U still don't get the picture do u? Why are the Toyota US version is so much better equipped compared to ours? Why are we paying a premium for so much less? Are we really that much backwards compared to the americans? Our lives value much less? Think global not local. It's time for a general awareness of how much more we can get if only we together as buyer move against under equipped and priced rocket high cars. Do remember demand=supply, competitive=improvement. At the moment toyota here is sitting leisurely and enjoying their good sales for nothing in return to us as buyers. Purely banking on the majority's mindset of going for brand and resale value plus the 'Tak Apa' attitude.

Simple common sense will dictate that being in a same car that is equipped with 10 airbags will be safer than just 2 airbags in case of collision. Now a simple question for the buyers, why in the world would u buy a less safety equipped car knowing for the same price range, u can get better? That I'll leave to the camry owners and buyers to answer.

I read the link from page 1, and also most of the comments (hilarious!)
I think majority of younger generation car buyers are well-informed and know that Toyota Malaysia (UMW?) is cheating us

Well if you would care to read my historical posts you would see that im not involved in any sale related industry. As for my comments on the Camry, i believe most of them are fact based and nothing that others have not said as well. I 'shoot' what needs to be shot and i take hits on anything that i deserve a hit on but i dont think i was harsh in any way. But in case ive gone overboard then do point out specific posts instead of generalising. Btw, i dont think i was the one who passed the remarks you mentioned above, was i?

You ask which car owner doesnt care about safety rite? Yes i agree with you that all car owners do give safety some thought. But in reality the question here is not about if they give safety a thought but how important is safety to them compared to resale value and brand recognition. Again im not generalising here so dont get me wrong.

Even Danny updated his article on the Camry with a special mention about the lack of the VSC and he even said its difficult to recommend the Camry because of this. So is this harsh as well?

Maybe we could ask some of the 109 who have voted negatively against the Camry in the Paultan test drive article today as compared to only 23 in favor. Not a clear benchmark but does get you thinking a little. Just read some of the comments. I would say about 90% are against the Camry and for good reason too. Never before has the Camry received such negative reviews at home. But sales are still good as this reflects how much importance Malaysians place on resale value and brand loyalty as compared to safety and value for money. Sad but true.

Btw, hows your Prius doing?

This post has been edited by cybermaster98: Oct 15 2012, 05:04 PM

based on my post above, i think you can obviously see im not happy with the specs of the Camry offered here as well. But realistically, we all know due to the tax structure here, you cant expect to get 10 airbags etc. with that 180-190k price tag right?and my point was, yes the Camry is bad in the sense that it is under equipped and over-priced, BUT, i feel we all should respect those who decide to buy it for what i say are very valid reasons.

I have been reading through this thread every once in awhile and i have seen you repeating the same points over and over again regardless of what the content of the post is.

I do not blame the local distributors in this,why?they are doing business. and im referring to all the distributors here.Toyota is the non national market leader and they can afford to 'risk' taking out such features to reduce cost (increase profit) and see how the market reacts before implementing a countermeasure if it doesnt work. Other makes have to play catchup in order to survive and they choose the option of strategic pricing and specs such as airbags and other juicy features. Do you really think these companies 'care' about customers safety?i dont think so. Its all business in my opinion. Which is why i dont agree with "company A doesnt care about our safety" "company B doesnt value our lives" etc.For companies like Toyota, who like you said has enjoyed such good sales for so long,its all about getting the balnce between reducing cost and maximizing profits. And Toyota can bank on that due to their strong 'brand sentiment', reputation as well as history or making reliable cars (note the word history) and they are not making 'tin can' cars either,thus, i dont think its fair to question those who actually choose to get a 'safe' choice (pun intended) such as the camry. You see my point here?

About the Camy owners answer, i think theres already a fair share of them here. and since i dont own one, and dont think ill ever want to own one in the near future, im not in the right position to comment



i wasnt specifying you in the posts above. and yes i do read your posts and i have mentioned that some of them are very constructive and i do learn quite some things from those posts, at the moment i dont have the leisure to search back in the forum but im sure ive read many comments, not necessarily from you, in this thread and paultan which i feel is a bit overboard. But saying so, this is the internet, cant expect rules of respect to work here.

About the safety of the driver, The Camry might lack VSC and the 10 airbags but i do feel that it is still in the 'safe' category but perhaps, less safe compared to the likes of optima and Passat. Which why i feel is what the Camry buyers have in mind, because in other words, if you want a super safe car why not buy a volvo or a tank?i do believe that everyone has the right to choose and i dont think car buyers in malaysia are as stupid as what some forumers and paultan comments think they are. Maybe they like the looks of the cars which is subjective, the famous ride comfort and silentness of the car and of course, the most repeated word in this thread. Resale Value.

plus i think you and I know how those thumbs up and thumbs down on paultan dont really reflect the true situation most of the time due to 10 year olds now having access to internet.

About the Prius, i wonder where you had the idea that i own one, although i do wish i do. I honestly feel its generously spec-ed car and being an engineer, technology like this does wow me in an unexplain-able kind of way. ive always felt curious ever since my university days on electric vehicles and hybrids. Had the privilege to drive my neighbors prius a few months back, i have to say the amount of technology in it is fascinating. But i guess lets leave that in the Prius thread maybe?

This post has been edited by aztechx: Oct 15 2012, 05:04 PM

Im quite sure 10 year olds will not find Paultan interesting. Hence, the ratings are quite an accurate reflection of what people (in the know) think about the new Camry. Same low ratings it received when it was launched. Dont just see the ratings. Do read the comments as well. Many of those comments are quite valid u know.

We're not talking bout super safe cars here. We're talking about basic safety features that should be in all cars. From your post above, it seems that you either have little knowledge about the VSC and its importance or you havent been in a situation which required the use of the VSC. VSC today should probably be as basic as seatbelts. When seatbelts were first introduced by Volvo, how many car manufacturers actually supported the idea? It took the loss of countless number of lives to make car makers realise its importance. today, there are enough statistics and research papers on the importance of VSC. Do we need more deaths and accidents before VSC becomes mandatory in Malaysia?

Nobody said that car buyers especially in the D segment category are fools. But that doesnt mean that they realise the importance of VSC either. Its all about awareness not intelligence.

http://paultan.org/2012/06/27/esp-stabilit...-in-their-cars/


This post has been edited by cybermaster98: Oct 15 2012, 05:21 PM

Orang bodoh sombong tak payah diajar, tak payah ditegur. Buang masa. Dah ajar dah tunjuk, dia jugak yg betul.

edit:
waste of my time

This post has been edited by kcng: Oct 15 2012, 05:26 PM

IMHO, if someone can afford to buy a Camry at RM150k to RM180k, he is already quite well off financially. His life should be important enough to afford basic safety features of the car he is buying.

Passive safety feature like ESP or VSC is there to help prevent accident from happening. With it, you can have a better peace of mind knowing that, if shit does happen, you can rely on these features to help you regain control of the car and avoid a possible fatal accident.

Active safety feature like airbag and etc, is used when shit already happens. These are last ditch attempt to safe your life, you don't really want to use these. Your airbag will not deploy until there is collision. Just like your steering rack will not collapse until collision.

IMHO, prevention is always better than cure. So love yourself, love your family and love the passenger whom is going to be in the car. Choosing a car just because of brand recognition is just plain silly.

As mentioned above.

This post has been edited by kirakun: Oct 15 2012, 06:29 PM

I guess the Debate was healthy and very informative up to the point where name callings and insults were thrown which is a typical trait of an internet debate.immaturity that ends all arguements.I dont regard myself so highly to the point of calling another person stupid.simply speaking, Everyone has their opinions and i respect yours.Congrats On your internet 'win' and ChEers

This post has been edited by aztechx: Oct 15 2012, 06:56 PM

I Thought is other way round?

As active safety features (ESP, adaptive front light, blind spot warning, ABS) is to prevent you from collision in the first place, while passive safety features (safeety belts, airbag, rigid body structure), to protect you and absorb the impact when collision happens.

Bro, lets have a mature discussion minus the hostilities. He was merely sharing his thoughts the same way ure sharing yours. But let's not get hostile. U both have valid points and it would be great to hear everybody's view. So lets discuss like adults.

Cheers!

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Added on October 15, 2012, 8:08 pmSorry for that outburst earlier. Im sure it sounded alot worse than it actually was and he didnt mean any harm. Lets get back to the discussion shall we?

This post has been edited by cybermaster98: Oct 15 2012, 08:08 PM

i enjoy the debate. and i can see your points.
but that guy ruined it big time.
perhaps he never know what is going on to be honest and never been engaged in a healthy debate


so the heavyweights are at it again.


come on. measure a car in a complete package i.e put all the factorings in it. but that could be troublesome because the factors varied personally. however honestly we cant go overboard, just to prove a point. 2 airbags are deemed sufficient by those at UMW but how they come to that conclusion is anyones guess. then the old transmission and engine. they are still giving much much refine operation compared to supposely new engine in some brands. the problem with the new camry is the pricing. perhaps?

u can always blame UMW for the shortcomings. but not the people who bought the car, particularly the 2.0 camry.

so let us redivert our angst, and energy in cursing UMW instead. of course we are going after UMW arent we. and yes we can get our points to them without childishing ourselves by name calling and calling camry drivers cunts or something. the only way to get UMW understand is of course by reducing the sales of camry but let us do that without having to pray for deaths. or whatever bad things to camry owners.

i heard the ol 4 GB still doing great compared to 6 speeders in some brands. really?

wall of text....all i want say...is our tax n proton.

please wake up....it aint toyota problem

people dont get it dont they...
and i am gonna say this again...

toyota knows their asean camry is getting whack left, right, center, top, bottom but they dont care...
please dont think for a moment that toyota is not aware that their product is getting whack from everywhere... they dont have one of the best marketing team for no reason...
they are not the biggest car makers in the world for no reason...

after all, those that whack the camry is not their intended market anyway... so why would they care....

my money is that their intended market wont even bother looking at what some of the graduates from university of lowyat is saying....

after all, toyota already know what is their intended market for their camry... its definitely not for the car enthusiast or "enthusiast" market and frankly speaking, how big is the car enthusiast market anyway?

go on bashing.... the camry will still sell.... and there is a reason why they are selling and selling in numbers that korean can only dream of..


P/S - i do find it funny at how some of the post is heading... really shows something....

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.

Keep in mind that a full set of passive safety features is considered the bare minimum elsewhere, and it is the bare minimum offered elsewhere. Even the A (!!!) segment VW up! has a radar system to stop the car when necessary (it is a rather limited system, but IIRC it comes as standard even in the lowest spec). And the Camry is D segment. It is not like the technology doesn't exist.

Who in the world wouldn't care about safety? Well, duh, Toyota owners of course. Either they are ill informed (then a hint for the next time: Inform yourself, do some research! Cars are expensive, do research before you buy!) or they don't care. At least not enough to base the car buying decision on that. I watched the Kangoo crash tests many times, read the EuroNCAP review, and looked at competitors and how they'd do. Of course Renaults good image in terms of safety helped in the decision (the alternative would have mostly been the Citroen Berlingo, but IIRC that one didn't do as good in the tests. The Avanza was out pretty fast). I did also read up on spare parts, reliability etc..

You can't argue that Proton and the high taxes are the reason why our Camry is so bad. The Camry is a competitively priced car in the US, that has all the safety features you'd expect. Other cars offer similar things, sometimes at higher prices. Yet over here those cars do have the safety features, while the Camry has not. At again similar prices. Even better example: Vios vs. Fiesta. Both non local cars, taxes should probably be quite similar. Yet the Fiesta is much, much better. Overseas again they do sell the Vios in hatchback form (as they do with the Fiesta), and again, competitively priced products, with a similarly high safety standard.
It is entirely UMWs fault. But is it, really? UMW does what UMW should do. It is a company, not the Salvation Army. I would do exactly the same thing, if I ran UMW. Make money. Lots of money. Ultimately it is the customer who is at fault that UMW is ripping Malaysians off. Stop buying their cars, tell them why, and next year the Vios has 6 or 7 airbags and VSC. For the same price as today. I promise.

Toyota SHOULD be scared that they have overdone their greed. They get a lot of hate these days for reducing safety rather than improving. Why not give the 2.0 and 2.5 VSC, and the 2.5 4 airbags? It may lag behind the competitor, but at least people could say "at least they are improving". Do you think those who drive a Camry now and who are asked why they bought a Camry, do you think they will blindly buy one next time again? They may have bought the Camry because it's a Toyota, no one will question you why you buy it over another brand, everyone will say good choice. This could be the last generation of Camrys that sells well.

That Volvo is so much safer than the rest is a myth. Yes, they are usually on top, but so (was) Renault. Renault was the first company to embrace safety, it was their sales pitch. Affordable cars that are as safe as it gets in that class. To me if you want to get a safe car, get one with JDM (not sure...), US or EU specs (especially the latter). One that is sold over there, with the same safety features as here. The brand hardly matters, they are all on a relatively high level nowadays. But obviously that message hasn't arrived here yet.

What I don't understand is why marketing material, ads etc. don't put more focus on safety. That Toyota and Honda aren't doing it is obvious, but Ford? VW? Advertise with the fact that the specs are the same. That exactly this particular car has 5 stars in EuroNCAP. Show crash tests. Hell, Citroen put Claudia Schiffer into a Xsara and did a crash test, after which she, as perfect looking as always, got out and walked away. Renault has a very funny baguette ad (they crash test sushi, german sausage, ... into a wall, and then a baguette. Cause the safest cars come from France...). Or they had an ad where very artfully the whole product range was crashed into each other. In the end they announced that all their cars have 5 stars in EuroNCAP. There is tons of potential.

About Paultan comments/votings: Keep in mind that whoever reads Paultan is interested in cars. He or she will probably have a decent grasp of the market, knows what other brands offer (probably also overseas). Same goes to some of the forumers who are in F&F. However there are many others out there who aren't as informed. They may trust the brand (Toyota is the best, they make great cars, very reliable and safe). They may not look at other brands or even be aware of them (Skoda? Never heard of them. New brand from China?).

Btw., keep in mind how many do not wear seatbelts in Malaysia. Especially in the rear, where it is the most important (I consider those who do not wear their seatbelts in the back as murderers, or rather people who are about to commit murder, willfully. I don't like murderers). Is safety really so important when people don't wear seatbelts or let their kids run around in the car? I find it hard to believe that people do it not knowing what the consequences are.

@Madgeiser: You got your terms wrong Active safety is features that prevent accidents, such as collision prevention systems, ESP/VSC, lane keeping systems. Passive safety is when it helps you survive in the case of an accident.

I do believe that nowadays it is fair to blame those who keep buying the Camry. Want a refined, comfortable car with an old but comfortable gearbox? Get the last gen Camry. Or the one before that. Or the one before that. Nothing wrong with those cars, right? If you buy a new car there are many other options to consider. You can have absolutely superior comfort (even over the Camry), decent handling and good safety. Get a Citroen C5. Many options out there. A Passat is probably not uncomfortable either (though obviously not as good as Citroen). And those who do buy a Toyota these days are supporting Toyota in selling sub-par vehicles. If it weren't for them we'd be getting decent cars from T&H.

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Added on October 15, 2012, 11:01 pmWe are the future car buyers/many of us do buy cars. We are the ones who are asked for advise. We are the vocal ones. We are the influential ones. Toyota should care. As I mentioned above people also buy a Toyota because that decision won't be questioned. You buy a conti and everyone will give you trouble. Now it is the other way round, in certain segments and areas. I believe that does make a difference to these customers.

Toyota released so-so cars for quite a while in Europe. And while their reputation used to be great, they are merely a shadow of themselves. All they sell is small and cheap city cars, despite offering specially developed European standard cars, that are vastly better than what they sell here.

This post has been edited by kadajawi: Oct 15 2012, 11:01 PM

Dear F&F anti-Toyota activists,

It is not going to be very helpful if you all only spread the hatrades towards Toyota and New Camry owners here. I can sense the gigantic ambition and vision from you all to make the driving atmosphere in this Bolehland a safer one!

May I suggest here that perhaps you all should organize a public strike, official press conferences (of course, don't forget to invite some political figures as well), assemble some demonstration exercise in front of every Toyota branch in Bolehland, to exhibit your anger and the utmost importantly, bring the message across the whole nation of Bolehland, or even the whole mankind and humanity!

Oh ya, don't forget to project those who buy new Camry as treasonous act towards his family, loved ones, the F&F forumers and mankind! They shall not be forgiven!

Just my 2 cents !

Well said.

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.

+1

When i buying my first car, i compare the specification among all the brand, really can see the UMW is just ripping customer off.

Now whenever had change, i just keep on "poison" other people mind that CKD Toyota car is ripoff, only Toyota's Hybrid car is worth to buy only.