2007 Hybrid Camry In-depth Consumer Review

[phenderson]

OK folks...
I picked up my new Barcelone Red 2007 Camry Hybrid, fully loaded, from the Kings Nissan Toytoa Dealership in Mason Ohio (19 miles north of Cincinnatti, and is considered Cincinnatti) Last Monday, 07/31/06. When I took delivery of the vehicle, it had 40 miles on it (dealership guys).

Keep in mind that I am 32 and have owned the past few cars or the past 9 years since I have been driving. God has blessed me to have be able to own each car. brand new. so I can only compare the Camry experience to those.

97 Brandnew Ford Aspire (although this was my very first car, I only kept this car for a year) in 97, my Junior year of College, until I traded it in for a:

98 Volkwagon Jetta TDI (The original gas saver... awesome car... why oh why did I not keep this vehicle, kept it for 4 years of a lease, and then have it to my brother, who kept it for 2 years more, and then sold it outright for $6K, 44 miles in the city, 49 on the highway, back when folks just did not care about gas mileage). When I gave my brother the V, I bought:

2002 Nissan Altima 2.5S, which I kept for 2 years and 32, 000 miles and then traded in for a

2004 Nissan Altima 2.5SL (Sunset red) which I still have and have purchased the new Camry.


Enuff about my history...
What about the mileage on the car...

Well, this is my first Camry... and before I can tell you about the mileage I have to telly ou about my commute. You see, I don't live in northern Ky, I live in Lexington Ky. Why did I buy the car from Kings Toyota? Because I work down the street. SO My commute is

103 miles one way, 206 miles a day, 4 days a week. Up and Down US 75

of that 103 mile one way commute,

*6 miles are in the City of Lexington (maybe 5 stoplights in all)

*1.5 miles are in the City of Mason (exit 19 to my office).

*Between those 6 miles in Lexington, and 1.5 miles in Mason, I have 96-98miles worth of highway.

*Of those 98 miles of highway, 5 of those miles are at 65 mph (well the construction zone is 55 mph, but of course I always drive 10 miles over the speed limit) around the Dry Ridge Ky area. Then the rest of those miles are at 75 mph (65mph) between Dry Ridge and Northern Ky Exit 188 where the speed limit drops back down to 65(55) from there, across the bridge and all the way back to Ohio Exit 15 where get goes back up to 75 (65)

All in all, I would say that there is about 65 miles worth of 65mph speedzones, and about 30 miles worth of 55mph speedzones.

When I initially took delivery of the car, on the way home, I got exactly 38mpg!!!, Yes, 38 mpg on that 1st long drive home. The drive also included a few stops in the city and travel around New Circle to take a friend home.

I drove the car, to a couple of places for the next few days (I was basically off last week and did not have to travel to my office in Cincy). After trips back and forth to church, and a trip or 2 here and there, I had basically driven 169 miles. On Monday, I travelled to the gas station (Exit 109, Georgetown KY, 15 miles away from My lexington home) and refilled the gas tank up...

$14.00 is all it took... $14.00
I was AMAZED.... so I drove the car to work, and back... and then then the next day, I went to the gas station $16.00 to fill up my tank... $16.00 and that was after I topped off the tank...200 miles for $16.00 worth of gas... WOW.... that is all I needed to know... With my Altima, I would drive and one trip would costs me $20-25.00. But here I drove the Camry, and the Gas Gauge read a little bit under a Quarter of a tank of gas... and it cost me $16.00 to fill it back up, not $20-25.00

Keep in mind that the Altima has a 20 gallon tank which is bigger then the Camry's listed 17.2 (I thought that it was 18.8, Jury is still out on this one). All I know is that I would take one trip to the office in the Altima, get home, fill up the tank, and it would cost me $anywhere from 20-30.00. I can remember taking 2 trips and filling up to the tone of $45.00-55.00 at the end of the those 2 trips. Needless to say my gas bill is now at $50-60.00 a week as opposed to the $90-100.00 I was flat out spending on the Altima. A

As for mileage...

I drove within the speed limits on Monday. My Gas mileage for the entire trip was 37 mpg
Yesterday (tuesday) after filling the tank up in town to the tone of 15.00 ($2.89 per gallon, and I topped off starting at $14.29) I was running late (stupid cheap me, drove 5 miles out of the way, just to save 6 cents on gas) so I can say that I was above the speed limit onthe way to work, but even, wayyyy above the speed limit, the car was getting 34mpg. Today, I went out of the way (well, I did not have to drive to the office today, I did go to Home Depot and the bank in that area of the cheap gas) to go to the same gas station, and once again filled up for about $18.00, with the guage almost on half a tank, and after yesterdays aggressive driving for half of the trip. Mileage for the 1 half aggressive driving, and 1 half within the speed limit, 37mpg at the end of the day...


AS for city driving, the jury is still out on that one too. I really and truly believe that the Hybrid motor is really for serious, traffic jam like stop and go traffic. Lexington, unless you are driving around in the morning, and afternoon rush hour, does not have that kind of traffic. So far, I have only gotten around 27-30mpg in the city, which is still a far cry above the 19-23 I was getting in Alty. I need to do more city driving... which of course, is not my forte... For now, I am struggling to find a mid size sedan that will give me 37 mpg on the highway, which is why I bought the Camry...

PROS:

I got my car with every option available... Voice activated Nav, Allow wheels, Moonroof, heated power seats, heated power mirrors, With Ky taxes, total was about 32,250.00
Sticker price was $30,468 ($580.00 Delivery, processing, and handling fee, as well some bogus dealership filing fees).

But I will get $2600.00 as tax credit come income tax time, from the feds (I am wondering if KY offers a credit too, probably not, since we have beautiful blue skys and green hills here, and not the smoggy skies of California).

The Car handles really well. Has a tighter turning radius then the Altima and its "European" handling and suspension.

I love the "poor man's" BMW look (well, gee, if I forked out $4K more, I would have gotten a Smaller BMW 3 series, with half of the options).

The Gas mileage, of course....

THe brighter red...

The nice MP3' system allowed me to spend 2 hours organizing and burning all of my gospel CD"s and mp3's onto 4 CD's...

The Blue Tooth hand free system is awesome... Just wish the safety features weren't there.
Wish I could watch a DVD in the DVD navigation...

Did I say the car looked beautiful... I have to try to keep the wife and kids out of it...

The Dual Leather Power seats... and the large compartments... (I can put my mileage clipboard in the glove compartment. I like the dual climate air zones as well... And the inner trunk release, for any body that gets stuck in the trunk (yeah)...

I was amazed at the brightness of the head lights as well... WOW...much better on the road.

And the Smartkey system is just plain Awesome...I love it... being able to walk up to the car and not have to fish in my pockets is nice.

Basically I have a luxury grocery getter (what the young guys would call it). But it looks so nice and sporty in the red... I remember when I ordered it back in February, how I ordered a blue one, because they do not make them in black (WHAT IS UP WITH THAT?). I had first ordered a red one, but then, called back and asked for a blue one... Well a month ago, dealership calls and tells me that the fully loaded units with nav and leather were very very very rare, and that they had a red one on the way from Japan. I jumped on it quick, because I had just seen a blue LE model, and did not take to kindly to it.

CONS:

Welllll Lets just say, I am very interested in the fully loaded Altima Hybrid that will be arriving in December and next year.

ONE single Auto power down Window... yeah, I know it sounds little, but this stuff builds up if you follow me. THe window auto's down, but not auto up, and there is only one...

No auto lights off... so if I leave the lights on... me and my Hybird could be in trouble... and that sucks...how is it that the Toyota was smart enuff to put in a Smart Key system to turn the lights on and unlock the doors when I approach the car, but when I leave the car, and if I accidentally leave the map light on...no auto off...

No remote windows down from the keyfob...

NO FLOOR MATS... HOW IS IT THAT THESE GUYS DID NOT TELL ME THIS UNTIL AFTER I CLIMBED INTO THE CAR... THe salesmans words were "OOPs, we should have specified that there would be no mats... that those were extra... WHAT IN THE WORLD... $30K CAR, no STANDARD FLOOR MATS?

Spacing... the car is smaller then my altima, at least the interior is. I can feel the difference when I remove my 5'9" frame... the doors feel shorter...

When I drive in silence, there is a weird almost annoying squeeking trickling sound that flows from the front dash and cabin area... I can't figure it out, but I guess I will bring the car in for servicing to see what it could be.

I know this is a part of driving with the push button system, much in the way of driving a car with a clutch is, but sometimes, I miss the timing with the button and the brake, which could prove disastrous, because the car, sort of goes into a neutral. Example. Today while at Home Depot, I got into the car and simultaneously pressed the brake, and the button... instead of pressing the break and then the button. REsult, the car slid forward about a yard scraping the undercarriage along the front bumper, as the car slid over the concrete tire stops.

It can be sort of unnerving to turn the car on, and if you have your air conditioning on full power, there is no sound from the engine, and then like a jet, it starts up... sort of like a delay.. which is really cool to show friends... But man... sitting in traffic and having the engine turn off, or silently sliding my car backwards out of my garage, down the driveway... can be really scary.

Finally... the lack of power... or in this case, lack of torque. After driving the Camry for about a week, around town... I got the feeling that I was driving my little 90hp VW Jetta TDI. But on the highway, its different. instead of downshifting, the engine will get help from the electric motor, in almost a v6 like way. SO it does apply the almost 200 HP. I suspect that I can rev the engine from start much in the same way, but over the past 3 months, I have been trying to "slowly start from a stopped position" both in the Altima and in my wife's Town and COuntry, just to save gas...

When I got back into my Altima, I was astounded to feel the torque punching underneath me like a v6. The car would spring right into action... and spring is a nother word of relevance, because the Altima overall had a tight powerful springy feel to it. Not so for the camry which feels really loose... almost as if I have already driven it 50K miles... which is not a good feeling. I honesly looked up, after my first trip around town and with only 100+ miles (Now there is 729) and was like "WOW, did someone play a joke on me, and give me a test car, and just roll back the ODOMETER?".

To me, comparing the Altima to the Camry can be like apples and oranges... I feel as if it comes down to the Camry's quality (even has high safety ratings) versus the Altima's quantity of features.

For now the Camry is the clear cut winner, but I would sure like to get my hands on a fully loaded 2007 Altima Hybrid, just to be safe. I know they use the same engines as the Camry, but I would get the car just for the features that I miss...(all of the cons were features on the Altima and all of the pro's were features that the Camry had). And the new Altima Body style alhought not my favorite. Would take some getting used to.

Sorry about the long wind folks... I will make em shorter the next time... promise.

[zman5225]

You can set the headlights to autoturn off. It's on the headlight switch thingy on the left side of the steering wheel. There will be a 30 second delay for safety reasons. Put them on auto and it'll do it.

[phenderson]

[askewed]

My 56k Land Rover didn't come with mats...