I wrote "I decline CDW" next to my signature on the Toyota contract, as per instructions provided by Visa and AMEX insurance providers.

Corolla can be a P1 (1.3L) or P3 (1.5L) on their current line up.

P1: 7020 first day, 5940 thereafter
P3: 9720 first day, 8100 thereafter

i just had a good uneventful experience renting from them. They were professional and offered a good fleet of new cars.

Any advice on what agency to look for?

There's been a lot of discussions on this in this thread but, for simple answer, look at post #99.

Rental car brokers with English websites:

tabirai
tocoo (most expensive but still cheaper than renting direct)

For Hokkaido: shiretoko-t.com

Japanese language sites would be the cheapest. Also Japanese version of the English site is often cheaper.

To get the Hertz discount with Toyota, do you have to call in? Seems that trying to do an online reservation through Hertz.com doesn't provide any additional discount.

I suppose, if you book with Toyota Japan directly, by phone. I dealt with them often after booking online, via Skype. The staff speak fluent English.

I use Toyota Japanese language booking site and Hertz discount can be specified there.

:confused: When I try booking via the Japanese website of Time car rental (via Google Translator), the search engine on their website is disabled. Price seems to be considerably lower. The Time car rental states 44,000 JPY, while the JP Time car rent should be ~10k lower.

What would you do? I could pick an aggregator website. rentalcars dot com states the lower price as well but having never used it, I have several reservations of using that website. The reviews clearly aren't that good.

Edit: Nevermind. After rentalcars failed to confirm the booking, I cancelled and rebooked directly with Times for slightly more (but having more peace of mind in return).

I'm just beginning to plan a trip to Japan with my wife and daughter. I'm think of spending a few days checking out small Japanese towns like Shirakawa-go and Takayama. I'll be in Kyoto and need to eventually wind up in Tokyo. Would a car rental make sense for this type of touring? I've driven once in Japan, about a decade ago, in the Kagoshima/Miyazaki area. I remember some things being a bit confusing (I had help at the rent-a-car office, where little English was spoken), but overall the experience was enjoyable. I would think modern GPS would now make the driving significantly easier for Westerners in Japan.

The alternatives would be to go by train (but it seems like the trains are a pretty bad deal cost-wise these days) or bus. What do you guys think? Thanks.

Your hotel concierge can help book the rental car and arrange for everything however, few rental car offices have English speaking agents, especially in small towns, but in Kyoto I think you can have better luck.

For just meandering around and checking out small, out of the way places, a rental car is an excellent choice and offers complete flexibility - make sure you get the English GPS (and don't fiddle with buttons and accidentally switch it back to Japanese), and the toll pass card. The tolls will probably cost as much as the rental car, so be prepared for that, and gas is not cheap either.

Also, the self serve parking lots need a little practice to figure out.

Everyone's different with his/her comfort level. But personally I would not do any driving that involves metropolis. I'm Japanese (but live and drive in America), can read signs without issues, go to Jpn all the time, etc. Even then, I choose not to drive in Jpn. I've only driven a couple of times very briefly near Tokyo, and it was fairly stressful. On the other hand, I've rented cars in Hokkaido and Kyushu... it's way more manageable driving out in those areas.

If it were me, I would consider just renting a car in Takayama or somewhere nearby for a few days for checking out the nearby rural areas where roads are simple and public transport is not convenient. Use the car to go to Shirakawa-go, Jpn Alps, nearby hot springs, etc. That way, you also wouldn't have to pay the one-way rental fee which can be substantial in Jpn.

You should not expect English speaking agents at any car rental locations.

One time in Okinawa the Japanese agent at a Sky Rent spoke excellent Mandarin. Otherwise I have not seen any non-Japanese agents at any rental company. Typically the Chinese and SE Asian service/retail workers speak good English but I guess they don't qualify to work for rental companies.

Lately the in-car GPS are offering multi-lingual interfaces, although functionality in English is likely to be crippled, for example no POI search for nearby gas stations.

Generally it's not a great idea to drive within large cities. I have rented at centre-of-town locations in smaller cities (Fukuoka, Kagoshima, Nagoya, Sapporo..) and these are easier to handle. I certainly would not consider Osaka or Tokyo.

Even Nagoya was a bit hectic for my liking. Picked up car at Nagoya Station and did a loop to Takayama/Shirakawago/Kanazawa and back.

That probably applies for all of Japan. So far, the language barrier wasn't too much of an obstacle for me though. Somehow I always managed to understand/be understood.

But is driving in Tokyo seriously so difficult? Sure the layout of the roads is complex to foreigners. Parking is a nightmare too, but the traffic didn't strike me as that chaotic. The rest of Asia is certainly much more chaotic when it comes to traffic.

I'd even go as far as saying that traffic in many parts of Europe is more hectic than Japan.

I've had the opposite experience. I found agents with basic English skills in different outlying areas, certainly not conversational English, but enough to get the job done.

The GPS units I had from Toyota were fully functional in English and had a variety of search options. I'm a US driver and my only experience with right-hand drive is in Japan, but I had no problems driving in Tokyo and Osaka, albeit outside rush hour - it's not so much the traffic that's vexing, but the every-500-feet-of-tolls that got on my nerves. After the first rental, we made sure to get the toll pass card for the next one.

Certainly it's not more difficult than Paris or Hong Kong. But there is no point driving in Tokyo for me. The alternative (public transit) is so much better.