2018 TOYOTA CAMRY FIRST DRIVE REVIEW: BOLDLY GOING

Toyota Camry 2018

You have to applaud Toyota’s derring-do. The company CEO, whose name just happens to be on the headquarters building, has ordered his lieutenants to shake up the franchise midsize sedan. Leaden with a (deserved) sand-beige image, the Camry needed some invigoration and sex appeal, especially as more families were seen migrating from sedans to SUVs.

For 15 years, Toyota engineers have taken incremental, calculated risks while maintaining the core values that have kept the Camry atop the sales heap. Why change when the best-selling flavor of ice cream is vanilla, executives would parrot.

But for 2018, those risk-averse days are gone. Example one is the Camry’s daring new sheetmetal. Well, Toyota thinks it’s daring; buyers will judge for themselves how much you can spice up a family sedan. Toyota also is hanging on to an optional V-6 while most competitors commit to inline-fours. On top of that, Toyota lowered the Camry roof and seats by an inch, impairing a driver’s view over or through traffic and making it harder for gran and gramps to fall into and climb out of their new ride.

Who are these guys, and what other crazy risks have they taken? Have they forgotten the core competencies that everyone has affixed to the Camry nameplate? Curl up with a bowl of raspberry fudge gelato, friend, and you’ll find out.

Moving to the longer-wheelbase TNGA architecture somehow made the Camry fractionally smaller inside. Rear legroom and shoulder room both lose 0.9 inch, and front headroom drops about a half-inch. It still feels big, open, and airy with excellent outward visibility, thanks to the lowered beltline. Gas-engine Camrys lose a negligible 0.3 cubic foot of trunk space, but the Hybrids gain 2.0 cubes and a 60/40 split-folding seat, thanks to banishing the battery to below the rear seat.

The primary and secondary controls are blessedly simple, with knobs and buttons placed right where you expect them (a task frustratingly missing from many automakers’ to-do lists). For you audiophiles, a fancy 800-watt nine-speaker JBL sound system boasts special circuitry that somehow divines which bits and bytes got cut while Pandora, Spotify, or XM/Sirius were compressing your jams, filling them back in to provide closer to CD-quality streamed music. Special A-pillar-mounted “horn tweeters” help to brighten and distinguish the lyrics and cymbals from the thumping bass emanating from the 10.1-inch subwoofer in the rear package shelf.



Here’s what most Camry buyers need to know about the engines: The all-new “Dynamic Force” 2.5-liter makes 25 more horses and 14 more lb-ft of torque than the old one while boosting EPA econ by 4/6 mpg city/highway. (Four-cylinder XSEs get an extra 3 hp and 2 lb-ft on top of these increases, and the lightly contented base L model gets an additional 1/2 mpg city/highway.)

T

he redesigned 3.5-liter V-6 adds 33 horses and 19 lb-ft while boosting mpg by 1 city, and 2 or 3 on the highway. The Camry Hybrid’s full-Atkinson-cycle riff on the new 2.5-liter contributes 20 more horsepower and 7 more lb-ft than the old 2.5, offsetting a drop in electric motor output of 23 hp and 50 lb-ft. Through the miracle of inscrutable hybrid math, total system output somehow still rises 8 hp to 208, and EPA economy leaps from 40–42/37–38 city/highway to 44–51/47–53 city/highway (with the LE earning the higher numbers, thanks to a battery chemistry upgrade to lithium-ion). Oh, and a new four-point mounting system better isolates engine vibrations.


Detail freaks might be interested to know that these improvements are attributable to D-4 (direct and port) injection, a healthy boost in compression ratio from 10.4:1 to 13.0:1 for the 2.5, 10.8:1 to 11.8:1 for the V-6, and 12.5:1 to 14.0:1 for the hybrid 2.5. (Note that late closing of the intake valves means no air/fuel mixture is ever fully compressed by a factor of 14, but the combustion products always expand that much.) Other power/efficiency boosters include variable control of the oil and coolant systems and wide-range electric actuation of the intake-valve variable timing on the 2.5-liter gas and hybrid engines. The V-6 gets wider-range hydraulic control of its intake cams to permit occasional Atkinson-cycle operation.
Upgrading from six to eight transmission ratios means first gear now provides the engine about 18 percent better leverage for lustier launches, and the top gear ratio down-speeds the engine by 17 or 24 percent (I-4 or V-6), earning crucial EPA highway points. Another fuel-sipping feature is complete torque-converter lockup in all but first gear. Paddle shifters come on SE, XSE, XSE V6 and SE Hybrid models, with the latter’s coaxing six “gear” ratios from the Hybrid’s CVT. When in Sport mode, the SE Hybrid provides extra electric assist, hastening acceleration relative to the LE Hybrid. Each engine sounds great when working hard, and all variants should zoom to 60 mph at least a few tenths quicker than their predecessors.

Engine Specification
2018 Toyota Camry
BASE PRICE $24,380-$35,835
VEHICLE LAYOUT Front-engine, FWD, 5-pass, 4-door sedan
ENGINES 2.5L/203-206-hp/184-186-lb-ft DOHC 16-valve I-4; 2.5L/176-hp/163-lb-ft Atkinson-cycle DOHC 16-valve I-4 plus 118-hp/149-lb-ft electric motors; 208 hp comb; 3.5L/301-hp/267-lb-ft DOHC 24-valve V-6
TRANSMISSIONS 8-speed automatic, cont. variable auto
CURB WEIGHT 3,250-3,600 lb (mfr)
WHEELBASE 111.2 in
LENGTH X WIDTH X HEIGHT 192.1-192.7 x 72.4 x 56.9 in
0-60 MPH 5.5-8.2 sec (MT est)
EPA CITY/HWY/COMB FUEL ECON 22-51/32-53/26-52 mpg
ENERGY CONSUMPTION, CITY/HWY 66-153/64-105 kW-hrs/100 miles
CO2 EMISSIONS, COMB 0.37-0.76 lb/mile
ON SALE IN U.S. July 2017