Most anything from that time would be good for 300,000+ miles with good maintenance.

You have many miles ahead of you and your Camry!

My 1997 Toyota Corolla is almost 195,000 miles old. It's barely broken in...approx. 50 miles per week back and forth to the airport is all it's being driven. It'll last WELL beyond my (forced) retirement. I'm thinking about getting it re-painted just to protect the body. Not a show-room job that would cost in excess of $10k, but several grand to make it look good again.

My 2009 Corolla is up to 190K. I just put the fifth set of tires on it. The lockup torque converter hasn't locked up in 6 years, but it has never left me walking.

The Camry is a great car, my mom's 2000 Camry had 244000 miles before it developed a bad oil leak i didn't think worth fixing. The car ran great and I never spent any money on it other than brakes, tires, one rear strut went bad and I had the timing belt replaced.

I only sold my 2000 Camry because I inherited my Dad's old '93 4Runner (which only had 30k original miles at the time). The only things wrong with the Camry were a broken motor mount, and flaking paint from being parked outside all the time. Engine and other mechanicals were going strong. I'm sure it had another 10 years at least.

IME a/c shutting down usually points to the compressor or low coolant, but I'm no expert. Find a trusted independent Toyota mechanic. He's probably seen hundreds of a/c units with this or similar failures.

Just got broken in. Lots of miles left on it

The best passenger car ever made from arguably what's its best build era.

110,000 miles on that baby might as well be 10.

LUCKY!!! Congrats!

quote:

Originally posted by jbourneidentity:
The best passenger car ever made from arguably what's its best build era.

110,000 miles on that baby might as well be 10.

LUCKY!!! Congrats!

Great cars but can’t hold a candle to the Lexus LS430.

I had a 2010 Camry, it was a great car. I sold it to buy a 2021 Jeep Gladiator. I miss the great gas mileage I used to get in that Camry.

Four cylinder has timing chain. Six cylinder has timing belt. Belt must be replaced and while replacing the water pump is often replaced.

Four cylinder motor mounts may go bad. Don’t cheap out or vibration will remain.

Upper strut bearings can go bad.

My son has a 2001 that is at 360k and still running strong. I rode with him the other day and the AC is still ice cold. Great cars!

You are officially through the break in period. Now, change the oil and timing belt and run the wheels off that thing. 30 years from now you will be telling Camry stories.

quote:

Originally posted by erj_pilot:
You have many miles ahead of you and your Camry!

My 1997 Toyota Corolla is almost 195,000 miles old. It's barely broken in...approx. 50 miles per week back and forth to the airport is all it's being driven. It'll last WELL beyond my (forced) retirement. I'm thinking about getting it re-painted just to protect the body. Not a show-room job that would cost in excess of $10k, but several grand to make it look good again.

we had a 97, it had maybe 160K on it when we sold it to the wife's sister, who still has it,
other than some body work done due to deer collisions in the country, it is still going strong at about 300K

Well that's good news gentlemen. I thought that might be the case about this model being a good car, looks like that's exactly true. So far I have done the following: fixed the A/C - it was a relay in the fusebox that controls the magnetic clutch on the compressor. I bought that part at a Toyota dealer, I avoided an aftermarket unit for that part. I was 30 bucks. Today I finished replacing the valve cover gasket with a FelPro aftermarket part from RockAuto. So things are cooking along nicely. Have tons more stuf to refresh - will be doing everything myself. Next couple weekends will be flushing the cooling system and transmission, and replacing ALL soft hoses for both systems. I'm getting everything I need from RockAuto, probably paying about 1/3 the price for everything compared to auto parts stores etc. Thanks for all the great comments about this nice little car. I'll be driving it to work tomorrow for an all day weekend project.

2002 just broke at 180000 miles. Windshield washer fluid reservoir no longer holds fluid. Prior to this I had to replace radiator hose, PS pump, valve cover gasket, oil, brakes, and antifreeze. I may still be on the original bulbs. I did upgrade the dome and trunk to LED's

Power steering pump went at 180k. Hmmm. Was the fluid flushed at some point before or was it old original dirty factory fluid ?

I've owned multiple Toyota/Lexus cars with 300k+ on them with no major issues. Owned a 97 camry with over 300k, a 02 lexus Gs300 with over 300k, currently own a lexus CT200 with 200k. Also have a 2020 Camry that doesn't have near that many miles, but I expect it'll last a long time too.

Even the older ones I owned with 300k+ miles didn't really have any motor/trans issues they were just starting to get tired (Rattles, shaking, Motor mounts, suspension) Probably could have put a little money into suspension or whatever and ran them longer, but I figure at 300k why dump a bunch of money into it. I got my money's worth.

Toss a can of SEAFOAM in it, change all the fluids/filters and run it until the wheels fall off or the engine blows. Toyota's and Honda's should go at least 300K before rebuild. Their newer ones with that superlight weight oil, I highly doubt as I've already sunk $1,700 into a CR-V because of it.

Well this week I completed the transmission 100% system flush w/a new tranny filter. After replacing both TOC hoses into and exiting the radiator, I routed the return hose from the radiator into a 5 gal bucket. It started out pretty dark, almost black looking. It turned red after 3 gallons of flusing, but took 4.5 gallons before it turned bright clear read. Fortunately I bought Valvoline Maxlife Multi-Vehicle ATF on sale between two retailers for $26 per gallon. Doing that with any OEM fluid would have been prohibitively expensive, particularly if you wanted to get all of the old fluid out as I did. Based on what came out I think it's safe to say the old fluid was probably factory fill. Based on the old fashioned gasket that came off in pieces, that's was probably the situation, because if the filter had ever been changed, any shop would have used a modern gasket and/or a modern rtv gasket maker. Fortunately the tranny was working Ok before the flush, and fortunately, after the flush. My guess is the reason it took more fluid than the entire system capacity to turn clear was that after pushing out the first full volume of fluid, the extra fluid coming out dirty was sort of a cleaning action as far as I can guess. Any shop would not have done that much flushing, the usual would be pushing only a single volume of the system capacity or maybe one extra quart, but because of the exceptional price of the Valvoline by the gallon, I was able to really flush it more than is usually done. I'm still fine tuning the fill to hot mark, checking it after each highway trip, adding about 1/2 cup of ATF until I hit the middle of the Hot hash mark. I also replaced the tranny drain plug gasket, an inexpensive Toyota aluminum crush washer that is soft, I could feel it sealing up at the specified 36 foot lbs.

On issue I had dropping the pan was 3 or 4 the pan bolts were hard to get to. So for "next time" I'll need to acquire some 1/4 drive wobble type extensions, and a set of shallow constant velocity u joint sockets. If I had those I think it would have been much easier. Because I didn't I was not able to use my inch pound torque wrench on those last four bolts, so I did it by feel compared to the bolts I tightened with the torque wrench. Doing it by hand was hard though because of the difficult access, even using high quality 10mm offset and ratcheting comb wrenches. The tranny filter was Wix brand, I use Wix for all oil and air filters, the brand gets pretty good reviews and they're reasonably priced. Amazon is your friend when it comes to oil filters.

I also replaced ALL of the engine coolant hoses with aftermarket replacements, total of 6 hoses - upper and lower radiator, entry and return to the throttle body, and upper and lower heater core hoses. Getting to some of the factory constant tension spring clamps took some effort, even though I have 3 different hose clamp tools. One tool I don't have that could have helped is a 70 degree bent nose needle nose plier. If I had one of those I could have saved and hour or more racking my brain the hands removing one of the factory spring clamps that were obviously built in the factory with no plans for anyone ever servicing the hose involved. Good lord. So "next time" I'll get one of those - meaning every time I do something and didn't have a better tool, I decide if I'm going to get one for next time. It actually works out though, since most of us typically do certain types of repairs consistently, whether it be cars, guns, or toys etc. It's a judgement call, balancing quality, cost, and anticipated use (particularly as I get older). Next will be to flush the system with water and Ford Motorcraft "VC-1" coolant flush cleaner, an apparently better quality cleaning product than popular auto store flushing products. I also replaced the thermostat, but with a new Toyota unit, not a auto parts store version. As I've said before, some things you want dealer parts, and thermostats are very important, considering you double the amount of engine friction with every 10 degree F increase in operating temp, at least that I've read. Factory thermostats are much less prone to sticking and malfunctioning or opening late etc. than auto store thermostats.

For the paint I used one compound, one polish, followed by an AIO polish-sealer. These were Meguiars 105, Megs 205, and Blackfire One-Step. I used relatively hard pads on a forced "random" orbital (not so random), I don't have the skill or desire to use a rotary, I'm not willing to burn paint on a dozen cars before getting the hang of it. My two machines are the classic (inexpensive) Porter Cable 7424XP and the German Flex 3401, also known as the beast. If you used one and you're not young anymore, the moniker is accurate. The advantage however is you can't burn the paint with this machine, even if you tried, the physics of those machines are all about safety. A serious paint pro will use a rotary for significant paint correction followed by finishing with a premium random orbital from Germany or Italy, the two main suppliers of high-end machines for paint correction. Though this car was kept in a garage for about 3/4 of its 21 year life, even after washing and clay baring, my pads were coming off black. That's how oxidized paint can become even though it looks clean after a good hand wash. This is the difference between clean shiny paint, and paint that has depth. It's very interesting to see the difference.

Next will be to tackle the interior. That's a lot of work, but a hell of a lot easier than installing inaccessible tranny pan bolts or hose clamps the manufacturer never intended any hands to service, good lord.

After that when I can save up more money, I'll be replacing all four strut assemblies, sway links, rubber bushings, and rebuilding the pistons in the existing excellent quality Toyota original brake calipers. The quality of the factory originals caliper bodies exceeds any aftermarket complete calipers you can buy. I'll also be replacing all soft brake hoses. Besides being just plain old, they can partially delaminate on the inside, causing strange brake pad sticking and overheating caused by failure to release 100%. Then a pressure flush from the master cylinder with Dot 3. I used to use Dot 4 but went back to Dot 3 since it's less expensive and I'm not really doing anything that would tax the Dot 3 spec itself. If I had a premium sports or performance luxury car, I'd use Dot 4 or 5.1, but for older daily drivers, Dot 3 is gtg.

Fixing older cars for an additional 100K miles of driving is fun. And it won't get stolen. Maybe that's why I've never had to worry about it. No good auto thief wants old cars. Chow friends.