Readers’ Rides Edition 1: Toyota Camry

Not every high school student’s parents go out and buy them a Mercedes, Mustang, or a BMW. Most students have to work hard for the car they have by working minimum wage jobs while also balancing an endless amount of school work into the mix. Some are fortunate enough to have parents who assist them in buying high performance sports cars like BMW M3’s, or Ford Mustangs; however, most students have to make due with what they have, and in most cases they have an ordinarily boring car like a Toyota Camry.

Senior Mike Mancini didn’t get the 2004 Mustang GT that he was hoping for when he turned sixteen, but rather his dad’s old 2002 bone stock Toyota Camry. The car shows its age, there are many dents, scratches, and scrapes all over the car. Despite the cosmetic issues, the car has been dead reliable for Mike.

While Mike was trying to save money to acquire a cool car of his own, he unknowingly started to restore and improve the little Camry to his liking. At first, he did nothing but beat on the car from having some off-road escapades, doing one wheel burnouts, and attempting to go “tray sliding”.

After all of the abuse, the car was starting to get tired. The suspension would groan going over bumps and potholes; it would burn oil on startup due to a faulty head gasket, and the axles clicked from one too many burnouts. Mike finally had enough, and decided to do something about the numerous problems that plagued his car.

First he tackled the biggest job on the car which was changing the head gasket. For those of you that don’t know, that is a fairly hard and time consuming job to do on any car because it involves total disassembly on the top half of the engine. For a skilled and qualified technician to complete the job, it on average takes ten point nine hours. Despite not being qualified, Mike finished the job in the same amount of time as a trained technician. Mike then went through the car and changed all of the struts, and also replaced a pesky clicking axle that was on its way out.

“In order to be a car guy you don’t have to have a nice expensive car. All you need is determination and a will to learn and work with what you have,” said Mancini.

When all of the mechanical gremlins were taken care of, he then decided to clean the exterior up as well. First he used an orbital buffer to try and remove the light surface scratches that were scattered all over the car. After all of the scratches that could be removed were gone, he then went through and removed all of the dents that a D.I.Y. guy could get rid of.

“The car still isn’t perfect but it’s the best that I can get it,” said Mancini. “Despite all of it’s little issues I still enjoy driving the car everyday. Even though I’d like a Mustang down the road the car still taught me a lot about maintenance and how to wrench on cars.”

No matter what you drive, as long as you take care of and cherish it, any car can make someone an enthusiast.