2009 Camry Hybrid

[clyde]

This might miss some points as I'm not sure what I don't remember. It also might be a little lacking in coherence, but what else is new?

As some of you may recall, a month ago or so I posted that my parents had bought a 2009 Camry Hybrid. When I was in San Diego for the middle half of July, that's what I was driving and, boy, did it make some impressions on me.

First, some of us here (raises own hand) denegrate the Camry and its drivers. A few say, "Hey! That's not fair!" Assuming that my parents' Camry is representative, I can only say to those few Camry and Camry driver defenders, "Fuck you and the Camry you rode in on you fucking fucks!"

This car was, by leaps and bounds, much more awful than anything I have ever driven before that was apparenlty working as intended. It made me long for the days I spent in purgatory ~2001 driving a soul stealing 1994(?) Buick LeSabre. My mom's stripper 1982 Oldsmobile Firenza was a much more competent and agreeable vehicle. With that J Body's 1.8l OHV fed by a 2bbl carb making 88hp and hitting 60mph in just over 16 seconds, it even felt faster than the '09 Camry Hyrbird despite the Camry hitting 60 in just under 8 seconds.

But what specifically did I not like about the Camry Hybrid?

For starters, the engine's auto start/stop feels like it's just a c-hair away from an explosive dieseling situation each time it cuts in or out.

The brakes feel like sponges of unknown density with a constantly variable resistance to exerted pedal pressure. How much of that was due to regenerative braking and how much was due to Camry? Can I just guess that it was 50/50?

The steering was strongly reminiscent of the no-feel, overboosted pinky-steerable GM products of the 60s and 70s. Except the Camry's steering felt even more disconnected from the road than those GM cars of yore. On top of that, it was seriously bizarre. The steering wheel mechanism felt kind of lumpy with varying amounts of weight (none of them weighty enough) and a continously varying amount of response for a given input. But hey, at least on-center, it would only move laterally on its own and require a never-quite-closed feedback loop of correction when at freeway speeds.

Fortunately, in that context, freeway speeds were attainable only with concerted and focused effort. Right foot. Flat to the floor. On the right most pedal. Hold it there. Keep holding it. Check watch. Keep holding it. Look at speedo. 50mph. Keep holding it. Sigh. Take a momment for introspection to reflect on what poor choices led to you sitting in this heap of steaming "green" poo. Check speed again. 60mph. Sigh.

The awful steering makes it hard to comment about the handling. Trying to keep up with and counteract the random directional changes left me with less than complete thoughts about how it felt when turning other than, "I don't like this."

Straight ahead on freeways or surface streets, it rode okay in a quite forgettable way. Which was cool, because it gave me time to notice how awful the interior was.

Hard surfaces that should be soft. Soft surfaces that should be hard. Buttons and switches that felt a lot like 80s era GM switchgear. Poor layout. Etc. Blech. OTOH, all that stuff looked great in comparison to the infotainment controls. After two weeks, I still wasn't sure what sequence of crypticly labeled buttons I was supposed to push (and whether the left or right side of some of the buttons) to change a screen setting or radio channel or get to the navigation or blow the fucker up.

Luckily, there is a hugely confusing real time graphic depiction of how the engery is flowing from the engine and to/from the motor, battery and drive wheels that can be brought up on the screen at any time. I'm not sure how a driver can look at it and drive at the same time...and if s/he could, what s/he might possibly gain from doing so.

That said, there is another display that shows your MPG over the past 30 minutes in 1 minute intervals which is kind of neat, but I'm not quite sure what purpose it has. "Oh, I was sitting at a light there, going uphill there and downhill over there. Whoop." It also displayed a car icon each time it recaptured 50kwh...but I have no clue what that really means other than the wonky brakes sent some energy back to the battery.

Then there was all the high pitched whining and shrieking of the motors and other electromagical noise that made the car slightly painful to drive.

I now better understand the calls for some kind of audible something for electric cars. Moving in parking lots on electric power, pedestrians do not know you are there. I am sure people are getting hit because of it. It's likely easier to add noise to electric or hybrid cars than it is to teach people to be more aware.

I was kind of secretly hoping that I would find a redeeming quality or characteristic about the Camry and I thought I found it. I was sitting in the drive thru line for 25 minutes at In-n-Out one night. I was thinking about how I could lazily sit in a drive thru line waiting for food that's bad for me without using any of earth's precious and limited reserves of oil and polluting the air with its emmissions and I felt a little smug. Then the engine kicked in with a shake (that made first think "earthquake") because the battery had been depleted.

I've had in my mind for many years what basic appliance transportation should be like. This was nowhere close.

[Plaz]

Nicely done! I LOL'd.

[JST]

+1.

What's somewhat disgraceful is how closely many of these sentiments tracked those that I had driving the F30 328Xi loaner that they gave me this morning.

More on that later.

[equ]

Originally Posted by JST

What's somewhat disgraceful is how closely many of these sentiments tracked those that I had driving the F30 328Xi loaner that they gave me this morning.

More on that later.

Do tell.

I recently drove a 6MT '11 335xi and was very impressed. I really liked the n55 in it this time around, it felt revvier and more NA than the burlier n54. And my main complaint on the awful 06-09 xi suspension seems to have been resolved. Generally felt good and natural to drive. If the price works out (which it probably won't), I would considering getting out of the a4 for this car.

Still haven't driven an f30, but since there is no stick with awd, it's kind of a non-starter.

[equ]

So how is this the best selling car in America?

[TD]

Originally Posted by equ

So how is this the best selling car in America?

Don't make us revisit *that* discussion... Popular <> good... McDonalds... Pop music... Budweiser...

[clyde]

Originally Posted by equ

So how is this the best selling car in America?

TD's repsonse notwithstanding, I have no fucking clue. I was expecting antiseptic and soulless, but it was far worse than that.

It's possible that the one my parents bought is a problem child with unrepaired broken or worn bits and that made it worse than it should have been, but many of the problems are clearly by Toyota's intent.

[TD]

Originally Posted by clyde

TD's repsonse notwithstanding, I have no fucking clue. I was expecting antiseptic and soulless, but it was far worse than that.

It's possible that the one my parents bought is a problem child with unrepaired broken or worn bits and that made it worse than it should have been, but many of the problems are clearly by Toyota's intent.

I will agree that I would expect a Camry to be supremely bland in a very seemingly solid, deliberate and competent way - kind of like my mom's '07 non-sport C280 Mercedes. I am quite surprised that it reeks of awful '80s GM products. I thought Americans started buying Japanese cars in the first place to escape that type of crap. And knowing that the American cars in that class aren't crap at this point makes it doubly surprising.

[clyde]

Originally Posted by TD

I will agree that I would expect a Camry to be supremely bland in a very seemingly solid, deliberate and competent way - kind of like my mom's '07 non-sport C280 Mercedes. I am quite surprised that it reeks of awful '80s GM products. I thought Americans started buying Japanese cars in the first place to escape that type of crap. And knowing that the American cars in that class aren't crap at this point makes it doubly surprising.

I read a couple reviews of the '09 Camry today and their descriptions were not far off my impressions. They just wrote about them in more forgiving terms than I did.

But, yeah,...it feels a lot like you would expect a modern GM car to feel like based on different qualities of 60s, 70s and 80s era GM products. I don't think it's as bad as mid 70s-80s GM build quality or reliability...more like 60s and early 70s era decently built hardware. Looking at it that way, makes me think about how good GM had it in the 60s and much of the 70s (before the badness of the mid 70s began catching up to them). America loved the cars, the way they worked, the way they felt...or perhaps didn't feel. That's what Toyota is giving their buyers. If the model works...

[JST]

Originally Posted by clyde

TD's repsonse notwithstanding, I have no fucking clue. I was expecting antiseptic and soulless, but it was far worse than that.

It's possible that the one my parents bought is a problem child with unrepaired broken or worn bits and that made it worse than it should have been, but many of the problems are clearly by Toyota's intent.

Your experience is consistent with mine in every recent Toyota I have driven. They are uniformly terrible--not just bland, but unpleasant to drive and be in. I can't figure out why anyone buys them.