I’ve always had a hard time getting excited about the Toyota Camry, despite its ever-increasing level of technical perfection. It has always seemed about as appliance-like as a car could get. Two years ago when the car was redesigned, Toyota made a half-hearted attempt to offer a Camry for people who desire a bit more excitement by adding an SE trim line. Though the differences between this trim line and other Camrys are fairly minor—a stiffer suspension, blacked-out details on the exterior and metallic details on the interior—it was a good start. I drove a 2003 SE, and came away much more impressed with the car than I expected to be, especially by its overall comfort and refinement. (Yes, hardly the top priorities for a driving enthusiast, but they sure are nice.)
Still the Camry SE had a big problem. While its 3.0-liter V6 produced 192 horsepower, the 3.0 in the new Mazda 6 produced 220, that in the 2003 Accord put out 240, and the 3.5 in the Altima kicked out 245. In this crowd the Camry’s numbers just weren’t cutting it. But I did not expect this situation to last. My review of the 2003 Camry SE offered a prediction: “The automatic transmission shifts very smoothly. Its major weakness is the lack of a fifth gear. I fully expect Toyota to add a gear and boost horsepower within a year or two. This is a core product, and surely Toyota will not fail to react to Honda’s powertrain advantages.”
And so it has come to pass. For 2004 Toyota has upgraded the V6 in the Camry SE to a 225-horsepower 3.3-liter. (In the LE, the 3.0 is retained but gains a boost to 210 horsepower.) To further aid performance (and match the Accord), the V6 automatic gains a fifth ratio to allow a steeper first gear and tighter spacing between gears (so RPM fall less when shifting). Is this update enough?
Toyota Camry Reliability
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Styling
The current Camry looks much like the previous generation Camry, just taller. That’s because it is taller by nearly three inches, a very significant amount. More in person than in photos this makes the car look strangely tall and somewhat slab-sided, despite the use of a sweeping character line along the bottoms of the doors to disguise the additional height. Thankfully, the 16” five-spoke alloy wheels optional on the SE help here. With them the bodysides no longer appear awkwardly tall.
With the redesign wheelbase increased by two inches, resulting in better proportions. With the previous generation Camry the wheelbase looked too short for the length of the car, especially compared with competitors like the Accord. Now the proportions are satisfactory, if extremely conventional. For leading edge wheels-pushed-to-the-corners styling you’ll have to look elsewhere.
The details that attend the SE trim line do as much as possible to lend flair to the car, especially from the front. Most notable are the integrated foglamps, which make the bumper appear less massive, and blacked-out headlight surrounds and grille. For 2004 the formerly standard rear spoiler becomes a $435 option. Both cars I saw at the dealer, the cloth car I drove and the leather one I did not, had this option. Personally, I’d pass. Even though the spoiler is tasteful, these became a cliché some time ago.
My largest issue with the Camry’s styling continues to be the huge taillamps. I notice these every time I pull up behind a Camry. Though I suppose this is the point, aesthetically they appear absurdly tall. Couldn’t they be just a bit smaller?
Overall, in SE trim I find myself warming to the exterior appearance of the Camry. With the 16” alloys, the proportions look right. In darker shades the car’s lack of curves and sheer surfaces lend it an elegant character, to which the wheels and trim add a touch of sportiness. It is certainly a less controversial design than the current Accord’s, if not as sporty as the Mazda6’s or as striking as the Altima’s.
In the interior, appliance-like styling is taken to an all-new level. Nothing crazy like you’ll find in the Echo or Matrix. It could not be more generic. The dash is virtually flat from door to door. This makes the radio and HVAC controls a bit difficult to reach without leaning forward, though once you reach them they are simple to use. The door panels, fitted with long flat armrests, are similarly flat.
The main thing I would like to see changed with the styling of the Camry’s interior is the center of the dash. The radio, climate controls, and center vents form a unit with a line around their periphery. As this unit is wider than the center console, and the center console rises to join the dash a few inches back from its front surface, it seems as if this interior was designed for a bench front seat—say, in a Buick—and thus as if the center console is tacked on. The Camry isn’t even available with a bench seat. A more cleanly integrated center console that flowed up into the control area would look both more upscale and sportier.
The SE trim adds some helpful details. The leather-wrapped three-spoke steering wheel unique to the SE both looks and feels good. I especially like the gauges. The champagne faces are perhaps a bit too trendy, but the detailing of the delicate needles, inset minor gauges, and gear indicator all indicate that someone with a very finely tuned aesthetic sense spent a great deal of time here. So many instruments these days are plain, crude, or both. For example, note the Cadillac CTS’s thick needles, the absurdly small tachometer in the Mercedes C and E, the artless positioning of the Altima’s minor gauges, and the overly large size and overly plain font of the Accord’s luminescent speedometer. Why is this so hard? Sure, the Camry’s gauges aren’t perfect, but compared to these others I enjoyed looking at them.
Aside from the special instruments, the SE includes trendy metallic-style interior trim. For 2003 Nissan added large expanses of this stuff to the Altima. Sorry, but the revised interior still seems chintzy. In the Toyota both the amount of trim and the details of its execution are tasteful, even more so than in the similarly trimmed Accord. The interior may be plainly styled, but every bit exudes quality. Even the textured cloth upholstery looks and feels several grades higher in quality than the mousy velour in the Altima (at least in black). Even in EX trim the new Accord falls a bit short of the Camry SE in interior quality. The Passat exceeds it in some areas, but not in others. Overall the interior of the Camry is a nice place to be.
Both outside and inside I really like the Camry, but don’t love it. For love they’d have to make the sedan look much more like the redesigned, absolutely beautiful 2004 Camry Solara coupe. Maybe in 2007? That’s an awfully long time to wait. Why not this time? I suspect that the sedan was entirely styled in Japan while the coupe was initially styled by Toyota’s California-based advanced design studio. It’s time to let the Americans do the sedan as well. Since Toyota is in the process of establishing a full-fledged design center in Michigan this just might happen.
By the way, I’m trusting that the end result won’t resemble the vapid ES 330. That design adopts the worst aspects of the 1996 Ford Taurus and 1998 Chrysler Concorde, as a result looking much like a sad fish. It is a testament to the power of the Lexus brand (and the quality of the car’s interior) that it nevertheless sells well.
Accommodations
I suspect that Toyota’s main goal with the interior styling was to make the car feel as open and roomy as possible. In this it succeeded. The increases in height and wheelbase over the previous Camry translated into generous headroom and more legroom than most people can use. The current sedan is very roomy, front and back, and owing to the flat dash and door panels feels even roomier. Though the Altima and Accord have nearly identical interior volumes on paper, the Camry feels roomier than either. The Accord even feels a bit tight in comparison. In the front seat this lends the Accord a slightly sportier character. While the Camry’s interior is wide open, the Accord’s envelops you.
The Camry’s front seats are appropriately firm, neither too soft as in the Altima nor too hard as in various German cars. Lateral support is largely absent, which could pose a problem if the car is driven aggressively. (The Accord does a bit better here.) This year I again drove a car with the cloth, and this good-looking (at least in black), grippy upholstery helped hold me in place. The leather, as nice as it looks, could be a problem.
Where the Camry pulls ahead is in back. The height of the car’s roof makes it possible to mount the rear seat fairly high, so it provides very good thigh support—something all too rare even among larger sedans. The Altima rear seat comes close, but isn’t quite as comfortably shaped. The Accord’s rear seat is mounted lower, and legroom is not as generous (despite what the specs suggest). A fifth person can fit in the middle of the Camry’s rear seat, but because the seat bulges out and is firmer there that person will not be comfortable.
The trunk is similarly spacious, noticeably more so than that in the current Accord. For more cargo room, the rear seats fold down in two parts. (This is how it is generally done, but with the Accord the seatback is not split, so it’s all or nothing.) Although I would like to see a larger pass through—the one in the Camry is quite short vertically—I would be hesitant to buy a sedan without this feature.
On the Road
The new 3.3-liter (which is shared with the 2004 Solara, RX 330, Sienna, and ES 330) produces 225 horsepower at 5600 RPM. This is notably lower than the Accord engine’s 6250 RPM peak and Mazda6 engine’s 6300 RPM peak, and even a bit lower than the Altima engine’s 5800 RPM peak. The torque peak is even more impressive, 222 foot-pounds at 3600 RPM. The Accord engine produces ten fewer foot-pounds, the Mazda 6 engine a substantial 30 fewer, in both cases 1400 RPM higher up their ranges. The Nissan engine is even stronger than the Camry’s in the midrange, though, with 246 pounds-feet at 3600 RPM. It, however, remains married to a four-speed transmission with relatively tall gearing. End result? Once the effects of gearing are factored in the Camry SE’s new powertrain largely closes the performance gap with the others. It feels nearly as quick as the Accord, and while the automatic Altima feels quicker than either the times posted by magazines suggest that the advantage is entirely subjective. The Camry, Accord, and Altima can hit 60 in about seven seconds. The Accord and especially the Camry don’t feel quite that fast—their quietness and overall slickness belie their quickness. The Mazda is not quite as quick as the others. Its midrange is noticeably less punchy. In my opinion it’s still plenty quick, though.
As with the Altima V6, premium fuel is recommended with the new Camry V6. Amazingly, the Honda engine, despite producing by far the most power per liter, both has the highest EPA mileage ratings by one to three miles per gallon and uses regular.
All four V6s are smooth and generally refined. The Accord’s is by a small margin over the Camry’s the quietest—muffled even at full throttle—while the Altima’s is by far the loudest. The Camry’s might be a happy medium, loud enough to be sporting but never so loud as to be intrusive. Like the Accord six, this engine sounds like luxury. The only American-engineered V6 that comes close is the CTS’s new 3.6-liter.
Sadly, once again no manual is available with the V6. But then I didn’t care for the shifter in the four-cylinder Camry, so maybe this isn’t a huge loss. Those who want to shift for themselves will probably be happiest in the Mazda among these three, as only it and the Nissan offer a manual with six cylinders and the Nissan has too many weaknesses. The Accord, however, has by far the best shift quality, and the 160-horsepower four feels fairly powerful and is among the most refined fours I’ve driven. (For quicker acceleration than the Accord four and an even more satisfying shifter check out the Acura TSX.)
The new five-speed automatic, like all Camry automatics in recent memory, is very smooth. It reacts reasonably quickly to a heavy right foot. The transmission continues to lack a manual shift feature, but then so do the Honda’s and the Nissan’s.
When I drove the Camry LE the seat bolsters seemed way too soft. I have had no such problems in the SE, though I’m not sure the foam in the SE’s seats is any different. Rather, the difference could be that I spent less time pressed against the bolsters. Two reasons come to mind. The first I’ve already mentioned: the SE’s unique cloth is fairly grippy. The second is likely more influential: the SE leans quite a bit less in turns than the LE. While clearly still no hard-edged sports sedan, the Camry SE has a pleasantly solid, fluid feel when driven moderately hard. It exhibits much more stable handling than my earlier experience with the LE led me to expect. It is very hard to upset the composure of this car’s chassis. Unlike in the Altima, torque steer is kept at bay. Fluid, moderately firm steering provides a moderate amount of feedback. Still, the car does not ask to be driven aggressively. In my mind it’s a very good touring sedan, but not a sports sedan despite the (now optional) rear spoiler.
The SE’s firmer suspension not only does not harm the ride, but improves it. The LE felt a touch bobbly, like an entry-level Buick. Though the SE’s suspension reacts more firmly to bumps in the road, it never reacts abruptly, and in general the ride remains impressively composed. It feels much more upscale than the LE. (A third, luxury trim line, the XLE, supposedly shares suspension tuning with the LE. Still, I would not be surprised if the XLE’s lower-profile tires lent it a richer-feeling ride.) The Accord EX felt a bit less firm. The Altima 3.5 SE felt much firmer, with little benefit to handling but with a serious detriment to that car’s ride. The Mazda6’s ride is at best a bit better than the Nissans, but at least it provides a payoff in sharper handling than the other cars discussed here. All in all, the ride-handling balance of the Camry SE’s suspension is surprisingly good.
With the 1992 Camry Toyota incorporated the lessons learned in making the big Lexus extremely quiet into its mainstream sedan. The current Camry, two generations along, further raises the bar in this area. Even on the highway this is a very quiet car. Engine, road, and wind noise are all low. With its redesign, the Accord is now also very quiet, but the Camry still has an advantage in this area. All other sedans I’ve driven in this price range, especially the Altima, are noisier. Bottom line: the Camry is the smoothest, most refined car in its class.
Pricing
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Last Words
Last year I concluded:
“As much as I hate to say it, I enjoyed driving and looking at the Camry SE much more than I expected to. The roominess, comfort, quality, refinement, and general competence of this car are all impressive. Even in SE trim the Camry is still not a car that asks to be driven hard. But as a touring sedan it is very satisfying. The suspension manages to both ride and handle well. The SE is certainly much more appealing both aesthetically and dynamically than the base-level LE; the extra $1,440 is money very well spent.
“My main reservation involves the new Accord, which performs better, uses regular gas, virtually matches the Camry in refinement, and costs significantly less. Among family sedans the Camry is a very good choice, but the Accord is a better one unless maximizing rear seat comfort and trunk volume—or simply the Toyota brand—is a high priority.”
Well, things have changed. The Camry’s price relative to the Accord has dropped about $2,000 while its performance has significantly increased to at least match the Accord’s. Put these two changes together and the Camry takes back the crown. I now find myself—a person as anti-Camry as they come—concluding that for the vast majority of midsize sedan buyers the Camry SE V6 is easily the best buy in its class. The Camry's main weakness is bland styling, but if the striking new Solara is any indication this weakness will not outlast the current generation. Toyota aims to be the #1 auto manufacturer in the world in the not too distant future, and this is how it is done.
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