general problems of the 1999 Toyota Camry

1999 Toyota Camry le 4cyl starter failed to disengage from flywheel causing fire. The starter kept running burning it out and also burning the positive cable to the battery. Damage to the battery is under investigation. I was sitting parked in a parking lot with the radio and the air on when I observed smoke coming from the engine then started to come into the car thru the air conditioning. I turned the car off but the smoke continued and the fire dept was called. After looking at the internet this seems to be a widely known issue with multiple postings. I have not seen a recall on this. It needs to be investigated. My insurer said that my claim will be denied due to mechanical failure. Toyota needs to he held accountable.

My daughter was driving into starved rock national park in illinois around 4 p. M. On August 20th, 2014. She driving on the entrance drive at the speed of 10 mph. The car suddenly started ramping up in speed causing the my daughter to start braking. The car continued gaining speed and the brakes were unable to stop the vehicle. As the car was going faster, my daughter entered the parks visitor center parking lot. While still trying to stop the vehicle, my daughter hit a parked car to the right, just clipping it causing damage to the hit car's taillight. Her car hit a car to the left then hit a parked tahoe which stopped my daughters car after being pushed 4 parking spaces. We complained to Toyota corp. They inspected the car and said it was mechanically sound. They admitted after further discussion the accelerator cable was frozen. They said this happened from an impact behind the battery, problem is that there was no impact that could have caused this until the impact of hitting the tahoe. My daughter was fighting to stop from the entrance drive. The Toyota rep. Also stated that their inspection team released the cable and said it worked fine. The rep. Could not answer my question regarding the timing of the cable being frozen. They are accusing my daughter of accelerating the vehicle due to fact that it is a mechanical accelerator, it was the only way this could have happened. Another issue is that the airbags did not deploy. Toyota claims due to the fact that the impact was slightly off center of the front that they did not deploy. Looking at the damage including the radiator being pushed into the engine, the airbags should have deployed. Toyota feels that our car is fine and there were no issues with the manufacturing or the design. Please help.

This car is definetly a lemon ive put more money into than the car is worth and still doesnt work the dealer rock Chevrolet knew of issues with this car but still sold it tried to have it fixed thru them but they were rude and wouldnt do it.

I have a "1999" Toyota Camry that on the way to work yesterday had the engine begin racing and the brakes were barely able to stop it. I had to put the vehicle in park while the engine continued to race. I got out and checked floor mats and worked the gas pedal by hand and the engine continued to race. I shut off the engine and tried restarting it and the engine immediately began racing again. I managed to move it off the road and into a gas station and had someone from inside come out just to witness it as I couldn't believe it was happening. I opened the hood and manually worked what I call the throttle control and was able to rotate in but the engine continued to race. Only turning the engine off would stop the racing. I repeated these steps at least 3 times and upon the last engine start up the engine idled normally. I had driven for a short time before and I feel certain that the speed control was controlling the speed until I took it off. At first thought my brakes were bad as they weren't stopping the car well. Then I noticed it was actually accelerating on it's on. I understand this was not supposed to happen on this year of vehicle and that is what the local service people told me when I called them. However, I am very wary that there is an electronic aspect to the problem and even if it is some other problem known or not known to Toyota it is a very dangerous problem to have and never to have known about myself.