Cars.com's Joe Wiesenfelder takes a look at the 2008 Toyota Camry. It competes with the Honda Accord and Chevrolet Malibu.
Transcript
Hi, I'm Joe Wisenfelder from cars.com. This is a 2008 Toyota Camry. It's the longstanding best-selling car in the United States. Toyota's reputation comes from a number of things. One is reliability and another is interior quality.
They gave very early attention to things like materials quality, the motion of things like the grab handles in the sunglass holder. Then also even things like sound, if, just listen to how it sounds as it moves and opens. It doesn't have that plastic-y sound. Now on the flip side in the past year or so, there've been a lot of complaints about interior rattles and noise, combined with trouble with the six speed transmission that comes with the V6 model. The V6 model is now considered below average in reliability. Overall though, we liked the quality on the inside. It's well appointed in our XLE test vehicle, Some great features that still aren't in every car, tilt and telescoping. The center console is pretty big and there are a 12 volt outlets and the input for an MP3 player here in front. They're both under a door, so you can leave your phone or MP3 player in there. No one can see it from the outside. Also our car has seat warmers and it's pretty disappointing that they're just on and off. Most cars have low or high, Volkswagen has six different on position. The locking glove compartment is actually exceptionally large and they're putting the latches on the side now, so if you have something in the middle there, it survives. One of the things that's been controversial is this bezel around the navigation system or AC controls. It kind of has a fifties diner look, it's back lit and blue at night. If you don't like it, you can now get a wood panel bezel to go around it, to match the other wood. The ventilation system has what's called plasma cluster. It adopts plasma cluster technology, which helps to keep good air quality by emitting positive and negative ions through the driver's side vent. Static electricity might be discharged due to the high voltage use to operate the system. Whatever dude. I'm comfortable in the backseat. I'm six feet tall. My knees have a little clearance, the front seats in the driver's position. Also this being an XLE, the back seats adjust for backrest angle, which is pretty nice. A drawback to the reclining back seat is that they don't let you fold the backrest forward to extend the trunk into the cabin. All you get into this pass-through in the center. Unfortunately, the SE model also has no folding seat. Also you note the hinges of the old style that go down into the trunk. Other cars, for example, the Hyundai Sonata have hinges out here so they don't get inside and interfere. For what it's worth, these are close to the side, so they probably aren't that bad. The market doesn't lie. The Camry is the best seller because it's a very good car, Even if it's having some trouble right now. The biggest complaint people have about it is that it looks boring or plain. Now I think it looks pretty good, but I just turned 40, so. For additional information on this car or any other go to cars.com and our blog Kicking Tires.
