Featured Conversations at a Toyota dealership

MKB reviews won't increase the sales of the Lexus EV, that's for sure. It won't help tank Toyota like his review helped tank Fisker but it sure won't help its sales...

 

i'd venture to say that if he bought it, he loves it. not because he has owners bias, but because he (most likely?) knew the price and range/charging speed issues.
it's like the bolt. slow charging speed, but you should now that going in. great commuter car, and for those that do travel long distances, it doesn't bother them.

is the camry pricey? i have always considered it reasonable for what you get.

 

The Bolt though was almost $20k less. That goes a long way to accepting a car's shortcomings.

If the bZ4X had come out 5 years earlier, we wouldn't as critical of it. Since it didn't, others got to set the criteria it would be judged against, and it is like Toyota completely ignored what those others did when they designed the bZ4X. They did the same thing with the gen4 Prius Prime. It had 4 seats like the first Volt, and lost a lot of cargo space to the battery like the C-max Energi. Both PHEVs that came out a generation ago, and Toyota fans were shocked the public didn't forget their reactions to those for the Prius.

I think Toyota was less likely to have incentives, which can mean a bigger difference out the door than MSRP implies. That may even be the case with the bZ4X.

 

depends on how old it is i suppose.

 

He has worked for a Toyota dealership selling cars for decades.

I guess the Camry is a reasonable car for what you get. But I just don't need a sports car that can do 0 to 60 in 6 seconds. I'd like to see more econo cars. If I were to go back in time I would have leaned harder towards getting a new Yaris or Honda fit or even a new Nissan Versa instead of the Avalon. But econo cars are going away, so I guess next time I'll just go get another used car with half its life already used up, that the radio will die, all the interior will start flaking off, and has no warranty, like the Avalon.

 

I agree with every single thing you've said. Except for one tiny thing. When you rent a car for a long trip, you're putting the miles on theirs instead of yours. If the government rate is $0.50 per mile and fuel is a third of that, then I would say you're probably saving $0.30 per mile by tacking the miles onto their car. Avis in Florida knows this and puts a mileage limit for locals who want to rent a car...

 

those are great cars, and you could probably find something not too old and lower miles, although prices may be higher than you'd like.
our '24 hycam started at 28k i think. not in your range, but what i call reasonable. it's not a sports car, don't listen to toyota, and gets 50 mpg.

 

brother kept his camry hybrid for 19 years starting when he had a 45 mile commute round trip in chicago traffic. I'm sure that car saved him a lot of money but I was supprised he kept it well past 200,000 miles. It finally clunked out. He decided he wanted more luxury and got a cadilac lyriq. Had to upgrade the electrical in his house to charge in atlanta. He loves it and no longer worries about range. He tried the lexus both bev and nx prime, but they didn't come near the lyriq and the dealer threw a lot of incentives on the lyriq so it cost a lot less than the lexus bev. My sister-in-law has a cr-v that they can take on long trips but it won't be getting that many miles.

The low price market has dropped out. Hopefully it will come back. If you drive a lot and don't want a plug-in the camry hybrid is a great car.

 

Years ago, when a front wheel bearings in our first Prius (which we bought used) started making noise, we brought it into the dealer for a warranty repair.

About a year later, the warranty expired, the other bearing started making the same sort of noise. That time, we had to pay $700 for the repair. About a week later, the dust cap popped off. In less than a second, it ate the wheel speed sensor and tone ring.

My wife was driving me to my physical therapy appointment, because I had just undergone knee replacement surgery and needed a walker to get around. It was also January. I called up the dealer, and they said that it was going to cost me another $1400. I told them they couldn't be trusted with the repair, and that I blamed the problem on their f#@ked up bearing replacement.

That's when I learned to replace my own wheel bearings - and CV axles.

 

Doing some research:

• 2024 Camry Hybrid. The 2025 model isn't on Edmund's TCO calculator, but they estimate a total cost of 5-year ownership at $37k.
• 2024 Corolla Hybrid. Same TCO calculator says $35k.
• 2020 Corolla Hybrid. I did find one with 46k miles for $16.5k. Edmunds says the 5-year TCO is $37k. That's with an estimated depreciation of $10k. If Edmunds is right, it's cheaper to buy a brand new Corolla Hybrid, or the same price to buy a brand new Camry Hybrid.
  
• 2024 Nissan Versa stickshift. Edmunds puts the 5-year TCO at $33k.

I plan on keeping the Avalon as long a possible. That will save me a lot of money. I got it with 50k miles and it now has 150k miles and keeps going.

Yep. And that does make a used car less costly too. I had a major failure once after an alignment they didn't put back the bolts that hold the steering knuckle to the strut correctly.

I think I'm losing my ability to work on cars though. While I've rebuilt at least one engine once, now I can fix even the radio on my car.

 

a radio is much more complicated

 

Well, it's an integrated infotainment center that was fixed once by a Toyota dealership and stopped working again a couple years later. I can't find a thing on the internet of how to fix it, and all the suggestions I've gotten haven't helped. It also seems tied into the instrument cluster as there are errors going on there too. @jdenenberg suggested checking out Crutchfield or going to a good car stereo shop, although I'm not sure how that would turn out seeing how the infotainment system seems integrated into the dash with buttons and knobs out to the sides. I guess those buttons and knobs would become completely inoperable. I also don't know of any car stereo shops. Typing "car stereo" into Google maps pulled up a place that's 3 hours and 12 minutes from here. I also get random problems with the HVAC system and the dash, so I think the radio, dash and HVAC problems are all related.

I have built quite a few antennas, installed feed lines and am working on building a small HF QRP radio (soldering each component and then I'll program it once I'm done).

 

Much of electronics are not designed to be repaired. We used to repair our Motorola radios (2-way analog) at work. An entire department was tasked w/ repairing them. Same with video equipment. Even if you CAN read schematics to trace faults, the .03975" chip you find bad may be only ½ that size if you remove the plastic coating. Odds may be 2 to 1 that the unsoldering & soldering will wreck peripheral items on the board. So don't feel bad.
.

 

Was watching South Main Auto guy, replacing a Chevy BCM (body control module). Final step involved proprietary software, calibrating and introducing the dang thing. An eye opener.

 

Same thing with Toyota unless it’s a very high end scanner. Example the brake booster and ecu.

 

What about salvage/ebay?

 

But what part do I replace? The infotainment dash? The instrument cluster? The whole thing?

I found an infotainment system on eBay for US $194.74, sold as-is.

I went ahead and purchased it. I guess we'll see if it solves the problem or not, and for how long.

 

Yes, I couldn’t possibly tell you what part.
I suppose the service manual might help with diagnosis, but again, I have no idea.
Most people here seem to have success with the Prius system replacement, if it’s the same part number, and a working unit

 

I hope so. But with my Prius the infotainment just doesn't light up. On the Avalon it looks fine until you start using it, and then things just glitch and stop working, or start randomly doing their own thing.