Around 20 years and 150k miles. Inlaws' camry, one owner with lots of fender benders.
Based on what I see at least once a week it won't start on the first try (need to crank for a while). The car sits most of the time and during the week days were driven about 1 miles with 2 starts per day. Recently it is plugged into a battery tender Jr about once a week. So I suspect the battery is drained but not charged back fast enough.
The engine sounds pretty bad, so far it has avoided the famous V6 sludge but I do hear a lot of piston slaps or exhaust sound. My mother in law said she was always able to start it, but according to her "father in law can't because he was starting the it like a maniac". So far I suspects the fuel pump, alternator, battery, or starter. Once the car started it won't stall so I think the ignition side of things are OK.
Wife was thinking about getting them another new Camry, I said it is a waste to buy a new car to sit around like that, so I counter propose either a smaller used car like Hertz retired Yaris (around $9300 for 32k miles), or a $6k Nissan Leaf just for city driving duty (should still have 70 miles range, and with the way they drive it will be at least 20 years left before it gets below 10 miles range) to trade fuel and ignition issues with battery aging issue. The best scenario is still to "fix up" the camry so it will be reliable for another 10 years.
How much would I be looking at if I want to replace the original fuel pump, alternator, starter, ignition coil pack, wire, plugs? The car got a new sets of struts about 10 years ago so it is still riding OK. ATF was changed regularly, no sludge issue so far, and still pass smog.
Based on what I see at least once a week it won't start on the first try (need to crank for a while). The car sits most of the time and during the week days were driven about 1 miles with 2 starts per day. Recently it is plugged into a battery tender Jr about once a week. So I suspect the battery is drained but not charged back fast enough.
The engine sounds pretty bad, so far it has avoided the famous V6 sludge but I do hear a lot of piston slaps or exhaust sound. My mother in law said she was always able to start it, but according to her "father in law can't because he was starting the it like a maniac". So far I suspects the fuel pump, alternator, battery, or starter. Once the car started it won't stall so I think the ignition side of things are OK.
Wife was thinking about getting them another new Camry, I said it is a waste to buy a new car to sit around like that, so I counter propose either a smaller used car like Hertz retired Yaris (around $9300 for 32k miles), or a $6k Nissan Leaf just for city driving duty (should still have 70 miles range, and with the way they drive it will be at least 20 years left before it gets below 10 miles range) to trade fuel and ignition issues with battery aging issue. The best scenario is still to "fix up" the camry so it will be reliable for another 10 years.
How much would I be looking at if I want to replace the original fuel pump, alternator, starter, ignition coil pack, wire, plugs? The car got a new sets of struts about 10 years ago so it is still riding OK. ATF was changed regularly, no sludge issue so far, and still pass smog.
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