CarComplaints.com Notes: The 2009 Camry used to be adorned with our “Seal of Pretty Good†but that was before an alarming number of complaints started rolling in for excessive oil consumption.
Owners are being caught off-guard with how quickly their cars are running out of oil. No leaks, no spills, just 1 quart of vanishing oil in as little as 1,200 miles. Toyota maintains this is “normal†for the 2AZ-FE engine, even though they issued a TSB for the problem in August of 2011.
10.0
really awful
Typical Repair Cost:
$3,000
Average Mileage:
165,000 miles
Total Complaints:
1 complaints
Most Common Solutions:
ended up having to replace entire engine (1 reports)
This was my first ever car and I have done tons of research ahead of time before buying it, accepting the mass oil consumption issue. However if I had know I was going to replace the whole engine 40k miles later (bought it with 120k miles) I would have never touch this car. Lemme give you a run down with ever issue I have had with this car to steer people away from making the same mistake as I have.
My first issue was the melting dashboard that threw up a massive glare on the windshield that was very tough to deal with so I just wrapped the dashboard myself with suede wrap (really professionally for a first time) and it fixed my problem.
My second issue was the alternator had died so I just replaced that no problem.
Then came crashing in on my head later down the road to where I had a cylinder 3 misfire. I replace the coils and the spark plugs but no luck. It got really bad to the point any time I hit the gas the rpm would go way up but not my speed. At one point my car randomly died on me at a stop but that only happened once and never did it again. So I had to take it to a shop to run a compression test and I even did a leak down test after checking the fuel injectors and VVT solenoid. The code still persisted. The compression test came back as a fail. There was a cracked valve in cylinder 3. I helped my boyfriend in rebuilding the cylinder head and we got it running better then ever and a lot more peppier. Not even 2 days later metal shavings showed up in my oil after we did an oil change when we finished putting the car back together. We figured it's normal after rebuilding the cylinder head and having new parts. But the VVT solenoid connector (wiring) was showing 0 voltage. Which could've led to the start of my entire problem. Looking seeping into the situation we found that the main bearing had slipped and failed.
I am coming to a very rough financial situation of still owing 4k of the car's loan and needing an engine replacement with little in my savings. Shame on Toyota for making such a sh*tty car. Never for the rest of my life will I be owning another Camry. Such a mistake for the "reliability" on this car. I will be sticking with Honda, acura, or Subaru from now on. At least they can last longer and live up to their reliability.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T S
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This was my first ever car and I have done tons of research ahead of time before buying it, accepting the mass oil consumption issue. However if I had know I was going to replace the whole engine 40k miles later (bought it with 120k miles) I would have never touch this car. Lemme give you a run down with ever issue I have had with this car to steer people away from making the same mistake as I have.
My first issue was the melting dashboard that threw up a massive glare on the windshield that was very tough to deal with so I just wrapped the dashboard myself with suede wrap (really professionally for a first time) and it fixed my problem.
My second issue was the alternator had died so I just replaced that no problem.
Then came crashing in on my head later down the road to where I had a cylinder 3 misfire. I replace the coils and the spark plugs but no luck. It got really bad to the point any time I hit the gas the rpm would go way up but not my speed. At one point my car randomly died on me at a stop but that only happened once and never did it again. So I had to take it to a shop to run a compression test and I even did a leak down test after checking the fuel injectors and VVT solenoid. The code still persisted. The compression test came back as a fail. There was a cracked valve in cylinder 3. I helped my boyfriend in rebuilding the cylinder head and we got it running better then ever and a lot more peppier. Not even 2 days later metal shavings showed up in my oil after we did an oil change when we finished putting the car back together. We figured it's normal after rebuilding the cylinder head and having new parts. But the VVT solenoid connector (wiring) was showing 0 voltage. Which could've led to the start of my entire problem. Looking seeping into the situation we found that the main bearing had slipped and failed.
I am coming to a very rough financial situation of still owing 4k of the car's loan and needing an engine replacement with little in my savings. Shame on Toyota for making such a sh*tty car. Never for the rest of my life will I be owning another Camry. Such a mistake for the "reliability" on this car. I will be sticking with Honda, acura, or Subaru from now on. At least they can last longer and live up to their reliability.
- Hailey H., Thompson, US