Is Toyota Camry made in Japan

[S60]

Most Camrys sold in the United States are built in Georgetown.  
The Toyota Camry is also made at the Tsutsumi plant in Toyota City, Japan.  
Link to all mfg in NA
http://www.toyota.com/about/operations/manufacturing/

Once in this site click on the map locations to see which cars are made where.



(Message edited by S60 on September 23, 2004)

[ovr50]

Thang - Ok, but S60s and my comment that the Solara is built in Canada, not the US or Japan, is correct.

[S60]

Ovr50, in my orginal post I had written the Solara is built in Cambridge, but I read as of MY2003, the Solara is built in the USA.See the below figures, you will notice in the 2003 column  
zero Solara's built in Cambridge.

* As of December 2003
Cambridge Plant
Production Volume: 2002 2003  
Corolla 95,030 135,428  
Camry Solara 42,406 0  
Matrix 80,582 78,781  
RX330 0 13,334  
Total Vehicles 218,018 227,543  
4 Cyl. Engines 158,269 200,317  

[ovr50]

There you go - I learn something every day on here - Toyota just switched that then in 2003 to build more Corollas and started the RX330 there. Thang was correct, I apologize.

[multipath]

Someone go to a Toyota dealership and look at the VIN plates on new Camrys to settle this once and for all.

[Mdxtasy]

I think you just volunteered.  

[Drivesideways]

Hey, MD...I just noticed you're over the 3k post mark!  Woohoo for you!  

[ovr50]

I've sneaked a quick at a few Camrys on the street in the last 2 days and all I've seen VIN starts w "J".

[Mdxtasy]

Holy crap!  I'm almost as old as Snowman!  I knew I was close last week but completely forgot about it!

[sirAQUAMAN64]

It was my understanding that most (2/3) were made in KY, and additional (1/3 or so) units were imported from Japan.

Will have to investigate...

[ovr50]

Just came back from local Toyota shop and the scoop on the Camrys is roughly as Siraqua says above. They told me most come from KY but, because of high demand for the car, sometimes KY can't supply all the Camrys that Cdn dealers need, so then they bring them in from Japan. So, the 2/3 - 1/3 ratio mentioned by Siraqua above could be very close. So, NOT ALL Cdn. Camrys are made in Japan, only about 1/3 are. I checked 8 new ones on the lot (2004s and 2005s) and all 8 were VIN starting 4T which is a Calif. plant (IIRC) and none were VIN JT for the Japanese models. In the used car area, I checked about 4 Camrys and all were JT cars (ie. Japanese built).  
So, it's a mixed bag. Check the VIN - if it's a JT start, then it's Japanese built; otherwise it's North American.

[riga]

Thanks, Ovr50.
Appreciate your help.

[Drivesideways]

Is the quality gap that large between Toyota plants in NA and Japan?

[Mdxtasy]

I don't think so....that's why I posed the question of does it matter?

[ovr50]

I don't think so; the Reliability History as rated by Consumer Reports is that the Camry is one of the most reliable cars out there. Since CR is a US based organization, the report would be based on the Camrys built in the US. In fact, I believe that some of the NA plants that build Camrys (and other Toyotas) have won awards for quality control. I think the fear of NA plants is overstated. Wife's Solara is 5 years old now, was built in Canada, and has been of very high quality from day one, and very reliable.

[Drivesideways]

Me either.  I alluded to that question before as well, but I thought maybe someone had facts.  I've been looking for some, but haven't dug anything up yet.

[Drivesideways]

Here's some info....

Toyota struggles with its own internal plant-to-plant quality variation...

http://www.thecarconnection.com/index.asp?n=156,175&sid=175&article=7401

Yet still dominates the market...
http://www.jdpa.com/news/releases/pressrelease.asp?ID=2004055

or the pdf version...
http://www.jdpa.com/pdf/2004055.pdf

Given that most Camry's sold in NA are made in NA, and that Camry makes up a significant portion of their product mix...I'm not sure I would worry too much about where it was built, if I was looking to reduce the risk of having an unreliable car.  Remember that "country of origin=Japan" is no guarantee that the risk=0.

[sirAQUAMAN64]

While I worked at corporate office at Lexus we had to provide RX 330's for the Cambridge plant to inspect for build quality differences, and for workers to understand that the level of detail and quality is a notch above the Corolla/Camry Solara (produced there at the time).  

I don't think that there's much of a difference between N American and Japanese cars. That said, if there were two identical ones on the lot, I'd choose the one built in Japan. In general, they tend to sweat more about the most minute details - things we might possibly overlook or not stop the line for here. The quality out of Cambridge is excellent though. There ARE published reports that up until last year the KY plant's quality had dropped off right after the '02 Camry was introduced. That seems to have been corrected, and was never bad. So in response, I wouldn't be shopping all over the city for a Japanese-built Camry.