Canoe cannot be carried on a Camry!
 

My wife and I have been avid backcountry canoe campers for 40+ years. Every car we have ever had or rented for a canoe trip was easy to carry the canoe on, except the Camry. For safety on the road, a canoe is usually carried on the roof (either on a roof rack or on foam pads attached to the canoe's gunwales), tied front and rear to the car chassis and strapped in the center to the car's roof. I was horrified to discover that there are no tie down points front or rear on my 2008 Camry SEV6.

When I was at the dealer for service, both the mechanics and the parts dept confirmed that there are no safe tie down points on the chassis either for pulling the vehicle out of a ditch or safely tying down cargo. There are no add-on accessories for that purpose either. The SE (unlike the LE) cannot even accept a Toyota-supplied trailer hitch because the sporty body skirts are too low to permit installation. At least a trailer hitch would have provided a rear tie-down point.

We are very disappointed. Does anyone have any solutions for this problem? Even an after-market modification might be acceptable if reasonably priced and not damaging for the vehicle.

Any advice welcome.

Thanks,

Carl

Typically all cars have some kind of hard points under the chassis where chain hooks can be installed to secure the car to whatever transportation is used to get it from the factory, train car, truck, ship.

Look under the front and back of the chassis along the frame rails for brackets where a chain hook can hook on. In the back chassis check for holes in the frame that a have threaded nut welded on the inside of the chassis rail to attach a bolt.

On Camry the rear brackets bolted onto the chassis. Removing the brackets allowed botl locations for the trailer hitch.

There are hitches that sit up pretty high on the chassis. The end that bolts to the muffler side goes over the top of the muffler to provide additional ground clearance.

is there any specific make that has the same that can't be also be carried on a camry or its only Canoe?

I would not have posted a request for help unless I had already done a comprehensive inspection and sought all possible local advice. I checked for just the kinds of attachment opportunities you suggested.

I have had many cars before and all had solid tow points. So, of course, I looked carefully under the car front and rear expecting to find the same. There are not even any solid metal panels with holes, bolts or edges that a hook can grab on to. All accessible surfaces are either soft plastic or movable machinery such as steering linkages. After not finding anything, I went to my regular Toyota dealer of 25 years who brought both the mechanics and parts dept in to inspect the car while it was up on the lift and to give their advice. Both concurred, that the Camry does not have tow hooks or any other solid tie down point. They could offer no workaround.

There are absolutely no possible tie down points in the front. The only suggestion the parts guy could offer was in the rear to install a trailer hitch but when he looked it up in the parts listing the note said this was not available for the SE because of the lower body apron. Perhaps an 3rd party hitch could be adapted but even that is not ideal since, for safety at highway speeds, boats should be tied with two ropes in a "V" pattern, one left and one right on both the back and front of the car.

I have/had the same problem.
Found this solution:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...ls_o00_s00_i00

camry's have 4 town points all tow point are cover with a ruber plug oval shape .

Not all cars have tie down points, but there is a solution.
 

Thanks for your input, and that may be true for the camrys you've seen, but it's not true for the original poster, nor for my 2007 XLE.
The original poster had toyota mechs put the car up on a lift to check.
Some have said that the US made camry have no tie-downs while the ones made in Japan and shipped here do, that might provide an explanation for the discrepency.

No tie-downs is a well documented issue (apparently not only for the Camry, but some other vehicles as well) and is why Thule and Yakima produce the hood loop strap.
It's a pretty elegant solution:
Amazon.com: Thule Hood Loop Strap: Automotive