2018 Camry Hybrid

[lakedude]

Yuriman I agree completely. I've wanted HSD (or whatever they call it now) for quite a while. The DCT does worry me but then there is a 100,000 mile warranty so it seems like it should be 10 years before there is a need to worry about it. My wife drives a Hyundai and it has been a good car.

BTW Toyota got back with me after I commented that I'd like an aftermarket android head unit and their response was that they would only be willing to discuss genuine Toyota parts, bla bla bla.

"Please be aware that Toyota recommends using only Genuine Toyota Parts and Accessories for your vehicle. Non-Genuine Toyota Parts, or any damage or failures resulting from their use, are not covered by any Toyota warranty."

 

[lakedude]

I've got a price quote of $19,230 on the Ioniq Blue while the Camry LE was north of $25k. The Camry is bigger in a good way. The rear seat is not for adults in any of the Hyundai sedans. The darn roof lines all slope down and chop off too much headroom. So I kinda want the Toyota for the extra room but I don't think it is worth the price difference or the infotainment hassles.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

I don't really see the similarities tbh. I drove both an ioniq and a camry. Completely different cars. Most notably was the ride. The ioniq definitely had an econobox feel to it. While the camry had the smoother bigger car feel the ioniq lacks. I was not impressed at all with the ioniq.

 

[lakedude]

The hatchback Ioniq isn't going to work because we can't put a car seat in the middle seating location. There is no latch for the car seat in the middle. The owners manual specifically prohibits putting a kids seat in the middle. Deal breaker.

 

[who?]

Nobody does spare tires anymore.

 

[lakedude]

Updates

My old version of Google maps evidently lacked the offline option. An update fixed that.

The Camry is much nicer than the Ioniq, however we are coming from a Civic and an Elantra so the Ioniq would have seemed plenty nice to us. Also the for the price difference the Camry should be nicer.

Curiously my Civic already meets many of my needs. It has the rear center latch, a spare, gets good MPG, is reliable, and I added a backup cam/ GPS/video head unit. Unfortunately the Civic lacks power (93hp) and lacks traction/stability control.

What I want is basically what I have in the Civic but also more power and stability control. I don't want to give anything up, that would be a step backwards.

Were I single the Ioniq would be my choice, but I need that rear center latch for a car seat so I'm back to the Camry. I'm not pleased with Entune 3.0 but I will install my own GPS or Add a Mira cast.

 

[zerocool84]

My fiancée's mom has a 2017 Rav 4 and it is literally the worst infotainment setup on a modern car. My fiancée originally wanted a Rav 4 as well until she started seeing me in my car, a 2016 Accord that has Android Auto & Apple Carplay and now doesn't want Toyota anything. It's Toyota, people will buy them no matter what is in there so they don't care.

 

[lakedude]

The Accord Hybrid might be worth looking at. Unfortunately there are none around where I live. Even the Ioniq and Camry Hybrid are pretty rare/hard to find. I really despise the head unit on the Camry but I believe that it will be fine with some minor mods or if all else fails I'll just use a Garmin.

 

[Yuriman]

For what it's worth, the Clarity hybrid is starting to hit lots. It qualifies for the full $7500 federal tax rebate, has around 50 miles of range on battery, 42mpg combined before that, and strikes me as being an Avalon competitor in size and equipment.

 

[Herr Kutz]

For what it's worth, the Clarity hybrid is starting to hit lots. It qualifies for the full $7500 federal tax rebate, has around 50 miles of range on battery, 42mpg combined before that, and strikes me as being an Avalon competitor in size and equipment.

And an Aztec competitor in looks.

 

[Yuriman]

To be fair, most new Japanese cars are Aztec competitors in that regard.

 

[Herr Kutz]

To be fair, most new Japanese cars are Aztec competitors in that regard.

Haha, no arguments here.

 

[lakedude]

That Honda plug in does look awesome. The price is a bit high but the tax incentive could go a long way to making up the difference. I've all but decided on the 2018 Camry LE Hybrid. The cost is $25k and change with zero percent for 5 years. I'll deal with the radio before we go on our first long trip. Got plan on buying Saturday the 23rd, getting kinda excited.

 

[evident]

To be fair, most new Japanese cars are Aztec competitors in that regard.

Civic Type R i agree looks like crap but the LS500 is awesome.

 

[lakedude]

Pull the trigger on the Camry. Not sure how I feel about the car. On paper it gets better mileage than my Civic, so far the Camry is not getting the advertised mpgs in spite of hypermiler style driving.

 

[Yuriman]

Give it a few months, it needs to break in. Tires, engines, and transmissions, etc. all need to wear in.

 

[ChronoReverse]

Also, don't try to hypermile too much, just drive it without a lead foot and you'll get just about as much out of the hybrid system without being an annoyance to your fellow drivers.

 

[Yuriman]

Also, don't try to hypermile too much, just drive it without a lead foot and you'll get just about as much out of the hybrid system without being an annoyance to your fellow drivers.

I have no sympathy for people who tailgait me for doing the speed limit in the slow lane, or race around me when I take my foot off the gas when the light in front of me turns red. Yeah, don't block a one lane road, but most people are idiot drivers.

 

[ChronoReverse]

I have no sympathy for people who tailgait me for doing the speed limit in the slow lane, or race around me when I take my foot off the gas when the light in front of me turns red. Yeah, don't block a one lane road, but most people are idiot drivers.

Oh for sure, but if you're still accelerating to the speed limit after 15 seconds, then you're doing it wrong too. That's all I was saying, not that you can't just drive according to the law.

 

[lakedude]

At one time I really hypermiled my Civic and had a 1000 mile tank at over 80 MPG but I was a bit of a nuisance in traffic. Not as bad as you might think because I typically drive on off peak times on mostly deserted roads.

The Camry behaves very differently between ECO and NORMAL modes. It is a bit of a dog in ECO so if I'm merging I'll pop it into NORMAL. In ECO it seems slower than my old 93 HP car...

I've discovered several things I like and several things I don't like with the Camry. The doors open wide, which is nice but they are hard to reach to get closed.

I don't care for the single button that controls where the air goes. It is a distraction because one must keep hitting the button to cycle where the air comes out with no clue as to which setting comes next. You gotta just keep hitting the button till the thing you want pop up. My Civic was much better because all the possibilities for where air blows from were always displayed so it was a simple matter to switch from one to any of the others.

One unexpected thing I found was some great menus with some great settings for the car in general. For example I prefer for all the doors to unlock with one push. I'm a man who lives in a good neighborhood. I'm not worried about getting raped or mugged. I just want the doors to open so I can put my stuff in the car. With the Camry this is programmable so you can set it either way. It can unlock all doors with a push or just the driver's door. It is a little thing but I really like having control over such things. It was also possible to turn off that silly auto-relock feature which is awesome.

I don't like the head rests because they push your head too far forward.

A tachometer would be nice but in fairness there may be one on a menu I haven't found yet. I could easily add one with an Ultra-Gauge.

The car is quite a bit nicer and smoother that my old ride and it does have a spare which is rare these days, especially on hybrids.

EV mode is a cool new feature my Civic lacked. The car will go like an electric for a short distance with the gas engine off. This is cool but the other day when I wanted to just back the car up a little it insisted on starting in spite of me pushing the EV mode button. It said that EV mode was not available, I think because it was cold out so it wanted to run the engine to get warm. EV mode seems to work fine when the car is warmed up.

 

[ChronoReverse]

I don't like the head rests because they push your head too far forward.

If the Toyota is anything like Lexus then that's actually adjustable in an unintuitive way. You can yank forward rather hard on the headrest and release it suddenly and it'll snap back to the rear-most position: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iazao1rvNsA

EV mode is a cool new feature my Civic lacked. The car will go like an electric for a short distance with the gas engine off. This is cool but the other day when I wanted to just back the car up a little it insisted on starting in spite of me pushing the EV mode button. It said that EV mode was not available, I think because it was cold out so it wanted to run the engine to get warm. EV mode seems to work fine when the car is warmed up.

Yes, if your engine isn't warmed up it won't go into EV mode. I'd presume only the plugin models can startup in EV mode when the engine is cold.

 

[HarryLui]

Oh for sure, but if you're still accelerating to the speed limit after 15 seconds, then you're doing it wrong too. That's all I was saying, not that you can't just drive according to the law.

This is the sticker I have on my Insight.

 

[lakedude]

Headrests are not budging, hate them. Curiously I really like the radio and the programability except of course the silly GPS business which does not work at all for me (because no data on phone). Heated seats are nice on cold days.

My old Civic was not nearly as nice of a vehicle but it didn't have any annoying features. The Camry is nicer but also more annoying at the same time.

I'll need some way of getting GPS and some way of getting videos to the back seat before the middle of Summer when we tend to go on long trips with kids. I've purchased a universal add on GPS that outputs in composite and component video but will need a way to interface that with the stock radio, maybe a custom harness. What do you think of headrest or ceiling mounted video displays?

 

[lakedude]

Well something changed today. Maybe it was just a tad warmer, maybe a tail wind. Regardless I'm happy to report mileage up north of 50. I can't wait to see how it does in warmer weather...

 

[ChronoReverse]

Hybrids are affected by cold weather to a greater degree than regular gas engines. If you're measuring in MPG, the changes seem larger than they really are because of the way the scale works with MPG (as opposed to the reciprocal, gallons per mile).