Toyota’s 2017 Camry continues the model’s stellar reputation for reliability with few registered owner complaints, and just three recalls affecting less than 1,800 units. While the biggest concern involves transmission failure, most other reported issues are relatively mild.
Key Points
- 2017 Toyota Camry issues are fairly few and far between, with only three recalls and fewer than 100 complaints with the NHTSA.
- Early transmission failure in automatic models is the most severe concern for Camry drivers in general, and the 2017 is no exception, with a number of owners needing a replacement at around 85k miles.
- The 2017 Camry’s recalls are mostly mild, involving misprinted load-capacity labels, incorrectly-filled tires, and loose airbags. Less than 1,800 2017 Camry units have been recalled in total.
- Electrical issues are not exactly common in the 2017 Camry, but more common than most other problems, with bad wiring causing cruise control, forward collision detection, radio systems, and door locks to fail or otherwise act fidgety.
2017 Toyota Camry’s Biggest Issue Involves Low-mileage Transmission Troubles, Such as Jerking, Delayed Acceleration, and Odd Sounds When Shifting
The leading problem in the 2017 Toyota Camry is one that’s been plaguing the nameplate for decades: the transmission can be prone to serious issues at relatively low mileage. Repair Pal reports over five hundred complaints across 23 model years of the automatic transmission being slow to accelerate at an average mileage of around 85k. So far the 2018 and newer models are not listed as being affected, but that may simply be because so few of them have reached 85k miles just yet.
You’ll find similar mentions on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) website, where the car has 95 complaints total, with the strongest recurring pattern pointing to transmission issues. Drivers report jerking, hesitant acceleration, and strange sounds when switching gear.
Now, for the 2017 Camry to have fewer than one hundred complaints with the NHTSA when it sold nearly 400,000 units in the U.S. that year is a testament to the car’s overall reliability. But if you are going to have issues with your Camry, there’s a good chance that those issues are going to be transmission-related.
Thankfully, these issues are pretty uncommon, but if you wind up paying for a new transmission out of pocket, that’s going to average somewhere around five grand before you add labor costs.
2017 Camry’s Three, Mostly Mild Recalls Affect Few Units Overall, Includes Misprinted Labels and Loose Airbags
The 2017 Camry has just three recalls on file with the NHTSA as of the time of this writing. The broadest being a June of 2019 recall for an incorrectly printed load carrying capacity label on an estimated 1,325 Toyotas across several years and nameplates.
409 Toyotas were affected by a May 2017 recall for a spare tire filled to the wrong PSI, and finally, just 12 Toyotas were affected by a December 2016 recall for poorly fastened airbags. The 2016 recall is of course the most severe of those listed, even as it affects so few units.
With so few recalls affecting so few units, and with one of those recalls correcting a misprinted sticker, it’s tempting to simply take your chances. The odds are in your favor on this one, so why worry about it? Sure, that makes sense, but… recalls are always free, they always extend for the lifetime of the vehicle, and if your Toyota turns out to be one of the twelve with faulty airbag fasteners, that’s something you’ll want to know. It takes about five seconds to type your VIN into our lookup tool and make sure you’re driving safe, so there’s no good reason not to.
2017 Camry’s Electronic Issues are Rare, but Possible, with Owners Complaining of Safety System Glitches, Failing Key Fobs, and Faulty Radios
The 2017 Camry hasn’t exactly been plagued by issues with its interior electronics, but it’s a problem that pops up frequently enough to be worth noting. On the NHTSA complaints page, twelve of 95 total complaints have to do with the electrical system, three complaints point to latches and locks, five to the car’s electronic stability control, and one to forward collision avoidance. So it’s not any one thing, but a general tendency toward bad wiring and faulty electrical gear.
In the case of forward collision avoidance, a Martinez, Georgia driver saw their spiral cable sub-assembly failing, which not only put the forward collision avoidance system out of commission, but cost them cruise control and even the horn.
Other instances range from key fobs failing to work properly to the radio rebooting itself out of nowhere to doors locking and unlocking themselves at random.
These problems aren’t common. Again, there are fewer than one hundred complaints on the NHTSA page with almost 400,000 2017 Camrys on the road, so your odds of actually being affected by these electrical issues are slim. But, you should be made aware of them all the same if you plan on driving a Camry. At the very least, it’s easier to narrow down what’s wrong with your car when you have other drivers’ experiences to compare and contrast with your own.
2017 Camry Receives Top Safety Pick+ Award for Safety, but Headlights are Less than Stellar, Especially on XLE and XSE Models with the 3.5L Engine
While the 2017 Camry has a near-perfect score with the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, and a Top Safety Pick+ award, the car did come up short in the headlights department.
The car’s headlight scores ranged from an A for Acceptable for the XSE 2.5L and Hybrid XLE, to a P for Poor for the XLE 3.5L and XSE 3.5L, to M for Marginal for all other trim levels.
This is hardly a death knell for a car that earned a perfect G for Good in almost every other category. The Camry remains one of the safest and most reliable cars in its class, but if you’d like to bump your Camry’s safety rating up an extra point, you could always add some aftermarket headlights.
Confirming the IIHS’ near-perfect rating, the NHTSA gave the car a five-star overall safety rating, scoring it four stars for overall front-impact, four for front driver side-impact, four for overall side pole impact, four for rollover, and five for everything else.
2017 Toyota Camry is Remarkably Reliable, with Few Recalls and Complaints, and Low Overall Severity
It’s difficult to find much to complain about in the 2017 Toyota Camry. Issues with the car are few and far between, and most of those issues rank pretty low on the severity scale.
But, no matter what you drive, it’s always better if you know what to expect. The Toyota Camry is one of the safest and most reliable cars in its class today, but that doesn’t mean it’s totally immune to engine failure, transmission troubles, and electrical misfires. So if you have the option, it’s never a bad idea to invest in a Certified Pre-owned model so that you can rest easy knowing that your car has been inspected and that it’s covered by a factory-backed warranty.
Photos: Toyota
