This the 2nd Avalon we've owned and overall I have few complaints. I didn't realize until too late that the '06 Avalon is the worst year for complaints and repairs on Avalons since Toyota started making them. It is quite annoying to have this type of expensive repair coming our way on a car with just under 70,000 miles on it. I am fearful this will continue (based on other reports on this website). We've only owned it about 13 months, but I know a lemon when I see one. Will I buy another Toyota?...probably. Like I said, overall they build a quality product. Our other Avalon (1998) has 167,000 miles on it and still runs better than this one. We've done nothing to it (old one) other than normal maintenance, timing belt and water pump (both at same time). I live in Colorado and am getting estimates of around $300-350 +/- to get this fixed. Not a huge amount in today's world, but there are still 5 more of these that could potentially go bad. If they do, someone else can pay for them, not me. So, if you're thinking of buying a used '06 Avalon, you might want to re-think that. Based on the reports here, it wouldn't be wise to buy one. I wish I could have a Mulligan (do over) on this purchase. I hope this helps.

My engine light, traction control light and VSC light all came on at once. We did not know what it was for at first. My car seemed to run fine. I brought it to a family technician after auto zone ran the codes and he said that it could be my ignition coils. We replaced the one and it worked fine, but after 2 months, all the lights came right back on. I brought it back to the technician and another one of my ignition coils were failing in the front. I decided to just replace the rest of the coils in the front just in case. This cost me 398.00. It has been 2 more months and I am only counting down until my lights come back on so that I have to replace the back three ignition coils. This will cost me a great deal more because I will have to have the engine removed so that the technician can reach the back three coils. This is what I get for buying a foreign vehicle I guess. Fingers crossed though that I will not have to replace them...but I am usually not so lucky.

Recently, the paint on my car has started to peel as well due to a hail storm. The hail did not dent my car at all, but the paint actually chipped. It could be due to a faulty paint job, or some type of chemical getting on my car...but I have no idea how that would have happened.

I will never buy from Toyota again. It is sad, because they say that most of their vehicles last for forever.

This car got an "avoid like plague" rating on this site, but I disagree with the rating. I've had it for almost 100 000 km now (bought it used at 40 000 km from an original owner whom had all the maintenance done by toyota). I've performed all maintenance myself, at my friend's garage (he is a pro mechanic). The most common problem is ignition coils: at 100 000 km they all will burn out, one after another. The ones in the back of the engine are much harder to replace, the ones in the front are easy and take 5 minutes worth of work.

ADVISE: if your engine shakes and if you are seeing vsc light + cel light, it's most likely the ignition coils. REPLACE ALL COILS IN THE BACK, even if they didn't burn out, keep them for future, when the front ones burn out you can easily swap them out.

Inexperienced car owners will greatly exaggerate this problem, but it is fairly minor. It looks worse than it is, and other than this Avalon is an amazing car that does everything (except cornering) very well.

Remember, most things in your car have a lifetime, and will need to replaced sooner or later. Burned out ignition coils are annoying but are not really a defect you should blame Toyota for...after all, you won't blame your shoe manufacturer when the soles of your daily running shoes wear out.

I purchased this car from 5 Towns Toyota, Queens, NY on November 5, 2005. And, three week later without my knowledge, and without any contact, my extended service warrant ! I only found out when all of my oil leaked out of my car o/a January 27, 2009 when a technician from Newburgh, NY Toyota called me after I paid to have my car towed there, and he called to notify me of this travesty! In my contract I paid $2200.00 for the benefit of having an extended warranty, that was of no use to me. It ended up costing me a total of $3,070.00. Now I'm having this problem with the check engine light, and the VSC light on, of which I've sunk at least another $2,0000.00 at least, and there is no one that can seem to help me in the situation. I will probably never buy another Toyota vehicle again in my lifetime. Too bad things worked this way! Peace! Joel D Quinn