Milgram

The differences varied a little over time. The badge was introduced in 1993 on the Gen 3 model. Up until the July 1995 update, the V6 models were badged as the Camry Vienta. The word Camry was emblazoned across the back with a subtle Vienta V6 badge on the bootlid. From the 1995 update, the Camry name was dropped from the V6 models and they became known solely as the Vienta, with the word Vienta across the bootlid. There were also some changes to the grades; the Ultima became four cylinder only (but was later dropped) and the Grande became the top of the range Vienta model. The V6 only Touring model was added during this update. The introduction of the Gen 4 in 1997 saw the Vienta name move upmarket with the two high spec V6 only models, the VXi and Grande, being badged as a Vienta and the base and mid spec grades (CSi and Conquest) badged Camry regardless of the number of cylinders. The Touring was added in 1999, it too only using the Camry badge. The range topper in the four cylinder models was the CSX. In 2000, the Avalon large car was introduced which saw a shuffling of the Camry models as part of a mid life update (Gen 4.5). The Vienta name was dropped, as was the VXi and Grande models which became the range toppers in the Avalon line up. The Azura grade became the top of the range model in the Camry line up and was based heavily on the Touring model but had added luxuries such as a moonroof and some leather trim. It is rare to see an Azura, the high price tag (circa $46K) meant it was not exactly tremendous value for money.

I wonder if it has something to do with the switch given the headlights and indicators are controlled from the same stalk.

In my experience, the 1MZ-FE in my Camry has given me no troubles. I did have the rocker cover gasket replaced around the 180,000kms mark to fix a minor oil seep. I am now up to 235,000kms.

I have been having an intermittant issue with my reverse lights not working at times. Sometimes they work no problems and other times I need to wriggle the gearstick around whilst in reverse which seems to do the trick. I suspect the problem is the reverse light switch, which is located on the gearbox underneath the car. I am told that manual Camrys are known to have issues with the switch, which I would assume after 13 years has accumulated a fair amount of corrosion / dirt. The part is not that expensive either, I was quoted under $90 from Toyota.

Yeah. But after taking back the car, the steering still looking slightly right when the car going straight. I will have to bring it back to Bob Jane and tell them about it. They mentioned to me that the bolt on the rear seized but I thought the alignment should be the front and not the rear wheel. Does the rear wheel affect alignment too? Camry is a four wheel alignment. Take the vehicle back and ask them to fix the alignment. Everytime I have had a wheel alignment from Bob Jane, I have always ended up going back and asking them to correct the steering. They never seem to get it right even after a second attempt, therefore I now go to an independent shop who actually road tests the car after they have completed an alignment.

The advice supplied by CROCO is spot on. You can make little improvements by removing excess weight and so forth, however I believe the biggest gains come from the way you drive and keeping the car well maintained. Timing your driving to avoid peak hour and stop / start traffic could also provide some economy gains. Running premium unleaded (95RON or higher) can provide some benefit but i have seen mixed opinions on this as the cost of premium sometimes negates any economy benefit.

You do not have to change the whole unit. My mechanic changed it for me in the end.

The major oil companies have buy sell arrangements with each other in order to eliminate the need to transport large quantities of fuel interstate and subsequently save money. You will find that in capital cities where a particular oil company does not have their own refinery, they will generally enter in to an agreement with another oil company and purchase fuel from their refinery. You might find some companies import product in to their terminals from overseas or interstate in lieu of supply from a local refinery, however it will all have to do with achieving the most cost effective outcome. There are terminals that are jointly operated by two oil companies. For example, the Yarraville terminal in Melbourne is a joint venture between Mobil and BP and is supplied by pipeline from the Altona (Mobil) and Corio (Shell) refineries. The 2007 ACCC inquiry in to Unleaded pricing discusses these agreements in some detail. Australia's fuel requirements can no longer be met by our refineries and therefore a lot of fuel is imported from refineries in Asia (namely Singapore I think). I know the Clyde refinery in Sydney is going to close soon and I believe Caltex is reviewing the future of their NSW and QLD refineries. We have lost Port Stanvac (Adelaide) and Western Port (Melbourne). Each company will generally add their own additives in to the fuel, which I understand is done during the tanker loading process at the terminal.

Interesting that you say it is a 2000 model yet the compliance on it is April 1999. My model has a build and compliance date of April 1999 and was delivered to the previous owner in early June 1999. That aside, I would be checking that the timing belt has been done as it was due at 150,000kms but knowing most car owners, they might have skipped on this if they knew they were going to be trading the car in shortly.

I think if the RACV inspector did something dodgy or misleading, you would not have received the report you did. That report clearly highlights a number of areas that require attention, including the clutch. A warranty is useless for cases of wear and tear. If the gearbox failed, for example, the story might be different but not even new car warranties appear to cover the clutch as there are too many variables and it is a consumable part. The steering vibration might be something as simple as an out of balance wheel if it is occuring whilst driving. A balance and wheel alignment will set you back around $70-90 depending on where you go. If the vibration is under braking, your brakes might be warped slightly which can be corrected by machining if the rotors are still a sufficient width or by replacing the rotors. Genuine ones are about $500 for a set of two. I had a rocker cover gasket replaced as it was the cause of a minor oil seep. An independent mechanic did it for around $300. The gasket itself was not expensive, it was the labour that made up the majority of that cost. I have had my steering pump replaced. The whole job was around $400 and included a reconditioned rack, labour and flush / replacement of the power steering fluid. I have also had my steering rack replaced. The rack replacement was around the $600 mark and included a reconditioned rack, wheel alignment, labour and flush / replacement of fluid.

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I had to buy some touch up paint just recently for my 1999 Camry. I just went to the local Toyota dealer and ordered a small bottle. It was $15 and took about three weeks to come in as they had none in stock.

The media here have suggested the Australian spec vehicles will not receive the same audio system as US spec vehicles. Therefore, I would expect something similar to the double DIN units in the current Camry and Aurion models. Toyota have uploaded a video to their website, no doubt this advertisement will get plenty of airtime today during the AFL Grand Final. Toyota Next Gen sedans

Just an update on this and to close out the issue for anyone who might refer to this in the future. The problem became increasingly more common. I spoke to my mechanic, he felt it was the indicator stalk because it was only shorting out in one direction. He told me to wriggle the stalk gently next time the problem happened, and sure enough when I did this, the indicator came back on. I then worked out that the problem only occurred if I used a bit more force than usual when flicking the stalk. Anyway, the stalk has been replaced and the problem rectified. The stalk is available from Toyota, one dealer quoted me $105.

Hi All, Bit of a strange intermittent problem I am having. Sometimes when putting on the left indicator, the relay ticks faster than normal but none of the external globes or the green arrow on the instrument cluster turn on. It seems to be an intermittent problem, only occurring four times in the last week out of a full seven days of driving. The problem is quickly corrected by cancelling the signal and signalling again. Since the right indicator does not seem to be doing this, I suspect the relay might be OK. Has anyone experienced this before? If so, what was the problem. I am not too concerned, only because each time it has happened all I needed to do was quickly flick the switch on and off and it has corrected the problem. However, I would like to get to the root cause and fix this in the near future. Thanks, John.

I have seen this photo pop up a few times. There are certainly similarities to the first post. Source: http://toyota-alabama.com/tag/2012-camry/

Thank you for the replies. I spoke to an Engineer at work, he has pretty much said the same thing and said it sounds like the lifters were briefly starved of oil. I run 20-50W oil and the oil was changed 6,000kms ago, both of which do not ring alarm bells for me. I'll continue to monitor over the next couple of mornings and see if the problem returns.

Hi All, This morning I started my car for the first time in two days. We've had some cold weather in Melbourne over the past two mornings, yesterday was the coldest in a decade and this morning was not much warmer (maybe 5-6 degrees). The car is kept undercover in a garage. Anyway, I started the car and noticed there was a pronounced ticking noise that increased and decrease in line with the RPMs. The noise disappeared after a minute or so of idling. The ticking sound resembled shaking a spray paint can. My 1999 V6 Camry has done 216,000kms and I have owned it since 109,000kms. I've never experienced this noise before. Does anyone have any idea what the ticking could be? Does anyone else experience this?

Some of the Holden VE Commodore models have this feature.

Replacement remotes are available from Toyota. They are generally in stock at dealers and the last time I bought one, they cost around $40-$50. You can easily reprogram the remote yourself using the instructions in the owner's manual or the dealer can do it for you (usually for a fee). Given it is extremely straight forward to program a new remote, it is not worth paying someone to do it for you in my opinion. As for smoke on start up, you probably need to be a little more specific about the colour of the smoke. Blue smoke could indicate oil burning and possibly worn valve seals, although I would think this would occur all the time and not just at start up. White smoke is likely to be condensation, usually you get this on cold mornings when moisture is likely to have formed inside the exhaust. I find condensation disappears once the car has reached normal temperature. I also find that it is possible to get a little bit of condensation on cold start up even when the weather is warm.

Hi All, The reverse lights on my 1999 Camry only seem to work intermittently. I have changed the globes and checked the fuses, but the problem still remains. The car has a manual transmission. Any ideas what I should look at?

2011 Camry / 2012 Aurion New Camry is due out in the second half of this year. The current generation will turn five years old this year (2006-2011), history would tell us the Camry is refreshed every 5-6 years. As per the article above, Aurion and Hybrid Camry are due out in 2012. This makes sense, particularly in the Aurion's case as the original was launched a few months after the Gen 6 Camry.

Vehicles are cheaper in the USA, as is a lot of other things like designer clothes, jewellery, etc. A lot of it probably has to do with better economies of scale thanks to a larger population. In respects to the Camry, it is the top selling medium sized vehicle there and the Toyota USA factories are churning out a lot of these vehicles. The Camry sold close to 328,000 units in the USA in 2010, well down from previous sales figures that were in excess of 400,000. Toyota Australia would be lucky to sell 20,000 Camrys in a year in the Australian market. When the Commodore was being exported to the US, the V8 version (the G8 GT) was selling for about $28,000 USD. In Australia, a SS Commodore (with less features) will set you back close to $50,000 AUD.

That's actually not a bad idea, letting the top models possess the more powerful engine. Its like what they did to the last generation's (Gen 5?) Camry, where the Azura(top of the range) apparently had a better exhaust system which helped the engine produce a bit more power than the others. I saw an article sometime ago that had this picture titled "2012 Camry": 2012 Camry If you look at the doors, they appear to be identical to the current Gen 6 model Camry / Aurion. Toyota have said the 2.5L engine will be produced here in Australia, with the Altona plant securing the contract over Thailand. The engines built at Altona will be used in locally produced Camrys and exported to Thailand for use in Thai built Camrys. Camry is to receive a 6 spd automatic transmission. The other interesting piece of info suggests that the Aurion will be "toned down" and will become more like the US Avalon. I have also read that there will be minimal changes to the Aurion powertrain (i.e. the 3.5L V6 / 6 spd Auto combination will carryover).

Hi All, Just recently, I've noticed that my partner's fuel gauge does not appear to go further up than the 3/4 mark even though the petrol bowser is clicking off. On one occassion, I overfilled the tank and had petrol spill out. We have tried to fill up at different service stations and different pumps at our regular servo but it does not seem to change anything. Is it likely to be a problem with the fuel sender or the gauge itself? Is it a difficult job to change the fuel sender on a Camry? cheers.