My Road Safety

Guangzhou Toyota Motor Company says it has submitted a file to the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine of China, applying for a recall of Camry cars to replace a vacuum booster.

Guangzhou Toyota says it has filed an application of voluntary recall, aiming to call back the cars affected and replace the faulty vacuum pumps for the car owners, free of charge. Toyota plans a six-month period to fix the problem for all the cars involved.

On March 21, China’s CCTV television network reported that many car owners had complained to Toyota about brake failures in Camry cars, saying that the problem may endanger their lives. It is learned that about 260,000 Camry cars, which were mainly manufactured between May 2006 and March 2008 suffer from the problem.

Guangzhou Toyota says that they adopted a new and more durable vacuum pump for Camry cars manufactured after March 3, 2008. The company states that it choose to replace the said part for consumers instead of recalling the cars saying that it is a minor problem.

The Toyota Camry is a mid-size car, formerly a compact car manufactured by Toyota since 1980. The name “Camry” comes from a phonetic transcription of the Japanese word kanmuri, which means “crown”, a tradition started with the Toyota Crown in the 1950s, and continued with the Corolla and Corona, which are also Latin words for “crown”. It is an anagram for “my car”.

For the East and Southeast Asian markets, high specification Camry models are seen as executive cars. Since the sixth generation XV30 model, the Camrys sold in these markets have sported revised front- and rear-end treatment. For the seventh generation XV40 series, the same was done, although the Australian-designed Toyota Aurion which is based on the seventh generation Camry was the donor model. The Aurion features revised front- and rear-end treatment and changes to the interior, but is fitted with the same powertrains. An up-branded luxury version of the Camry was sold in Japan as the Toyota Windom until 2006; the related Lexus ES shares major chassis and drivetrain components with the Camry.

In the United States, the Camry has been the best selling car for nine of the last ten years starting in 1997, with the only exception being 2001. The Camry also sells very well in Australia, Canada, and a number of Asian markets—in particular Cambodia where the vast majority of cars are Camrys. Despite its success, it has been criticized for less sporty handling, due to comfort-tuned suspensions in most models. It has not sold as well in Europe, where sales ended in 2004, and the Avensis became the flagship model in 2002.