No such issues with my car, it's constant 7th gear all the way. The rev counter rises when going uphill though, but that's to be expected. Consumption will also surely increase with higher speed but that's also expected.

Maybe Koreans have some odd programming logic with their gears.

Yes, but I haven't driven on that steep a hill at such high speeds to know whether it will downshift or not. It probably will but so far I've not seen my car downshift a gear while maintaining speeds of 130km/hr or higher.

It's possible but I doubt it.

The listed time for 0 to 100 is 8.7s to 9s. Not bad, I actually expected it to do it in 10.5s or so

Yes I agree. It's a real good bargain. My relative is looking at it right now. It even makes our 2nd car Civic purchase look poor compared to this but what done is done.

I really cannot believe Toyota is just sitting idly by while their competition is wiping them out with good safety specs and car features. Even Honda is waking up from its slumber!

Continental sports contact 5 is the default for VW Passat, it works great so far. Maybe you can try that

Indeed, they sell their cars based on market research on what the consumer wants and within the requirements of the local traffic law. If their cars continue to sell well despite the mediocre specs, then they'll continue to do so. If it doesn't, they'll start throwing in "upgrades" to bring the car up to par. And if that fails to push sales, then they'll know they've hit a price ceiling and will adjust their pricing in order to jump start sales again.

Right now they've got reliability and strong after sales as their main selling point and that alone satisfy a lot of people out there.

VW's - let down by mechanical reliability, small service network and poor after sales service.
KIA/Hyundai - suffers from poor brand image, unknown resale value and smaller service network
Ford - Lack of quality finish, poor after sales service and small service network
Peugeot - reliability issue, poor resale value, poor after sales service and small service network

Until their competitors up their game further, they won't be too concerned yet.

Realistically you will lose about 15 to 20k. There's no incentive to buy 2nd hand at all if the price is close to a new car price.

I think if you sell it off at about 130k ~ 135k, it should be no problem.

It could happen, but I just don't think it will happen here. Most likely Asean countries will get the shaft until say 2017/2018 at the earliest when a new Camry will be introduced. The next generation Corolla which is due out next year is not likely to use any new engines unless they delay the introduction till 2014.

Hmmm, doubtful. Realistically, engine technology between major auto manufacturers aren't too far apart from each other unless you are some 3rd world country manufacturer *cough*Proton*cough*. Toyota is cash rich and has a huge R&D department. I'm certain they regularly buy the cars of their rivals and take them apart to study their technology before coming out with a different form of implementation.

As the article has already said, they are far ahead in hybrid technology but have fallen behind in petrol and diesel technology. Based on consumer numbers, hybrid sales will continue to increase with EV now coming in the picture. I think they got their strategy right, as long as they don't fall too far behind, they can still count on people who are brand loyal to carry them over the next 2 to 3 years.

If we had stricter emission laws, that problem could be easily rectified. The same goes with our safety standards.

A friend of mine that went to a Toyota focus group held very recently for the new Camry told me most people listed the following as priorities in selecting a car.

Brand power
Resale value
After sales service/ ease of service

According to him, in a room of 8. Only 1 person listed safety as a critical requirement when buying a car. Brand power was always the first thing that came out from everyone's mouth. In other words, a lot of Malaysians prefer to have a decent branded car than being in a car that protect them from serious accidents. Go figure :/

I've read it, the article highlights the best features of the new Camry which are:

- Very high levels of Comfort
- Strong brand image, executive feel
- Very good resale value

A pity the article never mentioned how under-equipped the car is in terms of safety features compared to its rivals.

Anyway, the point was never about cursing Toyota owners, it was always to highlight the fact that safety should always be of paramount importance, particularly if you have a family and kids. In a nutshell, why wait until something bad happens then only regret? For many people, it will always never happen but even so, prevention is always better than cure.

While what you say is indeed true, the younger generation will replace the gen X that preceded before them and so on and so forth. Can they afford to keep up with this sort of attitude with more and more people getting connected and more educated about the kind of products they are buying these days?

Our parents might fall under die hard Toyota/Honda supporters but eventually we will replace them as parents to our children one day. During which, will you still stay a die hard Toyota supporter when you know how overpriced and underspeced their new product is?

They will continue to sell for now, but they better stay on the ball if they want to continue to do well. Right now, they lost me as a repeat customer and they can forget about me being their customer again in 4 to 5 years from now if they keep selling stripped down overpriced cars.

I don't hate them, but I have certainly showed my displeasure by not buying their products and got myself a car from a different manufacturer. If they continue to sell stripped down products in a few years from now when it is time for me to change my car then I will continue to refuse buying their products then.

Nothing hits harder than going for their bottom line. Its the most practical way to send a strong message.

Actually if you noticed, Toyota owners in Malaysia don't talk much about their cars online. Even the nation's most popular non-national segment car, Toyota Vios, the buzz and talk about the car is seriously lacking

But that's not something to be proud of. In the first place, there's no reason for the 2.5V Camry to even cost so much, the more offending issue is that they remove so many features compared to the overseas model. Depends on how you want to inteprete why they do this I guess, but from my point of view - I find Toyota/UMW action rather offensive.

My wife's old Honda city tires also blew out before. I don't think tires blowing out has anything to do with the mechanics of the car.

It's not the VSC that makes me pissed. It just doesn't even make sense to pay RM184k for a car that is almost stripped bare bones on essential safety and convenience features. Even more baffling are people actually willing to pay 160k of their hard-earned money for a completely barebones 2.0G car when better options such as the Passat and 508 are available for almost the same amount of money and those Camry owners are all W or B plates.

The only justification I can think of buying a Camry right now is for those people who stay in an area where there's no VW/Peugeot/Mazda/Ford 3S center near them (within 40 mins travel time), otherwise... why?

This post has been edited by zweimmk: Dec 5 2012, 01:51 PM

I've actually owned 2 previous Toyota and is also very experienced with the previous generation Camry servicing. Yes, I agree. It is really very easy when you own a Toyota, all 3 cars are very fuss free and problem free. I've never really had any major problems with those cars during the years of owning those cars. Whatever problems I had were rectified very quickly and professionally so kudos to the Toyota service team. Servicing, yes, it was also very easy as well but I've never had any success walking in and always had to make my appointment at least a week in advance if I wanted to get the date that I needed to service my car. All in all, the ownership experience was very positive, this I can vouch from personal experience.

As for the VW, our family actually have a 2010 Polo TSI, my current Passat and a 2010 Audi Q5. All of which share the same VW engine and uses DSG double clutch gearbox. I'm sorry you had a poor ownership experience with VW but my ownership so far has been rather positive. I've actually never had any problems with the gearbox for the Polo but more with the loud wiper noise instead. The Passat has clocked 9k mileage since July and its so far so good. There's no loss of power like you so claimed in your other thread for VW engines. As for the Q5, also problem free so far although the Euromobil servicing is really very far from being top class. Although I haven't serviced my own car yet, the other cars - nothing to complain at all. Hopefully, I won't have to go through what you did in the future.

Now if you talk about driver satisfaction. I say this, although my experience with Toyota has been very positive - driving their cars has always made me wish it had this or that when better specced cars drive past. Handling and comfort is alright but power is always lacking when I need that extra oomph to overtake. This applies to both the Vios and Altis that I previously owned. The XV40 Camry which I used to drive every now and then was an exception, although handling wasn't very sharp, it had the comfort, refinement and power. Unfortunately, it was still a rather dull car to drive.

With my current ride, although it isn't perfect - aside from adaptive cruise control and that new Audi style daytime running LED lights, there isn't much else that I want to have, I'm actually very happy driving the car as power, comfort and handling is very much inline with my expectations.