I have always thought (for as long as I thought about cars)
that Toyotas were good cars, which I think is a pretty justifiable thought. They are sturdy and dependable but they also
come with a price tag that some people (like myself) can not afford. But if you are the lucky ones who shop at
Target instead of Wal-Mart and can
afford a Toyota, the Camry might be a good fit.
Remember, readers, this car is used in a rental fleet so it is the
standard model with none of parts and shots that can come with paying more for
upgraded features.
The design on the outside looks a bit strange to me and that
all has to do with the front of the body.
It is wide, tall, and looks like it juts out at certain angles. It almost reaches the ground, which would
definitely cause some people to scrape the ground on steep declines or those
cement stops in a parking spot, lord knows I would probably do that all the time
if I drove one of these cars. To me it
looks like some kid who wants to get into some Fast and Furious nonsense put
this body kit on but it seems to come standard.
Aside from that it is a nice looking car that is a tad long, but it is considered
a full size so that’s to be expected. To
give perspective, other cars in this size include a Chevy Impala and Nissan Altima.
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| The scenic background is optional. |
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| First, you can see how close to the ground the front is. Second, if you look at the bottom right corner you can see where it juts out. It looks strange to me. |
The material used for the seats are a mixture of leather and
fabric. Leather is used for the majority
of the seat while the fabric is used for the middle, and in the particular
Camry I was in they used two different colors, black for leather and gray for fabric. This gives the car a nice look and pleasing
to the eye but, in my not so humble opinion, it brings up a practical problem
of cleaning. Leather has its obvious
benefits but to someone like myself who has to clean up customers nasty messes
the best benefit is that it is easy to clean.
Leather does not soak up fluids, preventing stains, and it is very easy
to wipe off the gross, crusty cupcake icing you let your kid smear all over the
back seats. Fabric is very different and
as long as you’re not some spoiled rich person who has never cleaned anything I’m
sure you know that it is not as forgiving.
So, the mixture of leather and fabric is nice in theory, but it makes the
seats more difficult to clean.
The backseats also boast the armrest (with two cup holders)
that can go down between the two seats, and an astonishing three cup holders in
each back door, which doing the math (I was in AP Calculus in high school, so I’m
pretty much the best at math there ever was) gives you 8 cup holders in the
back seats alone. Why would you need
that many cup holders? I think it’s safe
to assume that if you have all of those filled, it’s time to clean out your
car. One last little detail about the
back is that in the back of the middle cubby is a small space to put… I don’t
know, it’s pretty small and narrow so I have no idea what is intended to be put
there, but there is a liner that you can take out so it is easy to clean, which
I appreciate.
The front seats are large and comfortable, as they should be
considering the class. In the middle you
will find a lidded cubby that when opened has only one compartment but it is
rather large. In front of said cubby is
a small lidded compartment that houses a 12 volt AC jack and a small space that
looks like you can use as a place for coins or even an ash tray (but don’t
because that is nasty and will make your car smell! And especially don’t do it in
a rental car because it will, no joke, cost you hundreds of dollars.). The shifter itself looks pretty standard, but
around whole area is a piece of what feels like faux-metal plating. It feels cheap to me but I’m sure it’s
intended to look nice. Something to note
about the shifter is it takes some muscle to move it; whereas in most cars (as
long as the shifter is in the middle and not by the steering wheel) the shifter
moves pretty freely, in this car you have to put just a little bit of heft into
it, but I can’t see how that is a bad thing.
Directly to the right of the shifter are the two cup holders that are adjustable
to a point, meaning that there are pieces of plastic that can move down, allowing
larger drinks to fit. Apparently the Japanese know the American (forbidden in
NY) love affair with large drinks.
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| This gives a good view of the faux-metal finish. |
The center console in the Camry is nice because it is easy
to understand. The temperature controls
sit under the radio and are very straight forward. The radio is a touch screen and only controls
the radio/media. I mention this because
there are some vehicles where the touch screen controls everything, this is not
one of them. I’m torn about touch
screens, I’m not sure the pros outweigh the very big con. I like the ease of use of a touch screen,
especially when you can do a direct tune to a radio station and of course they
are nice to look at, but they get so filthy!
Fingers are incredibly greasy, just look at touch screen phones,
tablets, mp3 players, etc. and I am constantly wiping away the fingerprints on
my phone, so I’m not sure if I would be just as neurotic about my radio screen. And throw in someone who was eating fast food
or a kid who has sticky, gross fingers and I just don’t know if it’s worth it
anymore. Underneath the temperature
controls in another small lidded compartment that has another 12 volt AC jack,
AUX port, and USB. The compartment in
pretty small so, like with the other small compartments in this car, I’m not sure
what you could fit in there.
There is a holder for your sunglasses on top near rearview
mirror, and I only mention this because I have actually seen a lot of 2012/2013
vehicles that don’t have one, which I found odd. The glove compartment is small, too small for
a full size car in my opinion. But I am finding
a trend: the bigger the car, the smaller the glove compartment. The compact Nissan Versa has a huge glove
compartment but the full size Toyota Camry has such a small one? It doesn’t make sense to me, but a good thing
about this one is that you can lock it.
So if you can actually fit anything in there at least you know it will
be safe. The dashboard deserves a note
because of its unique mix of plastic and leather, which looks kind of cool,
adding another element of pizazz.
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| Leather details and a lock for your oh-so-important tiny documents. |
Another small detail is that there are cup holders (that are
only good for bottles! Putting in a Starbucks cup full of hot coffee could very
well end up disastrous) in the front doors, which is not at all odd with newer
cars, the reason I bring it up is that they are very narrow, leading me to
believe Toyota must have some stock in Smart Water because those are probably
the only bottle that could fit in this space.
The feature I like the least in the Camry is actually the steering
wheel, it is so cumbersome! Not only in
size, it’s a big wheel, but mostly because of the actual features that are integrated
in it. The components are the standard
ones that you will find on most new vehicles; cruise control, media controls,
and Bluetooth control, but I don’t like the placement of any of them. To start, the central media control is shaped
in a circle on the left side of the wheel but because the wheel is so large my
hands cannot comfortably use the controls, and let it be known I am not a petite
girl with tiny hands, and for some reason there are two spots for the volume control;
one is on the circular media control and the others are on the back of the
steering wheel on the top left corner (lower volume) and the top right corner (raise
volume). The only need for this is
because you can’t properly control the volume from the circular media controls,
and if that is why Toyota put the additional volume controls in, then they
should have changed it entirely. On the
right side of the steering wheel you will find the Bluetooth controls, where
the designers also utilized the circle design used for the media controls, but
it is just too large, really unnecessarily large. I’m sure they did it for symmetry but I think
they should have just scrapped the whole thing and thought up something better. And finally, on the bottom right side of the
steering, slightly behind are the cruise control settings. I have found (and I’m sure you have, too)
that the cruise control is found two different ways – buttons on the steering
wheel or on a stick. In the Camry it is
on the stupid little stick, and I hate when the cruise control is setup this
way, it’s just not as easy as when they are buttons. I know it’s a dumb thing it harp on, but
everyone has something they just don’t like.
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| For those of you with no imagination CC means cruise control. |
With all of the flaws of the wheel itself, I still love the
way this car drives! It steers like an
absolute dream with very little resistance.
This is a big thing for this particular car class; other full size cars
feel like you are dragging the wheel through molasses just to turn the darn
thing but not the Camry. The car
accelerates smoothly and easily, it does not jerk about and you also don’t have
to put the pedal to the metal to get this car going. Again, it does this better than any other
full size car I have driven, and the turning radius is really sharp in this
car, which (say it with me) is better than other full sizes. I generally do not like the full sizes for
that very reason – it’s impossible (okay, not impossible, but still very difficult!) to park or maneuver these
cars especially the awful Nissan Altima.
You could not pay me to drive an Altima.
The driving is very smooth, but (surprisingly) that is no different than
other full sizes; you know you are going to get a smooth ride with almost any
full size. I cannot emphasize how much I
like to actually drive this car, and I bet if you took it to some backwoods
country road it would be so fun to just drive around it in and see how fast it
could go.
Like all vehicles the Toyota Camry has its pros and cons,
but if you are looking for a larger vehicle without getting into the Ford Crown
Victoria size, then the Camry would be a good choice. It is the best full size car I have driven
and that’s mostly because of how it handles, and that’s really what is
important in a car. The seats are
comfortable, the drive is smooth, and also fun, besides some small issues it
with the design of the steering wheel, what more could you ask for? (A smaller
price tag!)
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