Interesting discussion guys, maybe toyota has changed.
Most of my experience (both first and second hand) is mainly with the 1980s era Toyotas... my opinion may be out-dated, so take it with a grain of salt, but here it is...
The original post seems funny because my experience (including friends and family) with Toyota and Japanese cars in general has been very good, and with Toyota's i'd say EXCELLENT. I have alwys bought vehicles second-hand and never owned a single brand new bike or car (although some VERY CLOSE to new).
The only issues are things created from my own character flaw (generally but not always being a bit too optimistic) and generally related to impetuous buying at times when i forget to listen to the other part of the brain.
My brother's and friends their families have also owned Toy's with high mileage a very good reliability: Trucks like '79 Toy 4x4 with 20R engine, '86 R 22R engine, '92 Toy 4x4, and with regular maintenence ALL OF THESE vehicles had over 300,000 kms (180,000 miles) before being SOLD to new owners. My current room-mate has a Toy minivan and it has 321,000 kms (about 1986 model year). My '86 Toyota MR2 was thrashed mercilessly through my 2-year ownership, through over 70,000 kms (and had 110,000 kms on it from previous unknown owner). The thing was ABUSED. I only changed oil in it (Mobil 1 synthetic) and did very basic maintenence. I regularly lit the thing up, revd it to the moon (7,500 RPM redline and the thing is only a 1600cc that doesn't move until about 4500RPM)... i slipped the clutch like a 125cc motocrosser, etc... it was spun, rallied, slid, etc... a totally fun car by the way, even when compared back to back with a friend '85 Porsche 944 Turbo (the porsche was a much nicer car, and an awesome GT
machine, with tremendously high build quality --- but actually less fun to drive the the toy) (side note # 2 - the Porsche made me buy an RX7 which is definitely a cool machine and poorman's version of the 944S2 (torque!!!) - i segue from real torquey machines to revvers, just as i do with bikes from time to time
anyway... Toyota's are generally very well built and the Camry is a legendary passenger car in Canada, on par with Honda's civic's for reliabilty (once in my life i had ONE front wheel drive car, an '82 civic, which also was abused beyond belief, to the bpoint where i lowered the rear tire pressue to about 20psi just so that i could slide the damn thing like a rear driver - worked really well this way!! a great $200 thrasher)... beats bending rims on a mustang when out doing alittle psuedo-rallying on the backroads... big rocks on Alberta Forestry Trunk road don'tchya know).
Maybe the Toyota's sold in the USA are built by Americans that would be the only way to
explain the poor build quality. THAT IS NOT A JOKE, but my impression of America in general fits with America cars. but hey, maybe Toyota build quality over the past 10 years has gone down. dunno. i have had two
fords in my life, and like most of my vehicles i drive them until they are dead or i am
bored of them. both fords were dying when i sold them for half of what i had paid (very little), but they where treated like disposable vehicles during there tenure at camp crash and crunch. the important
thing was my friends had a good time in them, jumping railroad crossings etc (and yes, i even ground bits off my friends 944 turbo at a railroad crossing, smoked his clutch when spinning up in the rain getting up to the turbo kicking in (oops), etc... so i treat most vehicles the same way, American, German, or Japanese, they're only machines)... which really is a lot harder on a car than on a bike. cars really need suspension upgrades for this sort of stuff whereas street bikes are a lot better. (funny, this reminds me of an old girlfriend, i told her not to let me drive her VW Fox, because I couldnt drive it like a civilian. I really liked the Fox, 5spd, 1600cc, with a torqey little motor which was like a noisy little tractor which BMW would've made say back in the 70s... anyway... it was worn out after 1-year of thrashing - she was mad as hell, but she learned how to drive really well that year, she just seemed to watch what i did and mimicked me very very well. i liked her for that. hmmm.. why didn't I
marry her? oh yeah, i remember, she was always trying to impress me with the fact that her family was very wealthy and she had a large inheritance coming, etc... big deal. i really liked her family, but SHE really was so hard to get to do fun things, like even riding a bicycle. she just wasnt adventurous enough for me. it became a real downer taking her places and then finding out she would give up to easily. she didn't need to keep up, just to keep at it, and she just couldnt keep at it. sad really... she was always stuck on making a good impression for people, etc... whereas i was always just doing what i liked to do... money definitely doesn't buy happiness, and i am a lot happier to have continued on my own. since then I have enjoyed short stints in BMWs (not owned just driven), and would really like to see how a higher end VW compares, or an Audi (apparently Audi built Porsche 944s as I recall - must be nice cars).
As an aside, many of Toyotas motors since the 60's have been designed and built by Yamaha, thus i find it perfectly normal that they are so damn reliable. Generally Yam seems to detune and engine just enough to make it last a lot longer than a Mazda, and i think they're a lot bigger company than Nissan, thus have more resources to develop stuff. I did have a Datsun once, and it was a decent truck. As in the bike world, i find that Yam's strongest competitor is Honda. I'll take #2 any day: i like there stuff, musical instruments, bikes, snowmobiles, outboard engines, generators, and car engines!
well. time to sign off and get out of here. It's sort of halloween and sort of not around here this weekend (in a big way), so just taking the time to post this message is a definite sign that sanity can be acquired and released at a moments notice through every second of the day (just an inside joke, for me to refer back to one day - a good point of reference for whether or not the serendipdity in life is alive and well ---- a test of faith, if you will).
ramble, ramble, ramble...
time to dance with the monkey on my back
i guess toyotas really inspired this guy 