Toyota Camry Grande 2006 Review

7-day Test

Toyota's Camry has long been a constant feature in the Australian automotive landscape. Over the years the car has grown up significantly, but with petrol prices still high, the latest generation called for a dramatic rethink of the company's local line-up.

Where the previous model was offered with both four-cylinder and V6 engines, the V6 was never truly considered a rival for the dominant Falcon/Commodore tag team event. And as for the Avalon, such was its appeal to the broader general public that Toyota ended up offering serious incentives to taxi operators in its last years just to get rid of stock.

So this time around, Camry has gone back to its roots and is now a four-cylinder only car that is targeting the growing medium car market and those that feel six cylinders are two too many. As for a Commodore/Falcon rival, those duties will be left to the new Aurion.

As a result of the restructure of the range, there are now four models in the Camry lineup including the new range-topping $39,990 Camry Grande that CarPoint spent a week in.

Like previous generations of Camry, this is a global car that has been tweaked here and there in terms of design, suspension calibrations, drivelines, and spec levels. At the end of the day, true to Toyota's philosophy, a Camry in Melbourne is not altogether different to one in Montana.

This may be of financial benefit to Toyota globally, but it has also been one of the reasons that the car has never been the world-beater here that it has been in some markets. And the first place to look is what greets you in the driveway. There is only so much can be done to the exterior styling of a car that has relatively fixed hard points and needs to appeal to a worldwide audience. Subsequently, the Camry has never been known for cutting edge style and in its latest guise, nothing's changed.

It is not ugly by any stretch of the imagination with strong lines and a few more creases, but from a design perspective, it still blends into the traffic. It might not be as bland as its predecessors, but it probably wouldn't win any awards either.

But Camry is about reliable, comfortable and predictable transport and in those terms the new model still delivers like few others. Slipping in behind the steering wheel, the driver's seat is big and comfortable with plenty of support and decent side bolsters.

As the top of the range model, the Grande features full leather trim and electrically adjustable front seats and with the steering column now adjustable for both rake and reach, getting a good diving position is easy.

As expected of a Toyota, the fit and finish is good and everything is logically placed. The interior design, like the exterior is never going to excite but everything is laid out in a logical if manner. Only the green surround around the satnav/climate control/four-stack CD audio touchscreen centre console display stands out -- and rather alarmingly.

There is plenty of space up front and despite the overall dimensions of the car being almost identical to the previous model, there is more space in the rear thanks to redesigned packaging allowing plenty of room for a couple of adults in the back seat. The boot is very generous too and longer loads can be pushed through into the cabin courtesy of the 60/40-split fold rear seat back.

Once on the move, one of the first things that strikes you is the quiet and refined ambience inside the cabin -- it would appear that Toyota has been taking some lessons in sound deadening from its luxury Lexus arm.

Off the line, the largely carry-over 117kW/185Nm 2.4-litre four-cylinder engine seems reasonably strong and will keep pulling through to the higher rev band providing more than enough power and torque to easily keep up with the traffic flow.

Where you do realise that it is only a four-cylinder engine under the bonnet is once you get out on the open road and need to overtake or are faced with a long hill. To say it struggles would be an overstatement but you do need to carefully consider your distance before pulling out into the oncoming traffic.

The rationale for Camry going four-cylinder only was to offer an alternative to perceived thirstier V6 engines and according to the official ADR figure, it uses 9.9lt/100km on the combined cycle. And over the course of nearly 500km of city and country driving, we managed 10.4lt/100km. However, after a good 200km of initial city driving, we were averaging about 12.5lt/100km -- a figure that would not be hard to achieve in a bigger V6 car -- so we remain a little dubious about the economy benefits of sticking with a four-cylinder engine in what is a reasonably big car. Perceptions, as they say, can indeed be misleading.

The new five-speed automatic transmission is very smooth and responsive, however, it lacks a sequential manual shift option instead opting for a gate-style shift to hold lower gears. It is however, a smart box that adapts to driving style. The two upper gears are both overdrive ratios resulting in gearing that is more applicable for cruising economy than sporty driving.

What does seem almost attuned for sporty driving is the suspension. The Grande shares its tune with the two lower spec models -- the Sportivo gets firmer springs and dampers -- but according to Toyota a lot of work was done calibrating the front MacPherson strut and rear dual link strut arrangement for Australian roads and, possibly more importantly, drivers.

For the first time in a long time, the Camry offers solid, stable and dare we say it, fun-to drive dynamic characteristics. While the ride remains comfortable and compliant, the car also manages to turn in with a degree of sharpness and sit flat and controlled under power like no Camry before it.

The Grande is obviously designed to be a more plush riding comfort-mobile than the rest of the range but that said, you can still push it along with confidence knowing that it will follow all your directions to a tee. If things do go awry, there is stability and traction control and ABS brakes to get things back in order.

The new Camry still keeps its solid, comfortable, reliable transport factor in tact and can now lay claim to possessing decent driving dynamics as well. Which all augurs well for the 200kW 3.5-litre V6 Aurion that's just around the corner...