I was born in 1979. In late 1982, my mother got rid of her horrendous 1977 Dodge Dart in favor of a RWD 1983 Corolla. In 1986 my father bought my family's first Camry He drove it off the lot with exactly five miles on the odometer. I was seven years old, sitting in the back seat, but I was leaning forward with my hands and body squeezing between the plush and fuzzy bucket seats.
A year and a half later, my mother traded the Corolla for a 1988 Camry. In 1994, she traded that for a 1995 Camry. In late 1995, I was 16 and I told my father I was commandeering his 1986 Camry with 187K on the clock and he had to buy himself a replacement, so he bought a 1996 Camry that was stolen three months after delivery and stripped so badly it was declared a total loss. Then he bought another 1996 Camry to replace the stolen vehicle.
In 2004, we bought a used 1985 Camry. To say we were a bit obsessed is an understatement. The 1986 and 1996 vehicles both clocked over 300K original miles with us. I sold the 1996 after my father died in 2012 with 308K on the clock and I just recently got a Carfax update indicating its subsequent owner(s) have now driven it to a total of 392K and counting. I got careless and crashed the 1986 car with 332K in 2007 and I got rear-ended in the 1985 Camry in 2014. I hit the car in front of me, so I became the middle part of a three-car sandwich and the damage to the front and rear of the '85 car was too severe to save it.
In late 1995, after I hijacked possession of the 1986 Camry, we looked at the new Accord, Civic, Corolla, and Camry. On the Honda side, we loved the Civic, but hated that generation Accord. On the Toyota side, we liked both a lot, but the Camry was clearly a superior choice for its extra size and power over the Corolla. So it became a bit of an unfair fight between the '96 Civic and Camry. The Honda dealer called to follow up after our Civic test drive, and I told him we were simply more comfortable with Toyota. He said he has known lots of people on both sides of that coin, and they rarely ever switch over to the other team.
24 years later, sitting in a 2019 Honda feels similar to me to sitting in a 1996 Honda. Sitting in a 2019 Toyota feels like sitting in a spaceship. Toyota has betrayed me and in my opinion, betrayed itself, its roots, and its entire company history. After a brief (at least it's brief for me when it comes to cars and their longevity) digression to Nissan for the past six years, I'm scheduled to pick up my first Honda in exactly 24 hours. Wish me luck.
The 2019 Rav4 has a traditional oil filter, not like the Tacoma featured in the below video, but the Rav4 calls for 0W-16 full synthetic. Good luck getting that oil at Walmart or anywhere other than a Toyota dealer. It's an undeniably shameless cash grab. Makes me think whoever is running Toyota Motor Corporation has a lot of experience in taxation and government-sanctioned racketeering.
The 2021 Rogue looks more intimidating than the 2021 Rav4, regardless of combined horsepower. I wouldn't touch a Toyota with a 10 foot pole at this point. They have simply disappointed me too much and strayed too far from what made them great.