Interesting thing on the way back from the used car lot.

I have a Camry. And an Elise.

which one is to counteract the other?

It's a Ying-Yang thing.

The Jungian thing. The duality of man.

Who's side are you on, Hess?

I am marrying a very nice girl who drives a 2002 camry. She bought it new. Grey with grey cloth interior. snooze.
its a 4 cyl auto. Its absolutely boring to look at, boring to be inside, boring to drive down a curvy road, boring to eat up miles on the highway. It gets good mpg, but not great. Its been reliable, but weird things on it have broken, like the carbon canister (cracked open, weird) and the rear speaker grilles (fell apart all by themselves). Its so popular that replacement parts are expensive. The seats are hard and non ergonomic. The tilt wheel moves in an odd arc that doesn't correspond to anything like what you would want to drive it at. The buttons on the stereo are awkward.
Its just like vanilla car. Like it makes no apologies for just being a complete driving appliance. when I drive it I feel completely emasculated and anonymous.
My normal daily is a diesel excursion, so its a huge difference getting into the camry. She bought the camry new in 2002 and 10 years later, she has done nothing to it but regular maintenance (we didn't fix that stupid carbon canister), drove it into a pole and had the body work fixed, and its really none the worse for wear. Transmission on it does weird downshift stuff on hills when it gets warm, but she says its done it since new.

Oh, and the electronic throttle is... um.. interesting. Push foot in. no gas. push foot further. no gas. push further, oh, it finally catches up, barks the tires and squats down, embarassing you in the walmart parking lot.

4cylndrfury wrote: All Im taking from this thread is that cars need less whimmydiddles

That's "fewer whimmydiddles"

A family member asked me to sell a beige camry for her a few years ago. The price was right. I thought about needing a transportation appliance, took it on a five mile drive and realized life was much too short. First couple who drove it, bought it. We're tooling down the intracity four lane and he complains that the odometer doesn't work. "We've been driving quite awhile and it hasn't turned over.

"That's because you're going 20 miles an hour."

My parents offered me their old Camry and I said aww hell no!!!!

You should always take free toyotas because they if you list them for KBB trade in value they will be gone in 24 hours. Unless they are total rusted out turds. Even then you will get more than rusted out ford turds.

I'd take a Camry and do horrible things to it. They didn't get unbearable to me until 2001.

I had a '98 Camry that was a good car to put miles on. I put about 90K on it during my 4 and a half year tenure, and then passed it along to a friend who put on a bunch more before getting rear-ended one day. It's probably one of the best mindless cars out there. Mine was a 5spd (rare), so it was slightly more engaging, and I did some suspension work to it, which improved the handling a great deal. Whiteline front and rear swaybars made a huge difference with little downside.

Many people want an appliance. In that capacity, the Camry is a good buy.

There are better appliances that do a better job than the Camry. The "sheeple" have just had it beat into their thick skulls that "camry is a great car" to the point that even though it sucks, and a half dozen of it's competitors do it better, for less, they still buy it.

It is what it is. I get made fun of for driving "boring" cars, but none of my vehicles have ever been as boring as a Camry of any generation.

andrave wrote: You should always take free toyotas because they if you list them for KBB trade in value they will be gone in 24 hours. Unless they are total rusted out turds. Even then you will get more than rusted out ford turds.

But my parents told me I couldn't resell it (this was when I was in college).

Bobzilla wrote: There are better appliances that do a better job than the Camry. The "sheeple" have just had it beat into their thick skulls that "camry is a great car" to the point that even though it sucks, and a half dozen of it's competitors do it better, for less, they still buy it. It is what it is. I get made fun of for driving "boring" cars, but none of my vehicles have ever been as boring as a Camry of any generation.

The Camry pre-01 IS a great car. Get mad.

I'd buy one. Call me a sheeple and tell me how thick my skull is.