How long does it take to sell a Toyota Camry?

How long does it take to sell a Toyota Camry? How does 10hrs sound? Surprised, it's true. When we decided to offload our 2001 Camry and posted the ad on craigslist Austin Friday night around 11:30pm, by 12:15am I started getting text messages and emails inquiring about the car. Initially I thought it was a spam and ignored the same (like the chat messages that popup automatically when you enter a chat room). By Saturday morning 8:00 there were 5 text messages including 1 offer to buy the car outright without even trying the car. I started responding to the texts 1 by one in the order it was received, by 9:00AM I had 1 guy was scheduled to come at 10:30 and other at 11:30 and another 12:30.

While the guy at 10:30 did not confirm back, a lady called and asked if she could come and take a look at the car. I was hesitant as there were others who had inquired before her but she was persistent and I decided to give her the 10:30 slot. It appears she was in a big rush and she showed up at 10:00 itself. She and her husband looked at the car inside, outside, under the hood and inside the boot, did a test drive and said they want to buy. They asked for slightly lower than I was asking and when I declined to negotiate, they agreed for the whole price, paid in cash and signed all the required paperwork and we were done by 11:00am.

I must say, a few things worked to my advantage, considering it was my wife's car it was almost dent free barring a few scratches at few places and well kept both inside and out, another thing was that the car was mostly dealer serviced and hence every single detail of the service was posted on Carfax and it made my selling easy.

I am not vouching for service at the dealership all the time, I do have some bad experiences with my VW dealership.

Right tool (specialist mechanic) for the job is a must

When I graduated from grad school and took up the job in Austin, I transitioned to Austin with my used Toyota Camry. It was a fairly old but reliable car and I had expectations of it lasting a couple more years with me. I guess it didn’t like the weather in Texas and started having a unique problem, whenever I stopped the car the probability of it taking off again was very low. This problem I had noticed while in grad school but was occurring very rarely and the local mechanic in Rolla, MO couldn’t figure out what was wrong. With the driving pattern in Austin, the problem became real bad and it reached a point that I was scared to drive the car. I took it to run of the mill mechanic shops like Firestone, Break Specialists plus and even a Transmission repair shop. None could figure out what was wrong and eventually I donated the car to an Animal Shelter.

Fast forward to present, my present car VW Passat started experiencing similar problem as my old Camry. It was not really noticeable to me (I think it occurred once or twice that I had trouble taking off after I stopped) but the diagnostics built into the car cried foul and turned the CEL (check engine light) on. This time around I did my homework and took it to Austin Veedub a specialist in VW. The diagnosis came to that the RPM sensor on the car was broken, consulting Dr. Google with the symptoms I agreed with the diagnosis. The repairman replaced the part and the car is running like a champ. I wonder if the Camry also needed this part replaced and would have been fine.

The lesson I learnt from this experience is, when the car is in trouble either take it to a reliable and good dealer (which is usually a myth) or find a mechanic who specializes in my brand of car rather than taking it to the Midas or Break Specialist and so on. I could have taken the Camry to the dealer in town but considering I had only spent a couple thousand to buy the car I didn’t intend to spend another thousand to fix the car (at least that's what I thought at that time). 

They want the Toyota not VW

Between me and my wife we have 2 cars, one is a 2001 Toyota Camry and the other is a 2002 Volkswagen Passat. Camry is Beige in color and Passat is Blue in color. Considering their age, both cars are near or slightly beyond their 100000 mile markers. 

 

The other day when I walked to the Camry, I saw this note on the dashboard and I looked over the Passat and I was slightly happy to see no such note. The mind started wondering, does the Camry look so old in comparison or may be the blue vs. the beige colors making the difference.

My momentary happiness died away for I realized the person who put this note thinks Camry is more valuable than the Passat. I haven’t contacted these people for I have no intentions to part with either the Camry or the Passat.     

VW repair Austin

Most VW owners in Austin agree with me on the fact that owning a VW in Austin is a pain, not because the cars are less reliable in Austin but because of the lack of quality specialized repair shops, or so I thought.

There is one dealer in town, who from all points of view is below standard. The only option I had getting my VW fixed was to drive 35miles to the dealer in George town. For the last 8 years of the ownership of my VW, I have used the dealer in George town for all the major and minor repair services. I like the dealership, so far I have had ok experience with them. But this year when my car was at 96000 miles and had a coolant leak problem, I decided to find a local independent repair shop. After spending long enough time on Google and yelp and other such places I found this place called Austin Veedub.

Even though the reviews were very positive for this repair shop I was hesitant, but figured I had nothing much to lose and decided to give them a shot. I was pleasantly surprised when they said they can only see my car a week later for they were busy. On the scheduled day of service, my car had more problems than just coolant leak. The service manager Adam was pretty professional and he even arranged a ride for me back to work. They called me the same day with the repair estimate. The thing that really impressed me was that they worked on things that I had quoted as problems and not sneaking around to fix things preemptively. After they did the repairs they realized that one of the repairs they had quoted and performed hadn’t fixed the problem and the actual problem was somewhere else. They were professional enough not to charge me for that repair (there is no way I would have known where the real problem was).

Also, they were professional enough to honor their warranty and replace the part they had put in for free. The repair costs were also reasonable and frankly much cheaper than my dear dealer. 

It is not all bed of roses, some times they do not have parts and might have to get it from other places (dealers amongst others) and that could delay the service time. They are located near the airport and getting there is a tad tricky.

In spite of these drawbacks, I like these guys and I am willing to say bye-bye my dear dealer and hello to Austin Veedub. I wish I had tried this place couple of years earlier. 

VW

Long time ago when I was looking to buy a new car, I was looking at VW Passat (my present car), Honda Accord and Nissan Maxima. In the end I bought VW in spite all the bad comments most of my friends (Indian) gave. 7 and half years later, no regrets, it is for sure one of the most wonderful cars I have driven. It is very reliable and drives really well; in short I love my blue Passat.

Most of my Indian friends were opposing my choice because they were stuck in the concept that VW’s are not reliable and the maintenance is very expensive, when I pushed for specifics all I got was “7 or 8 years later you need t o change timing belt and that it is expensive”.

The reason for this blog is to quote my experience of the VW and counter some of the concepts my friends had (or still have).

After 7 and half years of owning the car, I can say it is very reliable. I won’t think twice before making a long drive in the VW. It has a more rigorous maintenance schedule and the service cost is usually 20 to 30% higher than Japanese makes. The biggest problem I have faced are the CV boots which keeps ripping off every couple of years and cost $300 to replace each time. The car needs a bit higher end tires, which reduces road noise and gives good road grip but doesn’t last longer than 3-4 years. The expense of maintenance is not the timing belt replacement but fixing the leaks and replacing the gaskets (rubber parts). The other ware and tare are the brakes which are made of a softer material and they give the comfort but again don’t last too long. One big problem of either VW or BMW or Audi is the limited number of dealers in Austin. Even sad is that the in town VW dealer is so pathetic that I drive 25-30miles to a dealer out of town. I am sure I wouldn’t have had this problem if I had gone with Honda, Toyota or Nissan.

To conclude cost of maintaining a VW is 20 to 30% more expensive than a Camry or Accord and at least in my case it is as reliable as either of them

In the end I love my car and would keep it for a while to come.