[dust-n-bones]

Congrats on a great car. Never can go wrong with a staple of our desi brigade.

Its sad that the other favorite, Accord, has discontinued V6. Is a fantastic package regardless.

Originally Posted by guyfrmblr

Dislikes:

• Bland interiors - While the quality of the materials used is good, the interiors look quite dated. The designs on the seat are from the previous decade. Coming from a Kia, it's a downgrade for me.

I could never imagine someone complaining about a downgrade when comparing US and India. In automobiles of all things. This world moves in mysterious ways. Enjoy the ride.

OT: If you evaluated an EV as well, would love to hear your perspective. You have a great gift of being even-headed about your choices. .

[unknownartist01]

Originally Posted by guyfrmblr

My apartment is located right next to a Toyota dealership called Westboro Toyota in Massachusetts.

I used to live right there (Fountainhead)... and your post reminded me of all those good memories of that area.

Interesting choice of car considering the weather conditions all year round and the salty roads. However, Camry comes with fuss-free ownership and reliability which Toyota is famous for and I have experienced it firsthand there.

Congratulations on this excellent car. Wishing you and yours a happy cruising time...

[bht]

Originally Posted by unknownartist01

I used to live right there (Fountainhead)... and your post reminded me of all those good memories of that area.

Interesting choice of car considering the weather conditions all year round and the salty roads. However, Camry comes with fuss-free ownership and reliability which Toyota is famous for and I have experienced it firsthand there.

Congratulations on this excellent car. Wishing you and yours a happy cruising time...

Originally Posted by guyfrmblr

My apartment is located right next to a Toyota dealership called Westboro Toyota in Massachusetts.

congratulations and enjoy this excellent car.
Even i spent sometime in the same apartment complex ( Fountainhead back in 2011-2012 I guess), and your post and pics brought those wonderful memories back

[OmV]

Originally Posted by unknownartist01

I used to live right there (Fountainhead)... and your post reminded me of all those good memories of that area. .

Originally Posted by bht

congratulations and enjoy this excellent car.
Even i spent sometime in the same apartment complex ( Fountainhead back in 2011-2012 I guess), and your post and pics brought those wonderful memories back

Fountainhead has now been renamed / rebranded to "Arrive"! I live and work a few miles away.

Originally Posted by guyfrmblr

Engine:

The sweet exhaust note of the Cat-Back dual exhaust. I recorded this with a phone, but it sounds sweeter than the sound heard in the video recording. It's not too loud and Toyota has tuned it just right.

That exhaust note is super! Heartiest Congratulations @guyfrmblr! Desi folks will applaud you for a sensible "economical" choice, until they hear the exhaust and wonder if this is a Camry!

Also welcome (back?) to Boston. Finally someone in the same state as me - a chance for a NE meet up!

Cheers,

[RIC.BURNS]

Nice car! should last forever. I love the bright color Camry with tints on, but they should improve the interior quality and design.

The problem i have with this TRD version is that it looks like a boy racer with that spoiler, it should have been just a lip spoiler.

[guyfrmblr]

Originally Posted by Gannu_1

Somehow I've felt the UI of the infotainment units on the Toyotas and Hondas are very rudimentary unlike the Germans or even Kia/Hyundai. Feels very primitive even though the OEM is a reputed firm like Alpine.

I actually hate too many tech gizmos in a car but Toyota should ensure that whatever they have right now must work without any issues. They could just make the UI a bit better and more responsive and they will be all set.

Originally Posted by GTO

Enjoy the 6-cylinder motor, there is no going back to an inline-4 once you taste a 6. And that acceleration time of ~5.6 seconds for the 0 - 100 is comparable to sporty cars from the 90s (e.g. Acura NSX, Aston Martin DB7 or early 90s M5s).

I agree. I first got the taste of a V6 engine with the Nissan Altima which I used to own earlier. It's very difficult to switch to an inline-4 once we are used to V6. The good old saying "no replacement for displacement" still holds good.

Originally Posted by 84.monsoon

Excellent review thanks for sharing a detailed account of your car decision making process after moving to the US. Many of us have gone through a similar process and I could not help but remember my own move to the US 25 years ago. There was no team-bhp then and it was my first car purchase, one had to relay on the collective wisdom of a group of Indian classmates and friends who had moved earlier. Every single one in the group bought only one of 4 cars - Toyota Corolla, Toyota Camry, Honda Civic, Honda Accord, with an occasional Nissan Sentra as an outlier. Buying anything outside of this set the strongly discouraged by the value-conscious, service-conscious, resale-conscious and reliability-conscious Indian community in the USA, Sadly, none of my friends back then seemed to have even a single bone of auto enthusiast inside them.

It's the same now and it'll be the same even after 25 years The Corollas, Camrys, Civics and Accords are replaced with RAV4s, Highlanders and CRVs due to the SUV craze.

Originally Posted by Aditya

Your review has also gone here. Thank you so much for sharing

Thank you so much!

Originally Posted by dust-n-bones

OT: If you evaluated an EV as well, would love to hear your perspective. You have a great gift of being even-headed about your choices.

I was actually open for an EV (read Tesla) but the biggest problem I have is that my apartment complex doesn't have any charging infrastructure. The nearest supercharger is around 30 miles away. There are some EV charging stations in some of the supermarket parking lots but having our own charging infrastructure is a must for me. It'll be a pain to completely depend on 3rd part charging stations. I also have the habit of going for super long drives and hence I don't think I'm still ready for an EV yet.

Originally Posted by unknownartist01

I used to live right there (Fountainhead)... and your post reminded me of all those good memories of that area.

Originally Posted by bht

congratulations and enjoy this excellent car.
Even i spent sometime in the same apartment complex ( Fountainhead back in 2011-2012 I guess), and your post and pics brought those wonderful memories back

Originally Posted by OmV

Fountainhead has now been renamed / rebranded to "Arrive"! I live and work a few miles away.

Good to see so many ex-Fountainheads on this forum. I used to stay in the same apartment complex between 2015-2020 and would have crossed paths with few of you in the past. Yes, the management has been changed and it's now called as Arrive Westborough.

Originally Posted by OmV

That exhaust note is super! Heartiest Congratulations @guyfrmblr! Desi folks will applaud you for a sensible "economical" choice, until they hear the exhaust and wonder if this is a Camry!

I still get called out by my friends for paying so much for a "Camry". They still think it's a plain-jane Camry.

Also welcome (back?) to Boston. Finally someone in the same state as me - a chance for a NE meet up!

Thank you! Yes, I'm back at Boston after a gap of 3 years. The NE meet ups never happen. I waited for 5 years for a meet up during my previous stay but nothing got materialized

Originally Posted by RIC.BURNS

The problem i have with this TRD version is that it looks like a boy racer with that spoiler, it should have been just a lip spoiler.

I agree with you. As I mentioned in the review, they should have just gone with the subtle lip spoiler that comes with XSE variant. Spoiler is the only thing that stands out loud in this car. The red accents, etc are very subtle and not noticeable at all.

[Mustang Sammy]

Well written review of a very nice car. Thanks for sharing.

Originally Posted by 84.monsoon

Every single one in the group bought only one of 4 cars - Toyota Corolla, Toyota Camry, Honda Civic, Honda Accord, with an occasional Nissan Sentra as an outlier.

The Camry and Accord were always Desi favorites back in the early 2000s, for good reason. In my experience, the Civic from that era was the most fun to drive. Of course all these have bulked up massively now, and the latest Civic is bigger than the Accord of 20 years back.

In Silicon Valley EVs, in particular the Tesla model 3 & Y, and to a lesser extent the Nissan Leaf have captured the Indian customer mindshare these past 3-5 years.

[IonHawk]

Originally Posted by 84.monsoon

Every single one in the group bought only one of 4 cars - Toyota Corolla, Toyota Camry, Honda Civic, Honda Accord, with an occasional Nissan Sentra as an outlier. Buying anything outside of this set the strongly discouraged by the value-conscious, service-conscious, resale-conscious and reliability-conscious Indian community in the USA, Sadly, none of my friends back then seemed to have even a single bone of auto enthusiast inside them

This seems to be the story everywhere in the US in the Indian community. I got so much so called sage advice when I chose a used 2002 Lancer as my first car or even when I doubled down a few years later and got a new 2008 Lancer GTS, on why would I buy a car with such a poor resale value and why not buy a Corolla/Camry/Civic/Altima etc. Thankfully didn't listen to them back then. Congrats on your new Car, OP, this Camry looks (and drives as well I'm sure), very lit!

[guyfrmblr]

Got a chance to take the car for a drive other than the local/office commute. Took the car to Quabbin reservoir at Central Massachusetts which has a good mix of interstate highway, state highways and bad roads. I wanted to check the behavior of this car on several types of roads. Took the Interstate Highway for the onward journey and the car excelled on this stretch. The highways in MA are not butter smooth and have quite a few undulations over the bridges with some occasional nasty potholes. The car always felt planted on the road with no nervous moments. I was skeptical of the potholes. Some were quite deep, and I was trying my best to avoid them. I had driven over these highway undulations a million times earlier with my previous cars Altima, Civic and I never felt confident with them. It was a breeze to merge into highways with the power under the hood. I intentionally took a couple of exits just to get the thrill of merging into the highway with full acceleration (and listen to the sweet sound of the exhaust). The steering weighs nicely as the speed increases.

I’m familiar with the rural internal roads in Central MA where some of them are extremely bumpy. I traveled on those roads after a gap of 3 years and the conditions of the roads have worsened. This is where things didn’t go well. The stiffer suspension made the car feel like some agricultural vehicle. Constant complaints from the rear passengers were common in the 15 miles of bumpy ride. This is not a car meant to be driven over bad roads.

I took the state highway on the return journey which has a butter smooth tarmac and a lot of tight curves. The car performed extremely well here. Throw it into corners and it handles the curves extremely well. I’m eagerly looking forward to some long drives with this car. I never dreamt of a boring family car like a Camry being so much fun to drive. I’m having a wonderful time with this car.

This car is quite thirsty. I have managed to get an average of 19 mpg until now with 99% of the drives in a smooth flow of traffic. It’s going to pinch the pocket with the existing sky-high fuel prices. Happened to capture some pics at Quabbin reservoir:














While I had fun with my four wheeled toy, my kid had an exciting time with his four wheeled toy at Quabbin:

[Raghav07]

Excellent photos! And I really like the grey color of your Camry, it suits the TRD package well.

We had a CX-5 when were in the US, with a similar grey color, and drove about 90000 miles on it.

Hope you enjoy driving the long roads in the States, it must be fun.

Wishing you many happy memories and miles with your car!

[guyfrmblr]

The odometer crossed 1000 miles today. I have realized that one of the sore points of this car is the 8-speed gearbox. I feel Toyota could have done better with this. The gearbox gets very confused between 30-50 mph. It hunts for a sweet spot, which leads to constant changing gears which can be a bit of an irritant. Otherwise, the car is a delight to drive.

The low ground clearance is a bit of a bother, it easily scrapes at the slightest chance. There are a few tiny speed breakers in the apartment parking lot, and it easily scrapes them if there are more than two people onboard. I have found out some weird angles to avoid scraping but it's still a hassle.


We drove for 100 miles to just get a pound of bread today. We are big fans of the Berkshire Mountain Bakery at Housatonic in The Berkshires. We came across this bakery in 2016 in the Netflix documentary Cooked and have been regulars there since then. They follow the ancient art of natural sourdough baking and every item at the bakery is made up of sourdough. The Berkshires is very scenic and it's fun to drive along the windy roads which are abundantly found in the region.

The sourdough bread, it just melts in the mouth:


In front of the Berkshire Mountain Bakery. They have a branch in Pittsfield, but we always visit the original location at Housatonic:


My son is very fond of the car and loves travelling in it. He likes the exhaust note a lot:


Since we had some time to kill, we took our son to the nearby Bartholomew's Cobble for a small hike. Some pics taken there:

[guyfrmblr]

5000 miles service update:

The odometer stands at 5000 miles. Dropped the car for the first service at Westboro Toyota. It was just a quick service which included rotating tires and topping up of all the fluids. The next service is at 10,000 miles. All the services up to 20,000 miles are free, which fall under the Toyota Care.



The longest drive until now was to Buffalo, which is 450 miles away from my home. The car was mostly driven in western Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Hampshire. It's a delight to drive this car on the twisting roads that are found abundantly in these regions. The handling of this car is amazing, which is unexpected for a family sedan like Camry. The TRD track-tuned front and rear coil springs, shock absorbers and stabilizer bars make it possible. Throw it into any corner at any speed and it never loses its composure. I wish Toyota had given a competent gearbox, which would have made this car perfect.

All the issues that I'm currently facing are related to the abysmal infotainment system. It takes its own sweet time to boot up. It sometimes just never recognizes the phone connected over USB, the system needs to be restarted for the Apple CarPlay to work. The Wi-Fi hotspot never gets automatically enabled most of the time. The Toyota App sometimes just doesn't work. I use the remote start feature in the app to defrost the car in the mornings but sometimes it just never gets connected with the car. Even when it gets connected, most of the requests time out with a HTTP 504 error. Toyota should really step up their game in these areas.

I mostly drive with the windows down in the backroads just to listen to the sweet exhaust note. It's very addictive. Few videos of the exhaust note in various modes:

http://youtu.be/y65yisbUKAk

http://youtu.be/2BuVZxTb0Ps

http://youtu.be/ebSgLq7P1uU

Few pics of the car that were captured during the various drives:

[sandeepmohan]

Originally Posted by guyfrmblr

I mostly drive with the windows down in the backroads just to listen to the sweet exhaust note. It's very addictive.

Wow. That is one sweet sounding stock exhaust system.

Those body panels and color make the Camry one sharp looking car.

Unfortunate on the Infotainment system. You should escalate to Toyota and see what they say. That appears to be the same version of what the new Tundra's and Taco's have, on a much bigger screen. Or maybe they are running a newer version.

Look around the after market space. A car as popular as the Camry will have a lot of options in this space.

[guyfrmblr]

Originally Posted by sandeepmohan

Unfortunate on the Infotainment system. You should escalate to Toyota and see what they say. That appears to be the same version of what the new Tundra's and Taco's have, on a much bigger screen. Or maybe they are running a newer version.

Unfortunately this is an issue with all the Toyota infotainment systems. My friend’s RAV4 has the same system and all these issues are present with it. I complained to the service advisor last week and he just said these are the usual complaints from customers

Not sure if they updated the software during the service last week but the CarPlay is working without any issues now. Should wait and watch.

[vgaquarius]

In the previous decade, Toyota did put in efforts to maintain a fine line between the Corolla, Camry and the Avalon. However, seeing this interior, just doesn't share the design language but it shares a ton of components with the Corolla.
This is seriously a nightmare.

Originally Posted by guyfrmblr

Interior shots:

The dashboard is basic but functional. All the buttons and knobs are in the right place and feel durable. It's the design which looks dated.
Attachment 2483904

I hate the steering wheel design. That horn pad design looks ancient and is straight out of the Toyota parts bin that is shared across all their vehicles.
Attachment 2483922