Toyota Camry Questions & Answers (page 4 of 4)

Hello Suhail,

What is your concern regarding the noise the car makes? Keep in mind that Camry's including the hybrid are some of the quietest cars on the road. The general consensus is the car is TOO quiet as it doesn't make enough noise for pedestrians to realise the car is coming.

Regarding power, keep in mind the hybrid camry has more power than the standard camry and other users on this and other forums say there is more than enough power.

I live in a fairly hilly part of Sydney and have no troubles at all. I see plenty of hybrid camry's going up hills where I am and from the outside the car isn't noisy at all.

If you do purchase the vehicle, just realise there is both the electric motor and petrol motor. Hence when going up and down hills, it is sometimes unpredictable which motor is running/regeneratively breaking. For me, I ignore this and drive like normal.

Best of luck with your purchase.

It is Australian made so parts, in the very unlikely event of needing them, should be readily available.

As being Japanese built parts it might be the luck of the draw though most of the times car parts are available

Mine's a 5 speed manual. No problems.

It might be better to have it looked at by Toyota Australia or a trustworthy honest and reliable transmission specialist to fix the problems

As with any car, it depends on the servicing history - whether it has been regularly serviced. I have heard if cases where camry engines have done more than 500,000 km without any issues. So provided its been serviced regularly, there shouldn't be any problems.

All cars suffer wear and tear / it would not be as good as a new car unless you rebuild the engine with quality parts and re do the gearbox

The 3.3 was from the trip computer but it seems accurate based on petrol fills that are through a computerised system at work. Very little difference in ride from SX6, maybe a little softer. Your right about overtaking. I like to get past in a hurry and its good at that.

Hello Bongie55,
Enough power for what purpose?

Broadly speaking, the performance and handling of the 2012 hybrid is better than the previous years. Also according to the figures, the hybrid has more power (151kw compred to 133kw) compared to the Atara performance model. This is due to the addition of the electric motor. If you push it this hard, yes the car does go like a rocket but you have to switch off all the ECO settings and stamp the accelerator hard.

Its got heaps. Almost as much as an V6 Aurion.

Correct, the batteries are expensive to replace. Ask a dealer for the exact cost. Comparing apples to apples though, there are a small number of first gen Prius hybrids in the USA going past 300,000 km. The overall maintenence cost of these appears to be significantly lower than equivalent cars due to excellent reliability of the gearbox and other parts of the drivetrain. Hence the cost of replacement batteries if you ever get to this is minor. You can google this up to find the info.

I have been told around $1500

Yeah 2.9%

The batteries have an 8 year / 160,000 Kilometres warranty. They seldom fail during the usable life of the car. I believe a replacement is around $2000 but you may be able to buy one for about a quarter of that from a wreckers yard .