2024 Toyota Camry: Lease or Buy? Skip Both Until the Recall Is Fixed

The setup

You're looking at a 2024 Toyota Camry and trying to decide whether to lease it or finance it outright. The usual advice hinges on how long you plan to keep the car, how many miles you drive, and whether you want to own an asset or just rent the use of one for three years. That framework still matters here, but it's not the first question.

The first question is whether you should sign anything at all while there's an open safety recall affecting the rear seat restraints, a system designed to keep people alive when everything else goes wrong. We'll get to the lease-versus-buy arithmetic in a moment, but the recall changes the timeline and the calculus in ways that matter more than your monthly budget.

What NHTSA data actually shows

As of today, NHTSA's database shows 47 owner complaints on file for the 2024 Toyota Camry and 1 safety recall. Of those complaints, 4 involved a crash, 0 involved a fire, and 2 reported injuries. The most-complained-about system is STRUCTURE, with 11 complaints, followed by AIR BAGS with 6, FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE with 5, and STEERING, ENGINE, and TIRES each with 4.

The open recall is campaign 24V128000, and it involves the rear seats. NHTSA's summary states the consequence plainly: "A head restraint bracket that is insufficiently welded may not properly restrain an occupant during a crash, increasing the risk of injury." The remedy is replacement of the 60% rear seat-back frame sub-assembly, free of charge, at a dealer.

That's not a software update or a missing label. It's a structural defect in a crash-safety component, the kind of thing that only matters once but matters absolutely when it does.

The complaint record includes the usual new-car gripes. One owner report filed with NHTSA says, "The contact owns a 2024 Toyota Camry. The contact stated that the carpeting on the driver's side foot well was coming unglued on the left side, close to the brake pedal. The vehicle was taken to a local dealer to have the carpet reglued. The vehicle was rep..." Another describes a certified preowned purchase: "I purchased a certified preowned vehicle from Fowler Toyota in [XXX] , and after complaining multiple times about my engine being too loud, a musty smell in my trunk, the attempting to clean my trunk and me pointing out rust spots in the trunk and the smell..."

The NHTSA crash test awarded the 2024 Camry an overall 5 of 5 stars, with frontal, side, and rollover ratings all at 5 stars. Rollover probability is 9.9 percent. Those are strong scores and they reflect the vehicle's design when everything is assembled correctly. The recall exists because something was not assembled correctly on some number of vehicles.

The math

Let's assume you're comparing a 36-month lease against a 60-month purchase loan, both on the same 2024 Camry. We won't cite a specific MSRP because transaction prices vary by trim and region, but we can work through the structure with placeholder numbers that show how the decision breaks down.

Assume a $32,000 vehicle price for illustration. A lease typically requires you to cover the depreciation during your term plus rent on the full value. If the car depreciates 50 percent over three years, you're paying for $16,000 of lost value plus interest, wrapped into 36 payments. A dealer might quote $380 per month with $3,000 down, though your mileage allowance will be capped at 10,000 or 12,000 miles per year and you'll owe excess mileage fees and damage charges at turn-in.

A purchase loan at 6.5 percent APR over 60 months on the same $32,000 (assuming $3,000 down as well, so financing $29,000) yields a payment around $570 per month. At the end of five years you own the car outright. If it's worth $14,000 at that point, your net cost over five years is $18,000 in depreciation plus $5,200 in interest, or $23,200 total, minus the $14,000 residual value you still hold.

Here's a rough comparison:

The lease looks cheaper on a monthly basis, but you're renting. You pay $16,680 over three years and walk away with nothing. The purchase costs more upfront and in total payments, but you're building equity. If you keep the car for eight years, the gap widens dramatically in favor of buying. If you trade or sell every three years, leasing starts to make sense only if you place zero value on ownership and you stay within mileage caps.

None of this matters, though, if you're sitting in the back seat during a crash and the head restraint bracket wasn't welded properly. You can't depreciate your way out of that.

What we recommend

Don't lease this car right now, and don't buy it until the recall repair has been completed and verified. Leasing makes no sense in general unless you have a specific business need or you're certain you'll want a different car in three years. The 2024 Camry depreciates like any other midsize sedan, and you'll pay for that depreciation without gaining any equity. The math tilts toward buying if you plan to keep the car longer than five years, especially if you drive more than 12,000 miles annually.

But the recall is the gate. If you're considering a new or lightly used 2024 Camry, verify that campaign 24V128000 has been completed. If it hasn't, walk away or delay the purchase until the dealer completes the seat-back frame replacement. If you already own this car, schedule the recall repair immediately and don't carry rear passengers until it's done if you can avoid it.

If you're choosing between lease and purchase on a recalled vehicle that hasn't been fixed yet, you're solving the wrong problem. The right problem is getting the safety defect corrected before you put anyone you care about in the back seat.

For broader context on lease versus buy decisions when recalls aren't in play, see our lease vs buy breakdown. If you already own a car with a similar issue, our sell or keep page walks through the decision tree.

What would change our mind

If the recall completion rate reaches 100 percent and NHTSA data shows no pattern of repeat failures or related complaints after the remedy, the safety objection disappears. At that point, the lease-versus-buy question becomes purely financial. We'd recommend buying over leasing for anyone planning to keep the car longer than four years or driving more than 12,000 miles per year, and leasing only for those who genuinely prefer to trade every three years and who stay within mileage limits.

If you're looking at a specific unit that's already been repaired, ask for documentation. The dealer should be able to show you the recall completion record. If they can't or won't, that's a separate red flag.

Bottom line

The 2024 Toyota Camry earned 5 stars across the board in NHTSA's crash test, and 47 complaints over the model's lifespan so far is not an alarming number for a high-volume sedan. But the open recall involves a welded bracket in the rear seat head restraint system, a crash-safety component, and the consequence is increased injury risk if you're in the back during a collision. That moves the recall from the "get it done eventually" category to the "get it done now" category.

Leasing this car makes no financial sense unless you have a specific reason to avoid ownership, and it makes no safety sense until the recall is complete. Buying makes sense if you plan to keep it for the long haul, but only after the seat-back frame has been replaced and verified. Until then, the right decision is neither lease nor buy. It's wait.

Safety figures on this page come from the NHTSA public complaint and recall database for the 2024 Toyota Camry, retrieved 2026-08-15. Complaint counts reflect reports filed by owners and are not verified defect findings.