I figured I would start a thread for my newish commuter car so that I can have a place to keep track of what I have done; these first few posts will get you up to speed of where I've come over the past few months. It's brown on brown and is the plainest car I have ever driven, but fits the bill perfectly.
Here are the specs:
2000 Toyota Camry LE
2.2L 4-cyl 5S-FE Engine
Automatic Transmission
190,000 Miles
I sold my old Ranger and ended up buying a 98 Volvo V70XC which I fixed up for a commuter, but ended up selling that as well. I still have my 2008 Silverado which does its duty for weekend camping trips, hauling loads/tools for work and towing trailers. Most of the time, I only need to have a suitcase-sized tool box with me, so a commuter car gets used 90% of the time.
In October, my in-laws got a new car, so my wife and I bought this beaut’ off of them for short money since the suspension was worn out, the exhaust was rotting apart, and it needed a tune-up as it would randomly stall and had a bit of a hesitation under full throttle.
Since they still had it inspected/registered/insured in their name, I was able to spend a couple months working on it in order to get it to where it would pass MA state inspection and emissions.
Prior to doing any other work, I went ahead and changed the oil/filter, drained/filled the transmission fluid, power steering fluid, differential fluid and flushed the brake fluid. Most of the fluids didn’t really look like they had been changed in a while. As with all of my other cars, I went ahead and bought the Haynes manual for it as well.
After that, the first order of business was to fix the exhaust. I went to Lou’s Custom Exhaust in Portsmouth, NH and had them bend up pipe from the catalytic converter to the muffler which included a new resonator. This was actually cheaper than purchasing the pre-fabbed piping and I was able to have them tuck the exhaust piping up closer to the body than the stock exhaust was. For some reason, Camry’s of this vintage always have the exhaust pipe hanging really low.
Exhaust Pipe:
Duplicolor Header Paint:
Second order of business was to fix the rear suspension. Upon inspection, the rear control links (lateral links) had worn bushings and allowed a lot of play in the way the rear suspension tracked. It also caused a bad alignment and premature tire wear. Since I plan on keeping this car for a few years and was going to have to disassemble the rear suspension anyway, I decided I may as well replace all of the links. Once I started taking things apart, I realized that the coil springs on both sides were broken and, since the struts weren’t in great shape either, I opted to get all new strut assemblies which included springs, shocks, mounts, and brackets.
Finally, prior to trying to pass inspection, I picked up some new NGK plug wires and NGK Laser Platinum spark plugs (OEM Recommended). I then removed the worn all-season tires/wheels and installed the dedicated snow tires/wheels which are in great condition.
I was then able to get the car titled and registered in our name and it passed inspection with flying colors (on the second try, the first try I failed due to a cracked Gas Cap seal).