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Well, this weekend I traded in my 2007 Camry, I am no longer a Toyota driver. I must say, I was a bit dissapointed. My parents always had Toyota products, 6 in a row to be exact. So my first car with the family was logically a Toyota Camry. I got the SE, which I think is a great looking version of the car, I liked the interior, the way it drove, even though the 4 cylinder is GUTLESS. On the negative side though: RECALLS, I know things happen, but just my luck, the biggest recall controversy to supposdly one of the best car companies, and the model I bought. Besides that, my water pump went bad at 30,000 miles. Yes it was under warranty, and yes bad parts can happen, but that is unacceptable. Went through brakes prematurely I thought, although I won't blame that on them, because operator comes into play on that one. Overall, it was only a few things, and I think the good does outweigh the bad with the model, but I with other options I don't know if I will ever go back. With Honda pulling away as #1 IMO, and Hyundai,Ford,Subaru, Nissan, even GM getting better and better, Toyota isn't as sure of a thing as a car choice as I thought before the Camry.
Everest I am with you, I have a 2007 Sienna and my brakes wore out prematurely also. Not only that at 31,000 miles my Fuel Mix Sensor went out which I had to pay for, when we got it I had problems with some of my warning lights which took several trips to the dealer, finally they just replaced them which solved the problem. My battery just went dead which was some premature, the cable and storage box to say is a cheap set-up is an understatement. My tires had to be replaced at not quite 40,000 miles even with rotating them every oil change. The problem with them was just being a cheap soft rubber tire.
We had a 1996 4Runner which we put 146,000 miles on (one tire change, never changed brakes), a 1996 Rav4 which has about 180,000 miles (just changed the 2nd set of tires, one brake change), and my wife's 2003 Camry which has 120,000 miles (one tire change, just replaced brakes) so we have plenty of experience with Toyota. The biggest difference between my 2007 model and the other Toyota's is the quality has been engineered out with the thoughts of saving a buck.
Something is going to have to change for us to consider another Toyota.
I've seen quite a few of these posts from Toyota owners, so I thought I might give a little background as what you are experiencing is a result of recent changes Toyota has made to their manufacturing process in the pursuit of earning the number 1 auto manufacturer spot.
Toyota's success was built upon the quality and reliability of their cars. They developed a manufacturing and quality control system known as the "Toyota Way". It shares similar concepts to those of Six Sigma, but is an in house philosophy built around auto manufacturing.
In addition to constant quality checks and improvements, Toyota took a very unique path to parts sourcing. They specified a single source for each component and worked hand in hand with the plants to produce the parts. Toyota provided engineers, quality assurance personel, technology, etc. as well as paying for improvements to the plants manufacturing systems if needed. This created a very tight knit manufacturing process and ensured consistent quality.
As Toyota began to grow and expand, they realized they had the opportunity to eclipse Ford and perhaps even GM. The companies focus started to drift towards volume. About 7 years ago there was an incident at a brake pad manufacturing plant that shut down all of Toyota's production for two weeks. They realized that if they were going to shoot for the top spot, they would need to diversify their supplier network to ensure these types of shut downs wouldn't happen.
They went out and quickly added a secondary supplier for all components. The issue was that they did not put the same effort into these manufacturers in terms of QC and standards that they did with the others. Instead of Toyota engineers working directly with the plant and Toyota working with the owners or paying for upgrading the systems at the plant, Toyota simply sent schematics and said, build this part. This quickly led to subtle differences in parts across the same model line of cars based on where it was built and the source of the components. If you remember back to the accelerator pedal issue, there were two seperate versions of the pedal depending on where your car was built and one of them was deemed deficient, while the other was not.
So, when people say that recent Toyota products are not the same as older Toyota products, they are very correct. In pursuit of volume and achieving the number 1 spot, Toyota sacrificed quality in the parts sourcing which has led to a significant uptick in issues among Toyota vehicles. In light of all the issues Toyota has gone hard back to the "Toyota Way" and is instituting major reforms in their parts sourcing process from the secondary suppliers. Consider it growing pains.
Well, this weekend I traded in my 2007 Camry, I am no longer a Toyota driver. I must say, I was a bit dissapointed. My parents always had Toyota products, 6 in a row to be exact. So my first car with the family was logically a Toyota Camry. I got the SE, which I think is a great looking version of the car, I liked the interior, the way it drove, even though the 4 cylinder is GUTLESS. On the negative side though: RECALLS, I know things happen, but just my luck, the biggest recall controversy to supposdly one of the best car companies, and the model I bought. Besides that, my water pump went bad at 30,000 miles. Yes it was under warranty, and yes bad parts can happen, but that is unacceptable. Went through brakes prematurely I thought, although I won't blame that on them, because operator comes into play on that one. Overall, it was only a few things, and I think the good does outweigh the bad with the model, but I with other options I don't know if I will ever go back. With Honda pulling away as #1 IMO, and Hyundai,Ford,Subaru, Nissan, even GM getting better and better, Toyota isn't as sure of a thing as a car choice as I thought before the Camry.
If your 2007 Camry is gutless with a 4 cyl, you should have bought a stick shift.
I have no complaints and on a freeway with 3,000 rpm on the tach, my speedometer is right on 80 mph.
81,000 miles on the car I bought new in August 2007.
I will admit I was upset about replacing the water pump ,also. ( 72,000 miles)
Warranty was off, but I got it replaced at a local mechanic for a bill of $245.
The Toyota dealer quoted me $360.
Toyota a number of years ago actually made public mention, like Mercedes, that they had overdone it on quality(cost too much money) and decided to cut the quality.
I think fairly stupid on the part of the both. Clearly both companies had built a rep and then decided to ride it out, but you can only ride that for so long.
I do a lot of work for the manufacturers and whenever we have a Toyota for comparison, the Toyota is always at the bottom of the pile in every aspect. I can also say you can tell the quality is lacking in the car itself, with cheap flimsy parts and materials.
Other manufacturers are coming on strong like Hyundai and Subaru, so Toyota can fall fast.
I had a rental Camry for 3 weeks a few years ago, and it was so gutless that it would be a deal-breaker if I were in the market for that type of car. Of course there's always the V6, but there are also more powerful 4-cylinders from the competition.
I just bought a V-6 2011 Camry that I whined about here not too long ago.
It's got guts; 0-60 in six seconds, which may not be the fastest, but it's only 3 seconds or less slower than a 200,000K exotic supercar. Not half-bad for a family car. I can't complain about the car's performance. I like the exterior styling too.
What I don't like is the fit and finish on the interior. Toyota obviously cut corners; I was a Toyota fanboy myself, but not any longer. The competition is just putting out better products, so my next car probably won't be a Toyota.
Yea I got a 08 tundra, course I run vehicles till the wheels fall off(and it definetly ain't gutless)I figure to look at all the other trucks when I trade it in(scrap it)in say 2020 or 2025.
I have a Nissan and I will never buy another Toyota-it's the best SUV EVER
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