Pros: Spacious, quiet cabin. Excellent finish, powerful ride. Very reliable, high resale.
Cons: Youngsters might want the V6.
The Bottom Line: The Camry should definitely be on the top of your list for its awesome overall driving experience, room, resale, clean, sculpted line. Definitely recommended!
Exterior
Tall, graceful, expensive and powerful-looking. Clean, sculpted lines, looks much more expensive than it is. Exterior fit and finish is excellent! Paint is very smooth and waxing can help maintain it.
Interior
Dash: Plain, almost reaching boring.
UPDATE Jan 1 2005: I got some wood trim pieces from Toyota for the dash and fixed it and now the dash looks very elegant. I'll post more photos of the interior soon.
UPDATE: JAN 1 2005:
The hollow beneath the radio/ac controls in the center console actually turned out to be a blessing. I bought a Fujitsu Tablet PC and got Microsoft Streets and Trips 2005 and USB GPS receiver. With 2 strips of velcro, I can attach the tablet PC to the center console in seconds and have mobile GPS. It has saved us a lot of headache on long trips. With the mobile GPS, we never get "lost" since we always know where we are. It's amazing technology and it almost looks like Toyota deliberately left that "hollow" for technophiles like me to use for good cause.
Room: there's plenty of that, in all directions. Especially the height of the seats - you can clearly see down the hood sitting in the front seats. The back seats are high, very comfortable and feels natural - like a chair. Very pleasant as a tourer.
Controls: Very logical, simple, intuitive.
Seats and head/leg room: Back seats are outstanding. Front seats are fairly comfy, but lack lateral support so if you take a corner too fast, you'll shift in the seat a bit. They're high, so very comfortable and there's plenty of legroom to stretch while on Cruise - so long trips are a breeze! Headroom is outstanding!
UPDATE Jan 1 2005: Seats: Factory cloth seats are horrible and dull. So I got Leather w/ suede inserts installed from ClassicSoftTrim. Now the interior feels like a luxury car's. I love the exterior and the interior now.
Driving
Smooth, refined and powerful engine. Quiet, peaceful cabin and a smooth, isolated ride make for a great tourer. A pleasure to drive. With 4 adults and an uphill incline, the car revvs too hard - not enough power. Bumps and rough roads are minimized and you soon forget you're on a road with so much traffic.
UPDATE 2005: I wasn't pushing the car enough since it was new; I was treating it like a baby. Now that I have driven 9000 miles and drag-raced with other cars - most of the time, I win. People are surprised at how fast the car accelerates given its size and the low HP spec. The power delivery is silky.
Reliability/Resale
Camry is famous for reliability and resale value. Holds its value really well and runs for thousands of miles and tens of years.
Standard Equipment
My LE came with all power, keyless entry with spare keys and 2 remotes, trunk can be opened with remote and a panic button. No security installed as standard. A useless cargo net looks cool, but gets in the way.
The floor mat is nice and has the Camry name on it - fits perfectly.
UPDATE Jan 1 2005: I bought burgundy floor mats from an online store and now the car interior looks much richer than when I had the dull beige factory mats.
Comes with 2 map lights and 1 central light. 2 Airbags - only front, no side. Factory CD player with 6 (paper-cone) speakers.
UPDATE Jan 1 2005: I got 2 Alpine co-axials on the rear deck and now the sound is much much better. The front door speakers cannot be easily replaced - you need custom brackets for that and you have to find a shop to do that. Wonder why Toyota did that. I also intend to get Sub-Woofers installed soon. Even with just adding the Alpines, the factory CD player now sounds awesome.
Summary: I absolutely love the 2004 Camry and friends/co-workers are astounded when they hear that I got it at invoice price of $17,786. It looks expensive. Ride is smooth, cabin is ultra-quiet. Definitely prefer it over any competitor within the $17,000 - $25,000 range. XLE V6 might be the way to go if you have the cash. The 2005 Camry has standard ABS and that's a huge deal. I know especially since I was stuck on I-40 during Christmas in the ice storm.
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
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