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Toyota Camry: Problems & Solutions
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Comments
recourse with this car?
Recently I parked it in my garage and hour later a front passenger window blow out all by itself. It was all covered cracks and looked like a spider web. I checked for any object that could fell on the window and found nothing. I know for sure that nobody was in the garage.
I contacted dealership – they did not hear about such thing and their explanation is that I had a chip on a window. I guess it is possible, but why the window did not break when I was driving the car and broke hour later while sitting in the garage? Any thoughts?
Sorry for the long winded post..but they are lucky it is my sisters car not mine....Presently I am ready to have some art students make me a paper mache lemon about ten feet in diameter and start parking it in front of Toyata Dealerships with my e-mail address. I suggested to my sister that she buy a Toyota based on what I had heard from a few people...My neighbor is waiting to hear the outcome of my sisters case as they had asked about her Camry several months ago and I had given a good report.I know Toyota doesn't really give a damn about my sister but I do intend to cost they far more in bad publicity and court costs than simply doing the warranty work required instead of trying to weasle out of their responsibilities. Thanks for any tips or suggestions...abarbee@cowboystuff.com
bought in '98 and both years had difficulty
getting the windows to defrost properly. They fog up quickly with myself, my wife and my 2year old in the car, and even sometimes with just me.
I know some cars have unique needs when it comes
to defrosting, some combination of fan speed,
temperature adjustment and outside/inside air, but
I just haven't been able to get it right for two
years now! I have tried every combination I know including turning the a/c on with the defroster?
I mentioned something to a Toyota salesman
recently and he made a comment, "Oh, yeah, we were
having trouble with the defrosters & the cars foggin up in 95, but that problem's been fixed."
Anyone else out there have similar problems? Know
a fix?
She asked me if I would like to skip this process and go directly to arbitration.....The sheer nerve of Toyota.... It appears that the distributor points to the dealer ..the dealer...points to Toyota..and Toyota points to the door....we should have a decision on my sisters car within a week which will mean we have been renting a car for the better part of a month before a decision is made by California Toyota.
To all you satisified Camry owners out there change your oil and keep every reciept or you will be made to feel like a criminal. My sisters cars....BMW...a Mercury..a Ford Tarus have all been serviced by the same independent garage in Downtown Austin for over sixteen years....Are they saying she lost her mind and quit changing her oil after all these years? I wish I knew what they were really saying except it shouldn't look like that. It is gunked up with black [non-permissible content removed] and who knows how it got that way? She doesn't and I surely don't...but I guess the big Corp is going to keep us waiting another week...then send us to arbitration....then on to who knows what...
My sister is much calmer about her prediciment than I am...in fact I am reserving a domain name that I will post here later next week if things go as I expect they will for other people to come to with warranty gripes so we can find out just how many people have had a similar experience. I realize not all are treated this way from the many kind words I have read posted by some but for those like Rinehart and my sister it is a very frustrating experience to believe you are protected by a warranty and then you are just dumped.
The internet I believe has put the shoe on the other foot and from the mail I now have without even posting on other automotive sites(could someone e-mail me more sites where I might post)I think Toyota has standard run around if it is an expensive warranty item. I cannot prove that yet but I sense it already. They didn't want to discuss any other cases as "All cars and use of cars in different areas of the country give different results" Bah.......humbug....
Ms Fairbrother (her name no joke) told me she did not want to hear about e-mails I recieved from others with a similar experience and problems with their cars. This is not what I would call Customer Relations...as I have said my sister is more patient than I am but it looks like the big run around.
Once again Thanks for all the tips and help... abarbee@cowboystuff.com
Has anyone explored the feasibility of having the Lexus ES 300 mirrors put on the Camry XLE (the one with the tweeter right next to the mirror)? If so, how much would it cost to have it installed by the dealer? The job would be complicated as the tweeter is in the housing right next to the mirror. Maybe I could sell my Camry mirrors to the junkyard.
Later models (mine= 98) work so that when you set control to Defrost, the A/C is turned on automatically.
Bruce.
PLUS: It helps ensure that you run the A/C at least once every couple of months. This keeps the seals in the system "wetted" so they don't dry out and start leaking. It really does extend the useful life of most A/C systems.
You took the time off. There is no contract to enforce. I am very mistrustful of buying a Toyota.
To the post re: putting ES300 part on Camry by dealer. Don't flatter yourself to think one part can be put on another car. It is a similar car but 1. it is a different car 2. made in a different factory in Japan.
I don't have a clue as to what Toyota is up to...
Mistrust is an understatement when it comes to these guys backing up their warranty in this particular case.
I felt my sister was in great hands with Toyota and feel I have let her down ....terribly...by recommending these charlatans...
abarbee@cowboystuff.com
And they way you have been treated truely dissappoint me. I don't see how they can refuse you a warrant repair if you have the record of maintainance and your car only has 19K miles on it. It's clearly covered under warranty. You should take them to court, I don't see how you can lose.
Got a call from James Juell(sp)(he said it rhymes with fuel) yesterday claiming to be an assistant to Mr Inaba....said they understood and appreciated the fact that I was helping my sister. (so far so good I thought) Said we had another chance to straighten this thing out....(I was starting to think that they might have seen daylight) He went on to say he would FAX me the Arbitration Form (I was so taken aback that I gave him my Fax number which he obviously already had with my Company Fax cover sheet.)
It is a bit ironic that he 'understands'. I didn't and still don't but for what it is worth Toyota did respond.
Ms Fairbrother on the other hand did not count the number of pages Fax'ed nor call to confirm the shortage registered by my machine...but I get the feeling they ended up in the trash pretty quickly so why would they want to count and collate the pages sent them.
If they didn't even check the number of pages in a dispute pending how can they ever accuse my sister of not checking the oil.
abarbee@cowboystuff.com
Twice I called the dealership yesterday and left messages for the Service Manager to please call so he could explain our options and their projected
costs....I went to the dealership late morning and he was not available...talked to the service rep and looked at the pictures of 'sludge'. No argument from us. It is sludge. By gosh after one month of checking we all see that now. We are moving right along at lightning speed....We have pictures...documents...many people involved..and we all agree....sludge...
Now if the President of Toyota will just call the
1 Ms Fairbrother...who will call her assistant
2 Betty Tuscon....who will call
3. Gary Kirchoff ...who will call
4. Robert Howard...who will call
5. Paul(who has since quit, bought a house, and moved to a new job since this started)
Jason who replaced Paul...who could walk into Terry Evans Office and ask him to call ...
6. Alan Barbeewho will call....
7. his sister to tell her her options
8. Who can't call anyone because they won't authorize any work till she goes back to the dealership for the third time to sign the repair order form.
----------------
Mr Yoshi Inaba....Do you really understand??? And if you do, why are you not changing this?
Would you want your daughter or sister treated this way? Really?
I assume that Toyota is saying that the problem arose from external forces and not from the fault of the engine itself. (I would love to know what factors they determined to make this decision.) I hope that Toyota isn't taking the mentality that customer service doesn't matter anymore since they are selling their cars at a high volume.
Anyway, good luck and hope Totota just fixes your sister's car regardless of what they think caused it....haven't they heard of good will???
I do not disagree with that ...so I will try to get a look at it today if the Service Manager will return my call so I can drive across Austin to get a look at the heads and block. It has to be mechanical if not oil contamination.
Any mechanics have any thoughts on what kind of heat could turn oil into grease without seizing the engine. Any plausible explanation would be helpful.
Thanks...abarbee@cowboystuff.com
Looks like they have other fish to fry...
Can't imagine why they don't want to show me the heads?????????
What has been your experience with identifying the source of the squeaks / rattles and having the dealer repair this type of problem (under warranty)?
My name is Tricia Barbee and I am the registered owner of a 1998 Toyota Camry with only 19,100 miles. Until about 7 weeks ago it had been an excellent car and a pleasure to drive. Equally or more important than this fact is the fact that I am the sister of "abarbee" who has posted on this site on my behalf quite a few times as abarbee@cowboystuff.com. Commenting on 2-3 posts, I would like to state that my brother has been an incredible ally and asset to me and I am very proud of him for guiding me through these shark-infested brutal Toyota waters. I am pleased he is my brother and cares so very much. I only wish Toyota gave one single penny's worth of consideration for the welfare and transportation of all of their clients throughout the world combined.
On a slightly different note (although this is NOT the academy awards, thank goodness) I would like to thank Edmunds for hosting a forum beneficial to so many of us with serious/critical vehicle problems. I appreciate the opportunity to have our views stated openly and without censure.
It is now late on a Friday night but tomorrow I will post briefly giving the actual facts of my case, Toyota's rude and demeaning replies, and where we currently stand in this "David versus the giant Goliath" saga.
Suffice it to say that absolutely NOTHING Toyota Motor Sales, USA or Toyota "WORLD" can do at this point can undo or amend the unforgiveable damage they have CHOSEN to do to some of us as owners and proponents of their cars. And for my part, the name "Toyota" will be forever the equivalent of untrustworthiness, shabby treatment, and a manipulative and conniving attitude, as far as the misguided upper echelon human beings who work for that corporation are concerned. I pity their families. We all know how they have treated us.
Please feel free to comment on Edmunds and also to contact me via email. The two email addresses I have set up for this disgusting foray into automotive battle are:
toyotawarrantyworthless@ev1.net and also
dudcamry@ev1.net
I will sincerely appreciate any opinions and advice you all may be able to give me,
thank you very much,
tricia barbee
Just read my previous and first posted message and realized I had omitted THE basics. The 1998 Camry I own was new, not used, when I purchased it at the &*$%^$ dealer, so no other owners could have abused the car. I have had all regular oil changes done and yet dealer said it appeared the oil was never changed... even with proof of changes. I am having to have the engine rebuilt completely AT MY AND ONLY MY EXPENSE!!!!!!!! My car has been in the shop for forty (40) days (since March 6)..... This is enough time for Noah to weather the original FLOOD.... and I still do not have my car back. I might be better off with a lifeboat from Noah's ark.
Thanks....tricia barbee
toyotawarrantyworthless@ev1.net and
dudcamry@ev1.net
At the advice of dealer when I purchased my Camry (V6 engine), I alternate between 89 octane and premium 93 octane. Specs call for 91 octane, not available in that rating here. So I usually fill car twice with 93, then once with 89 octane. Occasionally, it is filled with one tank 93 then one tank 87, but not on regular basis.
Anyway, my question is did Toyota change your oil and oil filters? If not, then is it possible that the place that did do the work totally screwed the oil changes up...(ie, no actual oil change, wrong oil, put transmission fluid instead of oil in?) I can't remember how many articles or news stories that have told about these kind of unbelievable shabby maintenance jobs.
Since we can't hear the Toyota side of this, I wonder if their position is that somebody screwed up your engine by messing up the oil changes? Seems to me, that with your fairly new car and low mileage, that something really bad and stupid had to be done to cause this to happen to your engine.
good luck!
What type place did the oil changes ????-
garage
speedy place
chain store
a friend or yourself/
V6s. Since Toyota puts two different tires on the Camry V6, General HP400 which gets 20k miles and the Dunlop SP4000 which gets 40K miles, shouldn't Toyota put the Dunlop tires on my car at 1/2 the cost?
LE....2 days after I bought it, I opened the hood
and found that the exhaust manifold had some rust
on it....My car had about 125 miles on it and
according to the dealer, it happens to all the
Camry's...the reason he gave was that the exhaust
manifold gets hot and hence the color on the
manifold burns out exposing the iron surface which
quickly starts showing rust... Has anybody
experienced this before and is it normal?
2 OIL CHANGES were done at an Exxon dealer....in business for over 30 years but just closed last year.
2 OTHER OIL CHANGES were done at a local family owned automotive shop... which has been in business 29 1/2 years AND which has done excellent post-warranty work on my previous 2 cars. This shop was recommended by and does most of the business on the cars of the state judges officed across the street from him and a large volume of business for the legislative community with whom I work. I have no question as to their ability and carefulness.
1 OIL CHANGE done, when I was in a hurry, at Jiffy Lube..... whom I don't care for but would not suspect of actually doing anything wrong.
Next times, I will always pull the dipstick to look at the oil to see if it seems fresh and clean.
Thanks for your many ideas.... tricia
I never want to generalize about these things, but I've heard of many horror stories of mishaps like the above at jiffy lube. Hopefully, they weren't the culprits of your car problem.
As inconvenient as it will be, I plan to have all my remaining oil changes performed by Toyota, although after this experience, I do not trust them either... but at least they will have the computer records of my oil changes and maintenance and I hope this will have some bearing if necessary. What an AWFUL experience for your wife's friend... that is the type of thing that Toyota implied could have happened to me.... their actual words were "it looks like somebody put axle grease in your engine!"
Appreciate your comments, thanks tricia
We are human, so are the mechanic. And we can make mistakes. My mother is a registered nurse. She told me that the surgeons in the past, have left operating tools INSIDE the patient and forgot about it. Now it's required that the nurse at charge to account for all the tools before closing the patient up. Scary!
I even went to the trouble of renting a '00 Camry to see how I liked it. Even though it was fairly new, it had a lot of the rattles and buzzes that people have mentioned about on this board. The drivers door even squeeked when closing and a little red light was on the dash board, looked like a warning for the rear tail lamps. I was very surprised at how the actual quality stacks up against the Marketing hype. As a result I scratched the Camry off my short list.
Thanks for all of your participation!!!
t1565 - I would suggest that you test drive a few more Camrys...all the ones I drove prior to purchase had no rattles, etc. Maybe they gave you a demo to test drive which had gone thru some hellish test drives before you. But, I've been around for a long time and I can say this about any car make...you NEVER know if you are going to get a great car for sure. But if you play the percentages, then the Toyota Camry (and most likely all their vehicles) are at the top of the list for reliability. Historical data proves this...though not to say that you can't get a bad one. Hey, 15 years ago we bought a Ford Taurus...best selling car and highly rated at the time...BUT that car required so many repairs (but no engine problems) over the years that I refuse to buy another Ford. Was this typical of Taurus's or did we just have a bad one...who knows.
tl1565:
Testing a rental cars is a source of good imput about a car's capability and features. But I personally wouldn't expect a rental to have a high degree of fit and finish. After all, rentals typically gets more abused than most. I would test drive the car (from the dealer's lot) that you are willing to buy. Good luck on your car shopping.
Since Toyota seems to charge a premium over other cars I would expect more from it. If the Camry has misc. problems like other cars on the road, than I may as well save the extra $1000 to $2000 dollars for a nice sumer vacation! My point is I used to be willing to pay more for a Camry because I expected it to be troublefree, but that doesn't seem to be completely true.
Thanks again for your help.
does anyone have any specifics of what they think is "cheaper" on the newer Camrys???
attention it may need.. thanks