Define boring? A car that's seemingly not boring is what... an F1 car? The average person drives on the road to get somewhere and back following rules & speed limits. With those parameters, any car is boring. Fancy electronics, tighter handling and exhaust note dont make a car exciting either, especially when its in the shop over and over again.
Great review! I agree with most of what you said. Five years ago we got a new 2019 Camry SE and kept our 2008 RAV4. Today we still have both and I have to say I prefer the old RAV4 for many around town chores because it's about a foot shorter and has good visibility. The higher road clearance is nice and AWD is great in the winter. Since it's old, parking lot dings don't upset me as much as with the Camry which still looks new. But I sure love the Camry! For a mid-sized family sedan the styling does turn heads and for such an economical car to drive, the 2.5L engine and 8-speed transmission are quite peppy. It's a real cruiser on the interstate and can go 500 miles to the next gasoline fill up. And as you said it has enough room for most applications including long distance traveling. Reliability has been top notch for both vehicles, even though the RAV4 is now 16 years old. You can pay more and buy a more exciting vehicle than a new Camry or other Toyota but 5, 10, 15 years down the road will a BMW or Mercedes still be as reliable as the Toyota? I'll gamble on the Toyota. In fact, we've had nine Toyotas since the mid-1980s and each has been reliable.
I love the Camry, I don't think it's boring, I think it's actually quite sporty-looking and if you need more just get some rims and springs and a little chip tuning and you can run with the best of them keep up the good work Toyota!
I recently traded in my 21 Venza for a 24 Camry. The Venza is very similar to the Rav4. My reasons for switching over: I was always troubled at the awkward look of the Venza, hybrids perform poorly in extreme cold climate, I don't drive enough to justify owning a hybrid, and the sunroof of Venzas are fixed. The one thing that hard to get used to about my new Camry is how much lower to the ground it is. It's tough getting in and out compared to the Venza.
I have a 2024 se. I drove a honda pilot before that. I get anxiety driving because I am so low to the ground. I have had the car almost a year and thought I would get over it but I haven’t!
@carlasemancik That's understandable. We all have nervous ticks. They either pass or get worse. It appears to be the latter for you. If you're looking down at the ground from your side window, stop doing that and focus on the road 1/4 mile ahead of you. If you're already doing so, you're probably best to take the depreciation hit and trade back into an SUV. Continuing to drive a car that gives you anxiety isn't worth it.
All fair points. The last one I'd add would be each person to ask whether they intend to own just one vehicle or two. If it's just one, then I'd say the Crossover, Hatchback, and SUV body type is going to be the better investment because of utility and choose to pay that MPG penalty for the privilege. But if a person has the ability to own more than one vehicle or see that their everyday lives never involve hauling anything then the Camry and mid-sized sedans will easily give the value in MPG, initial cost, insurance, and so on. Whatever savings is accrued comes from owning a Sedan can be used to directly pay for shipping/hauling on an as-needed basis. Another way to view this is comparing the tank capacity for the Camry SE' 15.8gal vs a RAV4' 14.5gal gas tank including the MPG of the Camry' 28/39/32 vs the RAV4' 25/32/28. Obviously, a Hybrid trim is going to skew this a bit.
