Wasn't really planning to buy a car, but it sort of worked out that way. 😱
It's my wife's car, traded in a 2006 Malibu Maxx that wasn't aging all that great. Got a pretty reasonable trade in price on the car even given some of the cosmetic stuff (big dent in rear quarter panel..thank you whoever hit me on the side of the street and drove offf), cracked windshield, and a couple other things that added up to decent amount of money.
She went with the 4 cylinder SE in the basic white. Limited options, power seat and floormats. Got the car for basically invoice of $22,200, and mailing in an additional rebate through Edmunds.com on Camry purchases for another $750 back. So right around @ $21,500 for the car.
As for the car itself, I think it's an excellent value for what you pay. The 2.5L I4 in there is very spunky, quiet and gets the car around with very little drama or delay. Transmission is very fast to shift and buttery smooth. It's rated at 25/35 MPG which is pretty good given how well the engine gets the vehicle around.
The SE trim is a very small $500 premium over the base and get a little bit sportier body panels, fog lights, larger & allow rims, and an upgraded interior that has a lot of fake leather on seat edges, backs, ect. It's definitely not leather, but it should be easier to clean up than cloth when kids spill stuff and put their feet on seatbacks, ect.
Steering wheel is one of the nicer ones I've used. Good sized grips at 10 & 2, excellent navigation of the audio system on it, paddle shifters 🙂, and a decent weighting when turning it.
Seats are comfortable, although the leg room for the driver isn't as nice as some other midsizers like the Passat and Altima. I need to really drop the seat bottom to the floor to get my legs under the steering column comfortably. Once situated, even at the lower settings of the seat you are able to see comfortably over the hood. Tall torso'd drivers take note though - this car has a VERY low cabin height. I'm 6' and when sitting in the passenger seat I've maybe got 2" between my head and the roof. And that's without a sunroof. The passenger seat has no height adjustment available.
Driving wise the 4 cylinder gets you around with zero fuss. It really closes the gap on 6 cylinders and would easily suffice an overwhelming number of drivers. At 75MPH it's still purring along at under 2K RPM's. Zero cabin intrusion of the engine noise and it's only really noticable from a dead stop. Wind noise while on the highway is very low and the cabin is fairly quiet from other road noise as well. Still waiting to get through full tank of gas to figure out overall first tank MPG.
Handling is okay for a relatively cheap, family oriented sedan. It drives/feels smaller than it really is, which is good. Well damped, little body lean when taking onramps/exit ramps "spirtitedly". It's no M3 😉 but for the money and family oriented nature, it'll do. 🙂
Toyota has started putting in decent sized touch screen interfaces for all their audio systems with standard bluetooth integration. And I have to say that the pairing and phone integration on this car is excellent. Sound quality is greatly improved over my Sienna of an earlier year and you can add a phone in seconds...instead of minutes like in my Sienna. Once the phone is paired you can browse contacts and recent calls on the screen and tap them to call. Very slick, and no additional cost. You hear that Honda? You don't need to go up to the highest end trips to get it like you do in the Accord. Standard on even the basic LE model. The rest of the interor in the front seat is decent. Plenty of space for coffee mugs, phones, wallets, water bottles, sunglasses, ect. It's also got a sliding arm rest and the widest armrest I've seen in a car. I'm not having an elbow war with my wife on long trips. Dash material is interesting...kind of a stitched leather approach. Kinda cool, but almost trying too hard. Most materials are fine up front, but you can certainly tell the cost cutting Toyota is doing. Door panels on the inside are kinda...mooshy? Same thing with the plastic surround the middle console on the back. It's not early/mid 90's GM bad...but it's not the level of perfection that Toyota had 10-15 years ago either.
Backseat is ok, but it's actually a step back in room from what the Malibu Maxx was. But it was freakishly roomy in the backseat of that thing. But even some of the compacts like the Hyundai elantra have similar space. One thing that helped is an almost flat floor back there. A very small hump maybe an inch or two high. But otherwise no divider creating "wells" in the back seat. Minor annoyance: non-removable headrests in the back seat. Not a huge deal, but I think I'll permanently dent the headrest using the latch hook for my son's rear facing car seat. It depresses the headrest quite a bit.
It's not a perfect car, but for under $22k it's well equipped, comfortable, not a snore to drive, and fairly efficient midsize sedan that you won't entirely hate yourself for buying. 😀
Oh...we are now officially a "Swagger Family". This has a Sienna SE as a stablemate.
It's my wife's car, traded in a 2006 Malibu Maxx that wasn't aging all that great. Got a pretty reasonable trade in price on the car even given some of the cosmetic stuff (big dent in rear quarter panel..thank you whoever hit me on the side of the street and drove offf), cracked windshield, and a couple other things that added up to decent amount of money.
She went with the 4 cylinder SE in the basic white. Limited options, power seat and floormats. Got the car for basically invoice of $22,200, and mailing in an additional rebate through Edmunds.com on Camry purchases for another $750 back. So right around @ $21,500 for the car.
As for the car itself, I think it's an excellent value for what you pay. The 2.5L I4 in there is very spunky, quiet and gets the car around with very little drama or delay. Transmission is very fast to shift and buttery smooth. It's rated at 25/35 MPG which is pretty good given how well the engine gets the vehicle around.
The SE trim is a very small $500 premium over the base and get a little bit sportier body panels, fog lights, larger & allow rims, and an upgraded interior that has a lot of fake leather on seat edges, backs, ect. It's definitely not leather, but it should be easier to clean up than cloth when kids spill stuff and put their feet on seatbacks, ect.
Steering wheel is one of the nicer ones I've used. Good sized grips at 10 & 2, excellent navigation of the audio system on it, paddle shifters 🙂, and a decent weighting when turning it.
Seats are comfortable, although the leg room for the driver isn't as nice as some other midsizers like the Passat and Altima. I need to really drop the seat bottom to the floor to get my legs under the steering column comfortably. Once situated, even at the lower settings of the seat you are able to see comfortably over the hood. Tall torso'd drivers take note though - this car has a VERY low cabin height. I'm 6' and when sitting in the passenger seat I've maybe got 2" between my head and the roof. And that's without a sunroof. The passenger seat has no height adjustment available.
Driving wise the 4 cylinder gets you around with zero fuss. It really closes the gap on 6 cylinders and would easily suffice an overwhelming number of drivers. At 75MPH it's still purring along at under 2K RPM's. Zero cabin intrusion of the engine noise and it's only really noticable from a dead stop. Wind noise while on the highway is very low and the cabin is fairly quiet from other road noise as well. Still waiting to get through full tank of gas to figure out overall first tank MPG.
Handling is okay for a relatively cheap, family oriented sedan. It drives/feels smaller than it really is, which is good. Well damped, little body lean when taking onramps/exit ramps "spirtitedly". It's no M3 😉 but for the money and family oriented nature, it'll do. 🙂
Toyota has started putting in decent sized touch screen interfaces for all their audio systems with standard bluetooth integration. And I have to say that the pairing and phone integration on this car is excellent. Sound quality is greatly improved over my Sienna of an earlier year and you can add a phone in seconds...instead of minutes like in my Sienna. Once the phone is paired you can browse contacts and recent calls on the screen and tap them to call. Very slick, and no additional cost. You hear that Honda? You don't need to go up to the highest end trips to get it like you do in the Accord. Standard on even the basic LE model. The rest of the interor in the front seat is decent. Plenty of space for coffee mugs, phones, wallets, water bottles, sunglasses, ect. It's also got a sliding arm rest and the widest armrest I've seen in a car. I'm not having an elbow war with my wife on long trips. Dash material is interesting...kind of a stitched leather approach. Kinda cool, but almost trying too hard. Most materials are fine up front, but you can certainly tell the cost cutting Toyota is doing. Door panels on the inside are kinda...mooshy? Same thing with the plastic surround the middle console on the back. It's not early/mid 90's GM bad...but it's not the level of perfection that Toyota had 10-15 years ago either.
Backseat is ok, but it's actually a step back in room from what the Malibu Maxx was. But it was freakishly roomy in the backseat of that thing. But even some of the compacts like the Hyundai elantra have similar space. One thing that helped is an almost flat floor back there. A very small hump maybe an inch or two high. But otherwise no divider creating "wells" in the back seat. Minor annoyance: non-removable headrests in the back seat. Not a huge deal, but I think I'll permanently dent the headrest using the latch hook for my son's rear facing car seat. It depresses the headrest quite a bit.
It's not a perfect car, but for under $22k it's well equipped, comfortable, not a snore to drive, and fairly efficient midsize sedan that you won't entirely hate yourself for buying. 😀
Oh...we are now officially a "Swagger Family". This has a Sienna SE as a stablemate.
