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CarComplaints.com Notes: Beware of the NHTSA complaint data for the 2004 Camry. It is almost certainly misleading.

The problem with NHTSA data for the 2004 Camry is that for months on end, the news media repeatedly told the public that several Toyota models had an unintended acceleration defect, & to go to safercar.gov (the NHTSA's website) to file a complaint.

So, the NHTSA received a disproportionate number of complaints about unintended acceleration issues because of the national news media attention, to the point where their data is unreliable taken in context with any other vehicle that did not receive national news attention.

CarComplaints.com typically receives more complaints per day about vehicles than the NHTSA does, but the news media did not repeatedly say "go to CarComplaints.com to report your Camry acceleration problems" like they did about the NHTSA -- so although we have less complaint data than the NHTSA for the 2004 Camry, our data for the Camry is a far more statistically accurate representation of the Camry's reliability than what the NHTSA data shows.

4.0

definitely annoying
Crashes / Fires:
0 / 0
Injuries / Deaths:
0 / 0
Average Mileage:
30,379 miles

About These NHTSA Complaints:

This data is from the NHTSA — the US gov't agency tasked with vehicle safety. Complaints are spread across multiple & redundant categories, & are not organized by problem.

So how do you find out what problems are occurring? For this NHTSA complaint data, the only way is to read through the comments below. Any duplicates or errors? It's not us.

2004 Toyota Camry steering problems

steering problem

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2004 Toyota Camry Owner Comments

problem #2

Apr 112005

Camry 6-cyl

  • Automatic transmission
  • 60,740 miles

A D V E R T I S E M E N T S

I heard and felt a noise on my steering wheel on my 2004 Toyota Camry an when I took it to the dealer they said that I needed a steering shaft/intermediate shaft. I happened to check the web and found that other people were having the same problem and that there was a tsb on this problem. Also that there was a new shaft made to remedy this situation. I have contacted the dealer and the manufacturer which in turn had the dealer contact me. The service manager told me that they could not fix it since it was out of warranty. He said that if it had 39,000 miles they would probably repair but since I had 60,000 they would not. He did offered me a goodwill gesture of 15% off the cost. My contention is that this was a known issued, and since this has to do with a safety issue such as the steering why wasn't something done before having come to this. The car runs out of warranty and people have to pay for something that they knew about and is a safety issue I also took it to an independent automobile repair shop to see what they thought and they told me that they believe that the noise was coming from the shaft and steering gear box. They did repair a vehicle of someone who 's car was out of warranty but only a few hundred miles over the expiration of the warranty.

- Pennsville, NJ, USA

problem #1

Nov 042003

Camry 6-cyl

  • Automatic transmission
  • 18 miles
Just bought a new 2004 Camry xle fully loaded, had 18 miles on it.one of the bearings on the steering U-joint fell out, causing at least 2" of play in the wheel, luck has it this was just before we were going on a trip. We could of lost the steering on the freeway and crashed. Power Toyota in irvine ca. Will not give me the bad part they said they had to send it back to the manufacturer.

- Mission Viejo , CA, USA

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