[Shop-talk] camry hybrids

[Scott]

My mom and sister-in-law both had Acura TLs.

Maybe the worst cabin wear I've seen in a car since...well, I can't 
remember when. The dash cracked, the trim wore through, all the surfaces 
besides the seats looked wretched less than a year in. Man that car wore 
bad. They have this fake aluminum trim that looked good for about a 
week. I spent the last year of that car's life trying to find the 
replacement trim parts because it looked so bad.

Terrible gas mileage for its other factors. I was always surprised about 
that. For how fast it slurped petrochemicals, I would expect it to be A 
LOT faster. It wasn't a slug, but it never impressed me.

And for as big as it was outside, it always felt cramped inside.

On the other hand, I thought it looked great from the outside, and they 
definitely got the exhaust note right. But I won't be looking at any 
Acuras pretty much ever. Good-looking and -sounding car I thought. But 
I'd never buy or recommend one.

On 1/29/2013 8:26 PM, John Miller wrote:
> In California Toyota took over the Chevrolet-position as the 'default 
> car purchase of the car-ignorant' somewhere in the '80s.
>
> As far as I'm concerned Honda kinda elbowed them to second-banana a 
> decade later and Toyota's never really caught up, though there's a 
> fair bit to dislike about some of Honda's recent products as well.
>
> Honda went through a decade of even worse material quality than Toyota 
> though they've mostly recovered from that, and the current Civic is 
> too fat and too weird (and I think it's suffered in the marketplace 
> for it.)
>
> But Honda usually manages to put a coat of polish on the driving 
> behavior of their products that most other manufacturers can't manage. 
>  Even truly hideous, ugly Hondas and Acuras usually drive really well.