Probably soon to be a proud/unproud owner of a 97 Camry

[toyotaspeed90]

Will probably be our most boring car.... and probably just a commuter.... but now you might see me trolling in the Camry forums.

If ya don't know of me.... currently have:

1990 Toyota Corolla SR5... high comp 7age build... lots of work done
1986 Toyota MR2.... in the works to be an MK1.22
1987 Toyota MR2.... ae92 4agze with ae101 components on MS1 v2.2 (first MS 4agze to retain the s/c... that I can find)
2010 Toyota Corolla S (SMG) 5 speed (100% stock)

and a piece'a'crap pickup.

So the Camry we're getting for a song & dance. It has a pushed in fender on one side and 180K miles. 5sfe & boring AT. I know it has very good maintenance records (two timing belt services & regular oil changes).


Oddly enough I'm getting it from my parents. They are getting my grandmothers 96 4 cyl Camry that has only 30K miles on it.... and they want preventative maintenance done to it (belts, WP, hoses, etc) which I'm buying the parts & doing the work for their car. So I'm looking at around $250 out of pocket and it will save my parents ~$1,000 to have a shop do the work.


Anywho... might see me in here.... but this is planned to just be a DD and nothing more. Since I will be the main driver... we'll see how well that plan sticks. (already debating a 5 sp swap and I don't even have posession of the car yet, )

[Woodyg]

They both sound like nice cars. I have heard about thes 15 year old cars with 30k mile but have never seen one myself

[vincentfox]

Me I think the Gen4 body style looks WAY better than the Gen3. YMMV.

Part I don't like is you rarely find Gen4 at Pick-n-Pull so scavenging up some parts can be a bit more 'spensive.

Either way enjoy!

[toyotaspeed90]

yeah... it'll be the car that we take places that we don't care where we park (lots of crowds) & snow driving...

I'll snap some pics of the low mileage car when it gets here. I won't be doing the work/getting the 97 until the last weekend of the month.

On the MK1.22 (which is now complete and I drove it yesterday...) I basically had to do the timing belt in it (replace the oil pump seal between the 2 halves).... and I can't imagine that in a Camry there's less room & requires to lower the motor just to get the crank pulley off..... Replacing that seal, which included cleaning up enough and running down to Toyota to get the seal, took about 4 hours...

So... I'm expecting all of the work on the 96 to take about 5 hours or so... (timing belt, idlers, serp belts, rad hoses, cap/rotor/wires/plugs, oil change, and maybe trans fluid change)