Toyota Camry

Jennifer Dylan asked:


The introduction of Tundra to the press is made phenomenal by Toyota. Press people present in the event said that the introduction belongs to a different species of automotive press event.

Usually, reporters from farming, construction, aftermarket trades, towing, hunting and fishing, RV, and motorcycle magazines do not come all at the same ride and drive. Toyota brings them together to take part in a remarkable press event. So far, it is the largest press gathering Toyota has spearheaded in its 45 or so years in the United States.

“People in construction, farming, mining, will help give us credibility,” said Michael O’Brien, product planning manager, who added that, among other things, the commercial sales fleet has been charged with finding high-visibility operations, such as road construction and maintenance companies to sign up for fleet purchases of the truck.

Ernest Bastien, VP vehicle operations group, said Toyota is treating the launch of its Tundra full-size pickup as if it were launching an entirely new division, including reorganizing its marketing and product development teams. “We have co-located planning, advertising, PR, event planning, distribution, accounting, and the company’s University of Toyota,” he added.

Tundra is a full-size pickup truck that was nominated for the North American Truck of the Year award. For the year 2000, Tundra was named Motor Trend’s Truck of the Year. Auto Toyota Tundra body parts are engineered to stand the demands of towing, transporting and other needs of real truckers. Further, auto parts Toyota truck are now also given more attention than before. The emphasis is to penetrate the loyal truck market of the industry.

Toyota is also making a Scion dealer sales-force training program beyond the traditional. In addition, the automaker is running a 4-day product and marketing immersion called “Truck Champions.” “The only dealer training immersion we have done that even comes close to that was for the Prius launch,” said Bastien, who added that Toyota ’s dealership training road show in January is also much larger than before. “We will train some 24,000 salespeople,” he said. “For the Camry launch we trained 18,000.” Auto parts for Toyota Camry exude quality and performance.

The new plant of the automaker in San Antonio, Texas has 200,000 units of capacity. For Princeton, Indiana plant the capacity is 100,000. Toyota intends to sell about 200,000 vehicles next year.



Kimberly

Joe Ratzkin asked:


Toyota Motor Corporation the producer of Lexus brake dust shields has recently announced that it has developed a plug-in hybrid vehicle that will be used for public road tests to be held in Japan, US, and Europe.

Aside from ToMoCo, General Motors and Ford of US are also working on their own plug-in hybrids, which have become an important technology for the reduction of harmful gases that caused global warming.

Plug-in hybrids including that of Toyota generally make use of batteries that power an electric motor. It also has an internal combustion engine that takes over in powering the vehicle once the battery is low. The batteries are charged by simply plugging them into a standard wall outlet.

The plug-ins however run longer on electricity and ideal for shorter distances than the more common hybrids on the road such as the Prius. The Prius is another type of hybrid vehicle that switches between an electric motor and gas engine that results to lesser consumption of fuel.

Toyota is also the first automaker to be given approval by the Japanese government to conduct road tests on public roads. Toyota said that it will gather information about the tests from eight plug-in vehicles that are to be used by the government to determine emissions and fuel efficiency.

Masatami Takimoto a Toyota executive who is in charge of the technology said that the approval came last Wednesday morning. Takimoto however decline to comment on to when Toyota will introduce a plug-in hybrid to the market. But he did say that further development in battery technology is still needed.

The vehicle to be used for the test is called the Toyota Plug-in HV which was displayed last Wednesday and runs on the same nickel metal hydride battery found on the Prius with a traveling range of 13 kilometers or 8 miles on electricity alone. According to Takimoto the test will help determine the range that consumers want.

Large scale production of plug-ins is still not pursued due to issues on costs and battery technology which limits the vehicles’ range. But manufacturers are competing to bring the technology to the market as consumers seek for other alternative aside from traditional engines and high gasoline prices.

Almost all automakers are working to create their own hybrids but Toyota has still the advantage since it has over 10 years of experience in selling the technology. Toyota mostly based the improvements on its hybrids from feedbacks of drivers rather than from lab results.

Toyota has several hybrid offerings available which include the Prius, the hybrid Camry, and the hybrid Lexus. The Japanese automaker has also set a target of selling a million hybrids after 2010 which is not impossible especially since last June the automaker has been able to obtain a cumulative sale of hybrids more than 1 million—a milestone for the automaker.



Frances

Joe Thompson asked:


In September this year, the new 2008 Honda Accord will hit showrooms. The hybrid version of the popular midsize sedan though will not be making an appearance as Honda announced that it will be discontinuing the production of its Honda Accord Hybrid units. A spokesman for the company announced the news following the sales report of the company in the United States which reflected the dwindling sales figures of the hybrid.

“We have found that our hybrid system works better on smaller cars,” says Chris Naughton speaking for the second largest Japanese car manufacturer.

The use of hybrid technology became popular when the price of gasoline started skyrocketing. Hybrid cars use an electric motor to provide assistance to an internal combustion engine. For smaller cars, the use of electric motors means that during low-power operation, the engine is turned off while the electric motor powers the car. This translates to increased fuel economy as the electric motor gets its power from a high power output battery pack.

For larger cars though, the use of a hybrid powertrain is mainly to give the car a better performance. The additional power provided by an electric motor increases the power and torque output of a car. But with this application, the electric motor is not used alone. This means that the fuel savings is less than when a hybrid powertrain is used on a smaller car.

The slight increase in fuel economy led Honda car buyers to opt for the conventional Accord than the Accord Hybrid. Owing to the added electric motor, battery pack and modified engine parts, the Honda Accord Hybrid is priced more than the conventional Accord. With a difference of 6 miles in terms of gas mileage rating, the higher price of the Accord Hybrid does not justify its fuel economy according to Honda car buyers.

Honda though promised that they will be coming up with a hybrid vehicle which is not a version of their popular car models such as the Civic Hybrid. The company announced that the hybrid car will be released in 2009. According to Honda, the vehicle will be smaller and less expensive than the current Honda Civic Hybrid.

The Honda Accord is a bigger than the Civic and is equipped with a bigger engine than its direct competitor, the Toyota Camry Hybrid. The Accord hybrid uses a V6 engine unit with an electric motor which produces 253 horsepower. This increase in power though is second only to the consideration of car buyers as they are looking for fuel efficient cars which can justify the higher price of hybrid vehicles.

The Toyota Camry, on the other hand, is equipped with a smaller four-cylinder engine which returns more miles for a gallon of gasoline. This makes the Camry a better choice for many car buyers. Last month, 14 percent of all hybrid vehicles sold in the United States auto market were Camry Hybrids. The Honda Accord Hybrid only managed to corner 1.4 percent of the hybrid vehicle market.

After the announcement that the Accord Hybrid will be dropped from Honda’s lineup, there were speculations that Honda will be introducing a diesel version of the Accord. According to auto industry experts though, Honda will likely wait for Volkswagen or Mercedes-Benz to test the United States auto market for its reception of diesel cars.



Roland

Anthony Fontanelle asked:


When it comes to car buying, a lot of people consider the different attributes of a vehicle. Others are looking for a new vehicle with good performance while others put more value on comfort. Some buyers are after the exterior design of a vehicle while some are looking for vehicles loaded with features. There are also those whose choice of vehicle depends on its safety. But one thing that all consider is a vehicle’s reliability. And when it comes to reliability issues, Toyota is tops - that is, until this year.

Consumer Reports recently reported that Toyota’s vehicles’ reliability has declined. This comes after years of the Japanese automaker’s leadership in the industry when it comes to reliability. The Consumer Reports 2007 Annual Car Reliability Survey shows that consumers are now finding Toyota vehicles less reliable than their ancestors. In contrast, Ford’s vehicles have received good marks from consumers.

The most popular Toyota nameplate, the V6 variant of the Camry received a dismal and surprising below average rating in terms of predicted reliability. The Camry has been redesigned fore 2007 and it has always been Toyota’s best selling vehicle. It has been known through the years as a reliable car. The redesign though may have had negative effects on the reliability of the car.

Aside from the 2007 Camry, the redesigned and beefed-up Toyota Tundra also received a below average rating in reliability. The four-wheel drive V8 version of the full-size pickup truck received the dismal rating. Even Lexus’ all-wheel drive variant of the GS sedan received a below average rating. Since Consumer Reports does not recommend any vehicle with a below average rating, the three variants are no longer on the prestigious “Recommended list” of Consumer Reports.

Although reliability of aforementioned variants dropped below average, the automaker in general is still third in the overall reliability ranking. That includes Toyota’s luxury division Lexus and its youth brand Scion. The Japanese automaker ranked below fellow Japanese automakers. Honda is ranked as the producer of the most reliable automobiles. Subaru, the makers of the durable Subaru ignition coil, spark plugs, and spark plug wires is ranked second.

Toyota Motor Sales Executive Vice President Jim Lentz had this to say in response to the Consumer Reports announcement: “Over all, this survey reflects well on our products. However, we’re taking measures every day to continue to sharpen quality and enhance customer satisfaction.” Being on track to become the largest automaker in the world, Toyota has been stepping up its production output. It is only normal for automakers to have problems with quality control after a huge boost in production. Thus Toyota is expected to bounce back from this minor stumble.

In the past, redesigned Toyota vehicles have been recommended by Consumer Reports due to the automaker’s track record. The Auto Channel reported that even if Consumer Reports have insufficient reliability data for a new vehicle, it still recommends redesigned Toyota, Lexus, and Scion nameplates due to the aforementioned reason. But with the amount of Toyota recalls this year, Consumer Reports gave the redesigned Toyota vehicles below average reliability scores. If Toyota can bounce back to its trademark stance in terms of reliability, Consumer Reports may bring back its policy to recommend the automaker’s newly redesigned vehicles.



Sheila

Viet P asked:


I need to tell the differences between the two Toyota cars - the Camry and the Aurion.

Janet

Confused asked:


I ask this because I know my neighbor has the same year Camry as me and once in a while I’ll see my doors are unlocked and could this be possible? Or maybe I’m just suffering amnesia lol.

Antonio

Mike Bartley asked:


As the Fourth of July approaches, Cars.com named the ten “most American cars”. This is not an easy task since the distinction between domestic and foreign nameplates have been blurred in the past years. There are American branded cars built outside the United States while there are also foreign-branded vehicles assembled in the country. And then there are also American brands with vehicles assembled in the country but owned by foreign companies.

Toyota and Honda are just two of foreign car manufacturers assembling vehicles in the United States from parts made in the United States and assembled by American workers. The number of Toyota assembly facilities in the country has increased exponentially and this has lead to the brand having three nameplates in the list of top ten most American cars.

“With the large increase in the number of Toyota makes and models that are being built and sold in this country, it isn’t a surprise that the manufacturer now has three vehicles that made the top 10,” says Patrick Olsen, the managing editor of cars.com. “I wouldn’t be surprised to see more foreign makes and models on the list in the near future.”

According to cars.com, the most American nameplate is the Ford F-150, the bestselling variant of Ford’s F Series. This full size pickup truck is assembled in Claycomo, Missouri and in Dearborn, Michigan. Last December, when cars.com also posted its list of top ten most American cars, the F-150 appeared on top of the list.

Number two on the list is the Toyota Camry Hybrid. This midsize sedan comes with a hybrid powertrain and is assembled in Toyota’s Georgetown, Kentucky assembly facility. Some Camry and Camry Solara units are also manufactured in Toyota’s assembly facility in Lafayette, Indiana. The Camry retains its position in the second spot which is also the same spot that it occupied last December.

Number three on the list is the Chevrolet Silverado. Another full size pickup, this nameplate is the strongest competitor of the F-150 in the market. General Motors assembles the Silverado in Fort Wayne, Indiana and in Pontiac, Michigan. Similar to the F-150 and the Camry, the Silverado also retained its pervious position last December.

The fourth nameplate on the list is the Chevy Cobalt. This compact car introduced by General Motors in 2004 is assembled in Lordstown, Ohio. The Cobalt also remains in the number four spot. Its main competitors are the Honda Civic and the Toyota Corolla. A Weathertec-branded aftermarket part will look very much at home in the Cobalt.

From being unranked last December, the Ford Focus took the fifth spot this month. The small family car is assembled by FoMoCo on their Wayne, Michigan assembly facility. The Toyota Sienna moved up two places to number six. This minivan is being manufactured by the Japanese carmaker in its Princeton, Indiana plant.

Dropping to number seven from last December’s sixth spot is the Chevrolet Malibu. The midsize car is manufactured in Kansas City, Kansas. The Malibu is followed on the list by the Pontiac G6. The G6 is another midsize car manufactured by General Motors. The G6 moved one notch upward to eighth place. It is assembled in General Motors’ Orion, Michigan assembly facility. The Ford Escape Hybrid assembled in Claycomo, Missouri is the ninth most American car and the Toyota Tundra built in Princeton, Indiana and San Antonio Texas is the tenth.



Wesley

selwyn51 asked:


I have 2001 camry v6, which need replacement of catalytic converter, the car has 1.30K miles on it, please suggest which repair shop is best and cheap to fix it.

Ray

Evander Klum asked:


General Motors’ divisions in Latin America, Africa and Middle East are experiencing immense growth which has encouraged the automaker to allot more fund and responsibility to those regions, the Division’s Group Vice President reportedly said Tuesday.

Maureen Kempston Darkes said during her visit to Detroit, “These are growing markets and we must take advantage of the opportunity that exists. Critical for our success is to stretch the manufacturing capacity.”

General Motors has announced last month its plan of spending $500 million in Brazil to finance the manufacturing of small cars for that country as well as other countries including Argentina and Paraguay. The automaker is also hoping to expand the region’s product development center.

The center is designed to take on the responsibility of developing GM’s small cars in support of its GM Daewoo operations in Korea. GM will hire 600 engineers for the said expansion, said Kempston Darkes. She also added that the division is also developing opportunities for midsize trucks and considering investing in Columbia and Venezuela.

The General Motors’ strategy is to position itself in emerging markets so that the company will grow simultaneously with these economies.

The automaker is still trying hard to restructure its finances in North America and therefore needs to invest in emerging markets in order to keep up with the rest of the other automakers, explained Kempston Darkes. She also said that the automaker is in need of products that would particularly cater to buyers in different markets.

General Motors’ division in Latin America, Africa and Middle East has launched 17 new products last year and for this year, the company is again expecting to launch the same number.

And in connection with the growth strategy that GM is implementing it is launching a redesigned Chevrolet Malibu equipped with quality Chevrolet catalytic converter to compete with Toyota’s Camry.

However some industry observers are doubtful that GM will be able to convince Americans that a redesigned aging nameplate like the Malibu can topple down the rock-image of the Camry.

Aside from that, Honda — another strong rival of GM, has also released its own entry in the family sedan market—the Honda Accord. GM’s redesigned Chevrolet Malibu would also have to compete with the Accord.

It can be remembered that last year that Honda was able to sell more than 354,000 Accord sedans and coupes. But despite such volume Toyota has remained to be at the top rank with 448,000 units of Camry sold. Last year General Motors sold 163,800 Malibus and 289,000 Impalas.

General Motors will also spend $100 million for the promotion of the new Malibu but still industry observers are doubtful that an expensive ad blitz can turn things for the Malibu.



Phillip

carazoo.com asked:


Every individual will have different moods everyday, but one thing that remains constant is their persona. It is the same with the colour choice that is preferences may differ but every person will a have their favorite colour. The favorite colour of an individual also reflects the characteristics and nature of an individual and I feel selecting a colour for your car also depends upon the kind of person the owner is!

The Indian auto market offers various colors to its vehicles but the top five colours or shades customers prefer are among the best-selling car models. To start with is the colour:

Silver shines

In Indian tradition, the gold is given the preference but in terms of cars; the silver outshines the yellow metal. The colour silver on a car is the best seller among all the car models and most of the customers prefer the colour first. It is the silver days for Indians

Silver colour indicates the elegance clubbed with simplicity. It projects out a clear evidence is the spark that one can notice in the onlookers’ eyes. Hyundai and Maruti buyers mostly prefer bright silver and silky silver colour, where as for the Honda and Toyota it is the new warm silver and silver metallic that sells the most. Looking into the Toyota figure, we noticed that each dealer sells almost 600 silver cars a month.

Beige

It is the color signifying simplicity. A classic and soothing colour that is best suited for the country like India. Its softness and class makes it the No. 2 choice of Indian car buyers. The colour is referred to as Real Earth or Grace Beige, and most of the car that carry this colours are Santro Xing and Getz from Hyundai. Some of the models like Mahindra and Mahindra’s Scorpio (diamond white), Ford Fiesta (platinum), Honda CR-V (opal beige metallic), Toyota Corolla, Camry and Innova (beige mica metallic), Maruti Alto, Zen and Wagon R (pearl silver) are combined with the shades of beige clubbed with the other similar shades are selling like hot cakes.

Black

The colour of power comes third in the rank. Though black is associated with sadness in India, and also picks up heat, scratches faster but still is a colour party goer. It stays ahead of the colour ‘white’ which is again one of the hot selling colours. Black is the colour of youngsters and it is favored colour across small to large cars segment.

Almost all the car brands offer this colour. Some of the cars that have different name for the colour for black are Maruti Alto and Wagon R (midnight black), Swift (metallic midnight black), Honda Accord and Toyota Camry. In the new Honda City ZX, the colour is popularly known as Night hawk and Night hawk black pearl in the best-selling SUV of Honda CR-V.

White

the universal colour, the colour of peace and calmness. This evergreen colour always remains in fashion, our kings of yesteryears Ambassador was always in this royal colour.

Sold the maximum (and visible on the roads) in cars like Wagon R (superior white), Toyota Corolla (pearl white), Toyota Camry (super white) and Honda City (tafeta white).

Red

Tagged as the colour of love is definitely is a bold for certain cars. Some of the cars that look ‘hot’ in red are Accents, Swifts and Lancers in bright red. Some of the car in small segment like Altos moving around in wine red or bright red is seen too. Paprika red is the colour of Ford Fiesta fans and dark red mica metallic goes for MUV Innova from Toyota.

Honda city looks classy in its royal ruby red. Though a very sensational colour but may not be the most suited for the hot Indian conditions.



Harvey