote about earlier this week, I averaged 32 mpg. Considering that it was mostly highway driving (70 mph-plus speeds, A/C on) but with some city driving mixed in, I'm pretty happy with that. For reference, EPA estimates are 25 city, 35 highway and 28 mpg combined.
In terms of sales, anyway. Here are
10
11 midsize sedans ranked in terms of sales through the first half of 2012.
Toyota Camry: 213,903
Nissan Altima: 157,101
Honda Accord: 155,178
Chevrolet Malibu: 141,437
Ford Fusion: 136,849
Hyundai Sonata: 117,412
Kia Optima: 73,158
Chrysler 200: 69,102
Volkswagen Passat: 55,065
Mazda 6: 25,369
Subaru Legacy: 24,272
It's also interesting to combine the Sonata and Optima given that they're related.
For the Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT8, that is. What and why?
Rev-match downshifting. It's got to be completely embarrassing for the SRT boys that the boring old family sedan Camry blips the throttle on manual downshifts with the steering wheel paddles or center console lever, while the driver-focused Jeep can't.
Hey, I'm not saying the Camry always perfectly matches revs like the Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG Black Series (which stirs your soul, every time. No, seriously, it's addictive). But at least the Camry is making an effort. The Jeep SRT8? It's not even trying.
Thoughts On Entune
I played around with Entune a little when I was driving our Camry last month. Since I had never used it before, I started with Erin's setup post as a guide. After reading it, I was able to get Entune working without too much trouble.
And yeah, just like Toyota promotes, you can listen to Pandora and iHeartRadio, see traffic information, find movie and theaters, search for POI in conjuction with Bing, use OpenTable for restaurants and access other information, such as fuel prices and weather.
But for the most part, I was left with a feeling of ambivalence. I did see some value in Pandora and iHeart (though you're still paying for data useage on your phone). But for everything else I just wondered why I wouldn't just use my smart phone instead to get information. That way, I'm using the apps that I want to use rather than what Toyota gives me.
Caller ID told me it was Vehicle Coordinator Rex Tokeshi-Torres ringing my desk phone even before I picked up.
"Can you check the box for a spare key for our long-term Mazda 3?" he asked.
I checked, and there wasn't one. But it's not unusual for us not to hold the spare to a car that's owned by the manufacturer. Often times they retain the primary spare in case we, uh, temporarily misplace our key.
Turns out, Erin Riches was stranded in Hollywood with the Mazda 3, sans key. (I'll let her tell you her story in a separate post).
So not wanting Erin to wait on the curb of Sunset Blvd. while we recovered another Mazda key from 45 miles south in Orange County, I grabbed the keys to the Toyota Camry, and drove the 7.5 miles to collect her.
Traffic was bad going across town, and Erin was a bit over-caffeinated by the time I reached her 35 minutes later. But at least she hadn't yet bought any I Heart Hollywood t-shirts or donned a Wonder Woman costume.
I dropped her off at home, and picked her up this morning before heading into the office to sort out the Mazda 3 biz.
Kinda nice having a carpool buddy for an otherwise mundane Camry commute.
I thought some of the Camry's interior touches would lose their luster after seeing them for months on end. I figured the metallic accents would get dull and scratched while the contrasting stitching would just get dirty and unnoticeable.
I was wrong, at least so far. We're over 12,000 miles into this car and the interior still looks pretty sharp. I would expect most cars to look good after less than a year on the road, but sometimes the things that look most attractive initially are the first things that become noticeably worn.
"Is this a rental?" asked one of the girls as she climbed in for the morning carpool to school.
"No, it's not a rental," I said. "What makes you think that?"
"It has cloth seats," she said. "I didn't think you could get those anymore except in rental cars."
"At least it doesn't smell funny," she added, before I could respond.
I just turned up the stereo and drove.
Cleaning out the garage this weekend resulted in an impromptu run to the local Goodwill.
How big is our Toyota Camry's trunk, you ask? Here are a few Camry/Honda Accord numbers for easy comparison:
2012 Toyota Camry (redesigned model): 15.4 cubic feet
2012 Honda Accord (current model): 14.7 cubic feet
2013 Honda Accord (redesigned model, on sale in Sept): 15.8 cubic feet
The Accord, once behind the Camry, is now the cargo winner.
Yesterday I realized that a six-foot long cardboard box meant I needed to utilize the Camry's fold down rear seat. The seat is split 60/40, and the smaller side alone would have provided more than enough room for this task, but what fun is that. I went all the way. Whole hog as they say in the bbq trade.
And why not? Folding the Camry's rear seat from the trunk could not be easier. Just pull the two clearly marked knobs and push the seatback forward with the cargo.
We've gone on and on about the immensely satisfying charms offered by the seats found in our Camry (shown above). Of course, our Camry is an SE model, which means it's equipped with upgraded sport seats.
We had a Camry from one of the lesser trims (the LE) in our garage the other day, and I was curious to see how its seats compare with the lauded, legendary seats found in our SE.
As you can see, the accommodations in the LE are reminiscent of the seating you'd find on a JetBlue flight to Cedar Rapids. They're comfortable enough, but ultimately, they're a lot less sexy than the chairs found in our SE. Less supportive bolsters and a far less appealing fabric combination.
Any Camry owners out there? Did you spring for the SE, and if so, were the sport seats a factor in your decision?
Yesterday we finally put our 2012 Toyota Camry SE up on our 2-post Rotary Lift and photographed its underside. Enjoy.
A couple of our readers (you, perhaps?) candidly told us that we should have used our long-term 2012 Toyota Camry SE ($28,658) in our recent Honda Accord vs. Toyota Camry comparison test. You argued that it would have provided much stiffer competition for the 2013 Accord EX ($26,195) despite the slightly larger price gap it would have created. The Camry LE we actually used in that comparison test cost $23,925.
Well, I drove our long-term Camry SE home last night. It's a great commuter car, one of the best in this class right now. But I'm not sure it would have beaten the 2013 Accord EX. Why not? For three reasons...
1. The six-speed automatic in the Camry is good — prompt with the downshifts, and smooth and refined even under duress. But if you can get past any prejudice against CVTs, the continuously variable transmission in the four-cylinder 2013 Accord is better — it's quicker to find a lower gear ratio when you jam on the gas pedal. And it's so stealth in swapping to a taller ratio when you lift that a lot of passengers assumed it was a normal automatic.
2. The electric power steering in the Camry, even our SE, is so-so. It's fine for everyday maneuvering but it can't match the Accord's EPS for feel or precision.
3. The Camry's cabin isn't as nice. Yes, the front seats are great. And yes, there's plenty of functionality, save for the Entune-related silliness. But the plastics and vinyls aren't quite as high-quality as the Accord's, and the design isn't particularly tidy or handsome — the Honda's cabin is both and it feels more upscale.
I'm on record here as not liking the randomness of our long-term Toyota Camry SE's interior materials — way too much going on with all the different surface treatments in here.
But over the weekend, I decided that I like the simulated brushed metal on our long-termer's center console. It doesn't look that much like real metal, but it doesn't look bad and it doesn't look cheap. It just looks nice, and apparently, it's a perk of the SE model, as the Camry LE that was part of our recent Camry-versus-Accord comparison test had different trim. There's a photo Scott Jacobs took of the LE's console after the jump so you can see what I mean.
Also, over the weekend, I determined that I am fine with the ride quality on our Camry SE and, as a fussy commuter, wouldn't be tempted to buy an LE or a Camry Hybrid to get a cushier ride. I made my assessment while in traffic headed to the USC/Cal game — the SE is compliant enough most of the time and any extra stiffness over impacts is balanced out by this version's sharper responses when changing direction. Alas, I don't have any photos of the Camry in Trojan livery, as we parked far from the Coliseum on a street that wasn't very atmospheric and hoofed it to a tailgate party. Actually, though, with its inky blue paint job, this particular Camry is more suited to Golden Bear fandom.
This odd, muli-function, multi-button contraption is supposed to adjust volume, track, mode and other basic systems on our 2012 Toyota Camry SE.
From Saturday morning until early Monday morning it did not. It just didn't work. I could still control the volume and track the old fashioned way — by reaching.
For no good reason it started working again on my way into the office this morning. Fixed forever? I think so.
Methinks Magrath was being optimistic when he decided our Toyota Camry steering wheel control buttons had fixed themselves.
I drove the Camry last night and this morning, and they were wonky nearly every time I restarted the car. Not the same level of wonky mind you, just intermittent enough to keep you guessing.
First, they didn't work at all. After I stopped at the post office and restarted the car, the volume button starting working, but only after I jabbed it several times. I stopped at the store 15 minutes later and restarted the car again. This time all buttons worked right away, and remained fully operational for the rest of my 90-minute drive.
We're planning to send the Toyota to service, but not until we get at least one more opinion — going for the full fail, maybe. Engineering Editor Jay Kavanagh's driving it tonight. We'll see how it works for him.
Allegedly the tiny aerodynamic strakes that are sprinkled around the 2012 Toyota Prius C and 2012 Toyota Camry in four places make a difference in straight stability and small-angle yaw behavior at speeds over 25 mph. I've been told it's a difference that can be felt in a double-blind back-to-back handling evaluation.
My knowledge of Toyota internal politics suggests the effect must be demonstrable for them to have spent the money. In both cases the claim is one of improved on-center handling and stability, not fuel economy. Now that I think about it, I saw some on our 2013 Scion FR-S during the suspension walkaround shoot, too.
I used to tune suspensions for a living, and straight stability and inital yaw response and feel was a huge part of that. I understand the power of aerodynamics, too, but I'm having a hard time buying into all of this.
But where are these little nubs? Well, each rear taillamp sports a pair, as seen above.
And each mirror housing has one.
Another pair is molded into the plastic belly pan just behind the front bumper, and two more are found under the car at the back, just forward or the rear license plate. I don't have Prius C pictures, but you can see them in the 2013 Scion FR-S underbody shots. It's a bit of a Where's Waldo hunt, but you'll find them if you keep at it. Hint: The rear ones on the Scion sit outboard of the exhaust tips.
Tell you what: let me get my hands on some of the leftover development test parts that don't have these vortex generators so I can swap them out and see for myself. Surely they existed at some point. I bet they're still sitting on some shelf at the proving grounds. You apparently proved it to yourself; prove it to me, I say.
As it turns out we happen to have three examples of cars with this feature to choose from: The 2102 Toyota Prius C, the 2012 Toyota Camry, and the 2013 Scion FR-S. You pick. Let me know and I'll send you my shipping address. If that doesn't work for you I'm more than happy to bring one of them to your test track with my blindfold at the ready.
A week or so ago, I complained about the Lexus GS350's cruise control stalk. I called it dumb or stupid or something else unflattering. Many of you got on me about it, calling the Toyota/Lexus stalk a stroke of genius. And you were right.
I don't know if it's the best solution out there, but after driving our Camry a couple hundred miles, I admit, it's damn handy. As an experiment, I set cruise on the way home from the office and tried to use the brake and throttle as little as possible. Combined with the Camry's paddle shifters, it was amazingly easy to maintain a fairly constant speed without braking, nursing the throttle or even accelerating via the cruise stalk.
It's easy to get a fluid dance going with the stalk and paddles. When closing in on the car ahead, push the stalk forward to cancel cruise, maybe downshift for some engine braking, open the gap a bit, then set a slower speed. If there's room to pass, grab a paddle to downshift, make the pass, then ease back into the slower lane.
There's a slickness to the stalk that you don't get with thumb-oriented steering wheel controls, and I further refined the technique on a round-trip to San Diego over the weekend. Not quite heel-and-toe, but fun enough for long drives.
There really is no accounting for popular taste. How else does one explain Maroon 5? Or Crocs? Or Gangnam Style? Sometimes a lot of people simply like bad things. Conversely, sometimes a lot of people know a good thing when they see it. Porsche 911s. Bob Marley. Beer.
So how does one explain the Toyota Camry? More than 300,000 people bought the car last year. It's the midsize sedan gorilla, even with formidable foes like the Altima, Accord and Sonata. Here's how I explain it:
The Camry does just about everything right.
Our SE, for example. You walk up to it, grab the door handle, and it unlocks. I'm a simple knuckle-dragger, so things like remote access and push-button start delight me. But then you sit down and realize you have a lot of space. A big center console and all the requisite gadget connections you expect in 2012. Power front seats.
A big rear seat area, even a suede/leather upholstery package. That package is looking a little shabbier these days as we approach 15,000 miles. Our kids spill cracker crumbs and vanilla cream (at least I think that's what it is) and our dogs climb around back there finding a comfortable spot. The door panel and console plastic is getting scuffed. Readers regular chide us for being hard on our cars, but remember that for every year you put on your family sedan, we probably put on three.
The four-cylinder's good. Nothing to rave about, but nothing to disparage. It jumps off the line quick enough and gets a little raspy when wide open. The V6 is the call for those who want more motor, but many won't want or need it.
What's more about the Camry, it feels like it wants to be used. It's not precious. Toyota dressed it up a bit for the redesign; Hyundai forced everyone to step up their interior game. But otherwise, you don't feel bad using the Camry. Door panels get kicked, armrests get scratched on the point edge of a flat-screen TV box. The Camry feels comfortable. You take care of it, sure. But you don't obsess.
We may all know people whose homes just feel welcoming. The furniture's a little banged up. Maybe the oak table suffered a few pumpkin carving mishaps over the years. But the kids are happy and there's room to play tag without knocking over a vase from the Ming Dynasty. Life happens there. It's not a place whose owners treat it like a hotel lobby, a place you're afraid to set down even a cocktail napkin.
Enthusiasts will always trot out the Camry as emblematic of defeat. Suburban dad, ground into submission. The car that says you no longer seek thrills behind the wheel, you no longer wish to connect with a machine. The Camry says you didn't want to think too hard, and would you please just leave me alone so I can watch network TV."
I'm not buying it. I mean, I'm literally not buying a Camry (I'm soft-pedaling around a minivan purchase, so I've got my own problems). But I wouldn't blame anyone who does and I'm not buying the enthusiast argument. The Camry's a great car. The new Ford Fusion may give it a serious run for the money. It's equally adept at everything, but offers an even sexier interior and an optional buttercream turbo 2.0-liter under the hood.
As for the Camry, I'm probably telling you nothing you didn't already know. Go ahead: tell me why it sucks.
Toyota today announced the global recall of 7.4 million vehicles, including 2.7 million cars in the U.S. The majority of the recalls in this country involve Camry and Camry Hybrid models from 2007 to 2009, so our 2012 Camry is not subject to the recall. That's a relief.
Toyota says that owners will be notified by mail and that it will take about an hour to fix the "notchy" power window master switch, which can pose a fire hazard.
Every week, carmakers proactively recall cars for defects large and small (often nudged or shoved by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Office of Defect Investigations). But as our writer John O’Dell reported recently, owners frequently ignore recall notices and cars with potentially deadly defects get passed along to often-unsuspecting buyers.
What's your stance on recalls? Do you hop on notices ASAP? Or do you let some things slide?
Our long-term Camry SE has been busy driving from Los Angeles to San Francisco and back twice in just two weeks. In fact, it's northbound on Interstate 5 right now.
And then, just yesterday, this happened. The Camry is on a 5,000-mile maintenance schedule, and it has begun to ask for its third oil change by displaying this MAINT REQD light on its instrument cluster.
We'll get the service done next week back in L.A. and report to you how it all transpired.
Yesterday on Interstate 5, halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, our long-term Camry SE broke 15,000 miles on its odometer.
Aside from the steering wheel mounted audio controls, which are only working some of the time, there are no problems to report at this time. And that MAINT REQD light is calling for the Camry's third oil change. It should get done next week.
Our long-term Camry has been busy running back and forth between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Yes, that's the Golden Gate bridge back there.
During the trip the Toyota proved once again that this is the best Camry since the mid-1990s. And it's a great road tripper. Comfortable. Quiet. And economical. But also interesting to drive. For a few generations, Camry's have been so boring you couldn't remember driving the sedan ten minutes after climbing from its driver's seat. Not anymore. Our Camry SE hs plenty of personality.
Our only issue during the drives were the occational miscue by its navigation system, which suggested a few questionable detours. After following the first two, we smartened up and ignored the rest.
(Photo by Erin Riches)
This morning we dropped our 2012 Toyota Camry off at the dealer. On the agenda was a routine 15,000-mile service and a fix for those semi-operational steering wheel buttons.
Toyota Care pays for the oil change. And we fully expect Toyota will also cover the steering wheel controls. Our fingers are crossed that it doesn't return with a "could not duplicate" excuse. More to come.
(Photo by Mike Magrath)
Our 2012 Toyota Camry returned from its 15,000-mile service yesterday. As expected, the oil change was covered under Toyota's complimentary maintenance program. What we didn't expect was such a quick resolution to our steering wheel button problem...
According to our advisor, the tech was able to get the buttons to fail. He said, "We've found that sometimes the audio systems in the new Camrys can be buggy. We reset the audio system and that seemed to fix the problem."
Our advisor added, "Also, remember that in order to use the audio controls while the car is in motion you need to hold down the 'mode' button. You don't need to do that when it is stopped, just when you're moving."
This last tidbit was news to me. It just doesn't make any sense. Look at the picture. What sort of hand pretzel is required to make that work? I think wires were crossed somewhere between somebody's mouth and his ears. Still, we didn't encounter the problem on the way back from the dealership. So, for now, it is fixed.
Election Day always brings out the patriot in me. Exercising a basic component of democracy is important, whatever your political leanings may be. How did I celebrate? I drove to work in our long-term Camry, which just happens to be one of the most American cars on the market.
With about 80% of its parts made in the U.S. and assembled in Kentucky and Indiana, the Camry helps to keep Americans hard at work. To be perfectly honest, yeah, it feels a little weird to have a Toyota grab this honor. A Ford Mustang would certainly seem more appropriate, especially if I could do a burnout in front of my polling place, but alas, only about 70% of its parts are domestic.
Other than an LS7 exhaust or the occasional "War Pigs" at top volume with the windows down, I don't like cars to announce my arrival. I especially don't like auto dome lights that illuminate when I turn off the engine. I don't need the guy standing outside my car with shaved head, Warren Sapp jersey and Colt .45 tall boy — my neighbor's buddy, he says — seeing where I put my fat cash stacks before exiting the car. The guy wouldn't be so bad, actually, if he just wore #32 like a proper Raiders fan.
I also don't like horns that sound when I remote lock the car. They annoy me and I believe they annoy others, a wimpy horn especially. The Camry has a wimpy horn. But it also allows you to set the sounding volume when you remote lock the car. I RTFM, which told me to then RTF(Navigation)M, to learn how to access the settings menu. If you don't have the nav system, the dealer can customize the horn volume for you. But with the nav, you just dive down a few menus and lower the volume completely. Success. Only the ambers flash to confirm you've locked the car when walking away.
Next task: kill the auto dome light.
Although it's not made of hard plastic, the dashboard on our Camry SE looks like it is. Of course, this is an extreme example facing the sun, but the way it is reflected on the windshield is a constant irritant for me. This is why 99.9% of dashboards are dull, black, and often rubbery.
Currently, I'm recuperating from a turkey overdose at the girlfriend's parent's house where we are discussing their next car.
They drive so infrequently that fuel mileage is irrelevant, but they drive enough to want something nice. They keep asking about a 2012 Toyota Camry SE, like our long termer (they test drove one and liked the seats) and, while I like it, I 'm trying to suggest alternatives. Just to stir the pot.
But they've got some rules...
-Nothing American. I've tried to sell them on the Fusion but it's not happening. Their current car is 8 years old, American and failing. Their last domestic died at around the same time and they're over it.
-Sedan or small crossover. Nothing with two doors, no hatchbacks, no three-row monsters.
-Under $30K.
Again, I like our Camry and it's a darned fine pick, but it's also taking the easy road. There's a nice Accord out for 2013. The Altima's good. Rav-4 and CR-V, too. And then there are all of the Korean cars!
The Camry 's got a lot of traction here because of the brand equity and every other suggestion is fighting an uphill battle.
What would you do?
Our long-term Toyota Camry SE has a new owner and like the recently departed Acura NSX, it is going to an Edmunds.com employee. Marvin is an Edmunds sales representative in the greater Chicago area. He was looking for a comfortable and reliable commuter car for work. The Camry definitely fits the bill.
Marvin was in town for a company meeting and had the chance to inspect the car himself before making a final decision. The Camry met his expectations and we closed the deal after a short test drive. The "no haggle" selling price was our private party TMV of $21,546.
For reference, we paid $26,397 (plus tax and title), which means the Camry depreciated about 18 percent in the year we had it. That's low depreciation for one year and is a testament to its resale value.
Unfortunately, the Camry never made it to the 20,000 mile goal we set for our long term cars. Its final odometer was 17,201.
Marvin crunched the numbers and found that it would be less expensive to ship the car back, rather than drive it to Chicago. He will make arrangements with a delivery service in the next few days.
We wish Marvin well and bid farewell to our long-term Camry.
Final Odometer: 17,201 miles
Wrap-Up
What We Got
We had a ballpark figure of $25,000 in our head prior to shopping for our long-term 2012 Toyota Camry. The base L model was $22,000 while the midrange LE was just $500 more. For $23,000 there was the sporty SE trim so we weighed our wants and needs to see which trim made the most sense.
The Camry's 2.5-liter, 178-horsepower, four-cylinder engine impressed us with its performance and since it was also likely to be the volume seller, the inline-4 was a must-have. Like all Camrys, it utilizes a six-speed automatic transmission. Favorable impressions of the firmer suspension offered only in the SE model made the decision a little clearer.
Standard equipment on the Camry SE was plentiful. Included were 17-inch wheels, the aforementioned sport-tuned suspension, sport-tuned electronic power steering, SofTex seats and a moderate list of technological offerings.
Still within our budget, we added on the Display Audio with Navigation and Entune package ($1,050) and a Convenience package for $1,195. When we located a car with those options we also found it had extras like the Leather package ($1,490), a sunroof ($915), carpeted floor mats ($130), a rear bumper appliqué ($69) and a cargo net ($49). We decided to take a chance on this car, despite the price.
Our disciplined team of buyers talked the dealer down $2,200 from sticker. The result was a nicely optioned Camry SE that we drove away for $26,397. It was slightly more than we wanted to pay, but we thought it made for a solid midsize sedan with interesting features. Here's what we found.
Our Impressions
"At $23,760, our 2012 Camry SE is money well spent. I wouldn't have made this claim about the last Camry. It was a nice car and a reliable way to get from Point A to B. It just didn't feel like a deal. The interior wasn't this nice, the ride wasn't this composed and if memory serves me, it wasn't this quiet on the road." — Mike Magrath
"It is strong for a naturally aspirated four-cylinder. Revs hard. But for some reason (perhaps our California PZEV car?) was 0.5 second slower to 60 mph than the last four-cylinder Camry we tested.... This is a Camry? Seriously, it's not that bad at all. Steering has some feel, even if the effort is a bit artificially heavy. Suspension has good damping and it corners pretty flat." — Mike Monticello
"Seriously, Toyota has the most legible buttons on the market, and that's a good thing. The buttons are so big, I'm pretty sure I could operate them with an oven mitt on. Maybe it's not the most attractive center stack out there, but in this regard, I would choose function over form any day." — Mark Takahashi
"You're going to have to trust me on this one. This generation Toyota Camry has awesome headlights.... in high-beam mode both the reach and coverage are better than virtually any car I've driven recently — and far better than anything else with this kind of price tag. Here's the best part: All of that light comes from a standard Halogen 55-watt H11 bulb that can be found on eBay for about $20 per set." — Josh Jacquot
"The Toyota Camry is no longer terrible.... In short, I will not be feeling depressed every time I get our Camry SE for nights as I was with our last-generation Camry long-termer or any other time I had the misfortune of driving that, um, let's be nice, automobile." — James Riswick
"I'm 5 feet 11 inches, 185 pounds and I love everything about this seat. Its shape. Its size. Its placement. And its adjustability. I like the density of its padding, the feel of its upholstery and really like the way it looks with the contrast of its white stitching and its suedelike inserts. Toyota is getting its game on." — Scott Oldham
"There are only a couple of things that I don't like about our Camry. The touchscreen is one of them. Mainly, I get annoyed with its lack of sensitivity to touch. It reminds me of our Explorer's touchscreen in the way that I'll touch a virtual button, but occasionally nothing will happen. Then I have to touch it again, still wondering if it will take for the next touch. I find it distracting because it just takes that much more concentration away from driving." — Brent Romans
"Erin detailed the steps necessary for pairing an iPhone with our Camry SE's Entune system and noted the device needs to be connected via a USB cable. I recently tested a 2012 XLE model with the $1,550 Premium HDD Navigation system and found it much easier to get Entune up and running. But after using Entune for a few days I really didn't see the point. Most of these apps are available for a smartphone anyway and, except for Pandora and iHeart Radio, you can't use them while the car is in motion." — Doug Newcomb
"My point is that a midsize affordable four-door no longer needs to be unattractive, which our 2012 Camry undeniable is. Toyota can't seem to figure that out. Although our Camry's dark color hides much of its homeliness, anybody that finds its shape appealing needs a new set of bifocals." — Scott Oldham
"Methinks Magrath was being optimistic when he decided our Toyota Camry steering wheel control buttons fixed themselves. I drove the Camry last night and this morning, and they were wonky nearly every time I restarted the car. Not the same level of wonky, mind you, just intermittent enough to keep you guessing." — Kelly Toepke
Maintenance & Repairs
Regular Maintenance:
Toyota recommended routine service for the Camry at 5,000-mile intervals. So at 5,000, 10,000 and 15,000 miles we saw Toyota of Santa Monica. Fresh oil and filters cost us nothing out of pocket courtesy of the Toyota Care free maintenance program.
Service Campaigns:
A problem surfaced just days before the odometer clicked 15,000. And it was the only such issue we had during our test. The steering wheel controls stopped working, which required the dealer to reboot the audio system. That seemed to fix things, because all buttons worked fine for the remainder of its stay.
Fuel Economy and Resale Value
Observed Fuel Economy:
EPA estimates rate the 2012 Toyota Camry SE at 25 mpg city and 35 mpg highway. These average out to a combined 28 mpg. After 17,000 miles we averaged just 26 mpg. Our best and worst tanks of gas achieved 36 mpg and 16 mpg, respectively. The Camry proved itself capable of EPA fuel economy claims, but over the long haul it was just a little short of expectations.
Resale and Depreciation:
One year ago we found a reasonably equipped Toyota Camry SE with a sticker price of $28,658, then we managed to talk the salesperson down to $26,397. At the time of sale, Edmunds' TMV® Calculator valued our Camry at $21,456. This figure was based on a private-party sale and reflected 19 percent depreciation in value from our purchase price.
We only had to look as far as our own employee roster to find a buyer. He happened to be in town for a company meeting and in the market for a Camry. After a short test-drive the car was sold, loaded and shipped to its new home in Chicago.
Summing Up
Pros: Excellent seats, easy-to-use controls, strong performance from the four-cylinder engine, can hit EPA mileage numbers with careful driving habits, good balance of comfort and road feel from sport suspension, solid resale value.
Cons: We averaged 26 mpg over 17,000 miles, slightly below EPA estimates; Entune application interface is not particularly useful.
Bottom Line: In SE trim, the latest Camry provides solid performance without sacrificing mileage or comfort. Add to that a spacious and user-friendly interior and it's easy to see why the 2012 Toyota Camry is still one of the best-selling sedans in the class.
| Total Body Repair Costs: | None |
| Total Routine Maintenance Costs: | None (over 12 months) |
| Additional Maintenance Costs: | None |
| Warranty Repairs: | Reinitialize audio system to correct steering wheel button malfunction |
| Non-Warranty Repairs: | None |
| Scheduled Dealer Visits: | 3 |
| Unscheduled Dealer Visits: | None |
| Days Out of Service: | None |
| Breakdowns Stranding Driver: | None |
| Best Fuel Economy: | 35.7 mpg |
| Worst Fuel Economy: | 15.9 mpg |
| Average Fuel Economy: | 25.7 mpg |
| True Market Value at service end: | $21,456 (private-party sale) |
| What it Sold for: | $21,456 |
| Depreciation: | $4,941 (or 19% of paid price) |
| Final Odometer Reading: | 17,291 miles |
Edmunds purchased this vehicle for the purposes of evaluation.