I purchased an SDV10 series Camry and happily drove it around for a couple of thousand k's then it developed a miss at idle which could have been lots of things until a couple of things gave it away. First when you turned the car off it blew bubbles in the radiator overflow bottle which became quite dirty. When I washed it out it smelled of exhaust which confirmed the head gasket was leaking. Easy quick fix I will put some Chemiweld in it to see what happens. When I flushed the coolant out I noticed residue from Chemiweld or something similar flush out of the cooling system which explained why the car did not have coolant in it when I bought it and why it had like a calcium growth anywhere the cooling system may have been leaking. Now this is where the story gets interesting. I went looking for a donor car or one to replace the one I had that I could steal some items off and move over to another car. There were lots around that were sitting in workshop yards and when I approached the people I was told the same thing all the time. That car is sitting there because the engine has been overheated and it won't run now. And the funny thing is the driver's said the temp gauge never went over normal, which leads me to believe there is a fault with the original temp gauge in the Camry's. I even had a radiator fitter tell me they never trust Toyota Camry temp gauge's and always put a temp probe in the top tank to check if the car is hot. To which I asked him what had caused them to overheat, and he told me it was a combination of the radiators and thermostat failing at the same time. So if you own one of the 10/20 series Camry I would urge you to fit an accessory temp gauge for your own safety and if you are looking at buying one of these and it has a miss in the engine at idle or no green or red coolant in the radiator walk away. I went looking at the wreckers for a coolant overflow bottle and they all had the same problem they were cracked and brittle so I purchased a replacement bottle. I believe if you went looking you will also find thousands of these Camry's that have been overheated and blown the head gaskets simply because the temp gauge does not work properly. And the cars had not been looked after.
