rev up your engines today I'm gonna talk about why a 2002 Camry may be one of the
best made cars ever all right here's a 2002 Camry with a four-cylinder engine
paint still really shiny yeah that likes fade in a little bit you can polish
those if you want it's still a sharp-looking car all these years later
gigantic trunk goes on forever whoa another key fob unlock for the trunk
doesn't work anymore but you can't have everything I'm not gonna get mad at a 18
year old car for that still has the original Camry mag wails hey these are
great alloy wheels they're fantastic they still look great 18 years later
let's check the inside utilitarian fabric seat for the comfy plenty of room
for the baby seats in the back that's too many miles it's gone on it it's gone
it's got a 129,000 miles so it's barely broken in let's check it out
the a/c still balls nice and cold let's check on the hood look the hood
strut still works don't need a stick even out was well-made that's not a race
car puts out a hundred and fifty-seven horsepower but it's plenty for more in
this car around nice old 2002 the four-speed automatic
is pretty much indestructible I've seen it with five hundred thousand miles on
and they're still going sure it's not gonna win any drag races but with this
engine or that tranny this one gets about 24 miles a gallon in the city but
it gets 33 on the highway good gas mileage for a car this size
that's this old and it's all 2002 four-cylinder engine it's high-tech it's
got the variable valve timing eye system in it but it didn't have the oil burning
problem that some of the later 2007's had with the engines that were made in
the United States this baby was made in Japan for some reason you don't believe
me here's the sticker and what does it say
made in Japan now sure the beauty covers all cracked and coming apart doesn't
serve any purpose anyway and as I said the headlights are fogging up they're
all plastic but you can polish that off or just replace it with an aftermarket
unit but this one still has the original engine
the original transmission the original radiator they built these things solid
in Japan in 2002 they still even sound solid listen we closed the hood nice
solid sound isn't one of those little clunky tin things open up the back door
they got plenty of room inside in this case it set up for a couple of kids
seats yeah it's cool cupholders armrest big deal back in 2002 and also heating
air conditioning that's coming in the back to make the back come through but
take it for a ride see how it goes this is the xle so it's even got some of the
wood grain on it here and there let's see if it starts starts right up like
Toyota's always do well see how it accelerates let's check it out it's got
a little bit of zip to it shifts like a dream not cars as old as it is when you
hit bumps it bounces around a little you know there's no way the car this old
with this many miles is gonna bounce um when you hit bumps kind of floats a
little you could put new struts on it and it would ride quite a bit better but
this is a work car now it's still plenty safe enough taking turns and driving it
tracks straight when I let go the steering wheel it goes straight you just
live with things like worn struts unless you want to spend a lot of money
to put good ones on it's perfectly safe the way it is as you can hear or not
hear it's still pretty quiet car these things were made for really as far as
I'm concerned it's one of the most perfectly made 4-door sedans of all time
they lasted nice and last but they still are decent for riding around it if you
wanted to make a top notch on this yeah you'd have to put front and rear struts
spend a reasonable amount of money doing it but since this is now relegated to
being a work car and his wife has the fancy car you think I don't waste any
money on that and I agree it doesn't bottom out when you hit bumps and when
you're on a highway it doesn't go straight no when you hit bumps it
doesn't wobble all over and then when the bumps are gone straight now it rides
perfectly fine on a highway it's just not gonna absorb the bumps like it
originally did I'm for a car with this size the rides like it does 34 miles a
gallon highway back in 2000 what's decent it's even decent today
when you think about it because this thing doesn't have GDI turbocharger 8 or
10 speed automatic transmissions that are very complex that have had problems
it's a simple tried and trued 4-cylinder engines made it to a very reliable
4-speed automatic transmission that Toyota made for a long time may I'll
take long term reliability any day over 2 or 3 or 4 or more miles per gallon gas
mileage because in a long run if something can last hundreds and hundreds
of thousands of miles the little bit you saved on that gas money isn't going to
mean squat if you got to put thousands into an engine or a transmission these
things are workhorses and they can run indefinitely as long as you don't
overheat the engines and even though it's a 2002 it still has a metal timing
chain it doesn't have a rubber belt that you got to worry about breaking and
replacing it says the metal chain generally in these change your regularly
it'll last just as long as the engine and that can be three four hundred
thousand miles or even more and being a Toyota Camry they sold so many of them
parts are readily available and often very inexpensive there is a humongous
aftermarket for these cars for getting parts you don't have to go to the dealer
to buy a starter or anything like that there's plenty of places that sell good
parts for them they are very very inexpensive to maintain when they do
finally wear out I mean everything wears out eventually from friction to give you
an example a couple weeks ago I did one where the CV axle the rubber broke and
the joint was one so I replaced the whole axle I got a brand new one for 79
bucks the same job on a mini coolie you can spend 800 bucks or more doing that
these parts already available quality and it don't cost that much I know a lot
of people say oh I want a boring camera it's boring it's boring well if you want
an exciting car like a Fiat or a Jaguar that breaks all the time you get the
excitement of oh no what's wrong now now what do I have to pay for go ahead and
buy one of those but if you want something that keeps going and going as
a nice comfy ride it's decent gas mods especially on the highway you can't beat
a 2002 Toyota Camry especially with the four-cylinder engine because for what
they are you really don't need a v6 engine yeah
has more horsepower for zippier to get around v6 three on each side they were
out faster and they have a lot more moving parts at brake they're much more
expensive to maintain and being a more powerful engine they have a tendency of
wearing out to transmissions a lot faster than a 4-cylinder engine
well so now you know a bit more about a 2002 Toyota Camry why hey it might in
fact be one of the best four-door cars ever made and here's some bonus
questions and answers here's one for you sometimes bright is too bright for is
recalling 217,000 f-150s because their headlights are too bright yes you're not
imagining it when you see one of those Ford's coming at you at night and
it seems too bright because some of them are the 2018 to 2020 up one 50s was the
LED options never a problem where LEDs aren't deeming right what happens is the
daylight running lamps don't dim when you turn on the regular headlights so
you got too much brightness coming out it's all they're gonna do a software
update on it so that go dim when you turn on the regular lights yeah
these self-driving cars right they're gonna be here in the future and I say
what a joke that is look if they can't even make cars with headlights that
work correctly there's not too much hope that they're gonna have self-driving
cars any time soon as far as I'm concerned so if you're driving down the
road and you see a f-150 with the lights shining on too bright 2019 2020 the
late-model ones now you know why they're bad software
and the things aren't giving themselves when they're supposed to here we go with
the old saw car turns out that scientists at the University of Aberdeen
had discovered new compounds to revolutionize fuel cell technology the
problem is between the cost and the weight and the heat they're really
expensive to make now they're working on ceramic fuel cells and the main problem
of the ceramic fuel cells is they burn up faster because of the high
temperatures they operated and the ceramic fuel cells can even use
hydrocarbons you can use methane and stuff to run them a big deal because it
could be a stepping stone that if we figure out how to make hydrogen cheap we
can use hydrogen they won't pollute it at all but we can use methane now the
problem of using methane is that has a tendency of clogging up the cells now
the problem is fuel cells as they operate at high
temperatures they operate at 800 degrees Celsius which is over 1,400 degrees
Fahrenheit so that's hot now the new one only operates at 500 degrees Celsius now
still it's pretty hot that's 932 degrees Fahrenheit it's a lot hotter than your
oven at home that's for sure it hasn't been put to test actually used
in any cars or anything like that but it's an interesting breakthrough that
they say they're working on to make these ceramic fuel cells so that not
only do they work at a lower temperature but that they can use stuff like methane
they can use hydrocarbons to run it and don't have to have just pure hydrogen
which is gonna cost a lot of money to switch everything over to hydrogen and
hydrogen has to be creative too so you never know what's gonna happen in the
future but there's another possible scenario for fuel cells which as I said
before they beat batteries because the batteries have to be recharged then they
weigh a lot they take up a lot of weight a lot of space where the fuel cells are
a lot lighter cody says scotty what's the most reliable station wagon for five
grand or less used car so he's just can't happen but for most part what's
the most reliable well the problem is hardly anybody makes station wagons
anymore we're not kids are young I got a used Camry station right it's a great
car we're making to talk to you too when I was a kid we rode around in Ford
station wagons everything's gone SUV you're looking for an actual station
wagon if you can find a good Toyota station wagon it's still in good shape
in the past or even that Honda Accord station wagon that was pretty good but
of course that was quite some time ago yeah and they're hard to find if you can
find one at all BMW makes them and stuff but they're not reliable in that
price range you gotta looking for a needle in a
haystack there I am our 2909 eights 2000 Monte Carlo else 3400 54,000 miles so I
have developed a coolant leak on a passenger side of the engine leaks
around cylinder one and a firewall the motor there's lots of things that can
leak it's a 20 year old monte carlo but it's only got 54,000 miles
there's so much mileage a lot of times it'll be those stupid
freeze plugs and you're gonna have to replace them and that can be a pain in
the butt let's say that just got little cracks in them or something I've had very
good luck using the bars radiator sealer
for that you just had it through the cool wouldn't even sauce on it you know
can be mixed with any cooler well it sit for a half an hour idling then let it
sit overnight and then drive it but if you find the leak stops great it can
permanently fix small little cracks let's say your head gasket starting to
seep on that side it's a big money job taking the engine apart but if the
coolant is leaking just on the outside of the engine the seal is work excellent
dent if its internal a lot of times they won't but if you got it leaking
externally a lot of times the sealer will fix it part of the I fix some of
those things that way and then four or five years later the customers are still
driving and then I say hey did it ever come back I said naw the leak never came
back since that's got ya like down south to Texas from Pennsylvania side buy a
good used car at a great price to market for used cars is horrible and most of
the crisis and quality in Pennsylvania I got a friend it does it from Chicago and
he comes down here four or five times a year with big ol hauler six seven eight
cars takes them back and doubles his money he leaves the Texas plates on it
to show people Lucas from Texas there's no rust on it not a bad idea if you know
a little bit about cars cuz you're gonna have to check them out and make sure
they're not a ripoff but a lot of people do that nowadays you might even try
Florida you know Florida's offering a really good place because there's a lot
of old people there eventually they can't drive at all they've got to sell
their cars and since their relatives are up in New York or Minnesota or wherever
they don't want to come the whole way down to get an old car that you can get
them pretty cheap down there they don't rust in Florida either you might try
that so if you never want to miss another one of my new car repair videos
remember to ring that Bell