My observations & notes on two (one-way) Toyota Car Rentals in Tohoku:
- If you're going to be driving on darker/slightly windy roads at night (say, slightly mountainous areas, roads with uncovered ditch gutters next to them, and small hub cities with white headlamp cars blinding you during rush hour), remember to check and book cars with white headlamps instead of the less expensive yellow. White LEDs improved visibility a lot. For the record on my rentals - Yaris Cross headlamp was yellow and auto high beams when it didn't detect oncoming cars in less populated areas, Toyota Corolla Hybrid was white. We didn't have an incident but I totally would have had more stress driving at night with the dimmer yellow headlamps.
- Also on the above note - still glad we don't book kei cars (usually the lowest 2-3 categories in price) for these types of regions and longer hauls. Yes, I still get passed by some kei cars and minivans on ICs (and yes, they're speeding). Not too large is also useful for smaller parking spots & lots and winding hairpin mountain roads. Totally not the place to penny pinch for us since we normally drive on highways and suburbia in US cars with more power and weight. YMMV.
- Basic pricing doesn't really change at the same rental office & dropoff but availability does. Just try to get a good coupon on rakuten or jalan or book earlier for most selection.
- Availability and pricing was generally the same for the entire Aomori region for Toyota, except for possibly some remote outstations. I guess they would have transported a specific car/car class between Hachinohe and Hirosaki since both offices showed the Yaris Cross could be booked when most cars were already sold out. Picking up the second car from Iwate (just the closest shinkansen below Hachinohe, not even Morioka) would have dropped the rental price a bit (not just the one way fee).
- Both cars had over ~60k kms, single USB-A port, carplay, and rental agency installed dash cams. Neither had a good place for a vent phone mount.
- MapCodes: NaviBridge app from Denso is the English version of NaviCon JP. You can share a location from Google Maps to get the MapCode if the location isn't in the system or doesn't have a phone number.
- It was useful to look up a left hand side gas station before drop-off since not all gas stations were at intersections with traffic lights. There happened to be more gas stations on city outbound road side than inbound in one of the areas we returned.
- Expressway PA and SA - the distance between the off ramp start and entrance to parking lot is a lot sooner than I expected. Slow down accordingly in advance.
Pondering:
- Has the Toyota Navi gotten worse? I took more than a few wrong turns because it wasn't quite clear, especially if there were two in near succession, even with the meter bar on the right. I think my partner got tired of me asking "Is it this turn?!" Maybe a me thing. I feel like it also used to show the speed limits more often and these particular units showed it less on the navi/dash
Last edited by freecia; Nov 18, 2024 at 6:19 pm