torihada 2 Posted November 13, 2008 Share Posted November 13, 2008 are the weekend ETC cards valid north of Newcastle? Serious point though.....as a visitor would I be able to get one? I'll be doing some serious mileage on the toll roads in Dec/Jan. Where do you normally buy your ETC cards? Can you nip into a Lawson/7-11 and buy one? Last time I just paid for each journey at the toll booth. Link to post Share on other sites
Tubby Beaver 209 Posted November 13, 2008 Share Posted November 13, 2008 only if you pay in Scottish 1 pound notes! Link to post Share on other sites
gifugill 0 Posted November 13, 2008 Share Posted November 13, 2008 Don't you need a machine in your car to use them? Link to post Share on other sites
keba 0 Posted November 13, 2008 Share Posted November 13, 2008 Rental cars are fitted with them, but you need an active account. Link to post Share on other sites
why? 0 Posted November 14, 2008 Share Posted November 14, 2008 Originally Posted By: keba Rental cars are fitted with them, but you need an active account. Supposedly you can arrange with the car rental outfit to activate them, but no first hand experience. Link to post Share on other sites
snowdude 44 Posted November 14, 2008 Share Posted November 14, 2008 I believe you can simply put your own card in a rental cars machine and it will work, but not actually done that myself, just what I heard somewhere. Link to post Share on other sites
bobby12 0 Posted November 14, 2008 Share Posted November 14, 2008 This 1000yen thing is just a lame promise. It will not happen until after the next budget, which wont happen until after the next election. That is scheduled for Nov 2009 I believe. So you have to wait at least a year for the *possibility* of this to happen. Which leads me to say, why bother announcing it at all? Do it, and then announce it! Link to post Share on other sites
keba 0 Posted November 14, 2008 Share Posted November 14, 2008 The rental company I use (Nippon Rent-a-car, the only company that responded to my English language emails) won't activate them, they said I had to arrange that myself. I just paid at the toll gates. What was cool, though, was how the in-car GPS told me how much the toll would be at each gate, and the total to the destination, gradually counting down at each toll gate. Link to post Share on other sites
bobby12 0 Posted November 14, 2008 Share Posted November 14, 2008 With ETC you often get discounts though that the navi doesnt know about. Especially on weekends and between midnight - 6am. I've saved a fortune in 2 years with ETC. Toyota rentacar has an english site and phoneline. They say on the site they most cars have ETC in, and other vehicles can have a portable ETC Machine put in if you have your own ETC card, however they told me they couldnt put it in trucks which seemed nonsensical to me. Link to post Share on other sites
keba 0 Posted November 15, 2008 Share Posted November 15, 2008 You can only make an on-line reservation on the Japanese language site of Toyota rent-a-car (at least according to the info on the English site, I might be mistaken). Link to post Share on other sites
torihada 2 Posted November 15, 2008 Share Posted November 15, 2008 I book through ToCoo. Through them you can book a Toyota, Nissan, Mazda etc as long as the company has an office at your location. I've got a Mazda with snow tyres, snowboard/ski rack booked through ToCoo, collect from Mazda desk at Narita. I've done this before and its quite simple. Last time I got upgraded for free from a small car to a 4WD MPV. Link to post Share on other sites
keba 0 Posted November 15, 2008 Share Posted November 15, 2008 I had a problem with ToCoo! as well. I couldn't get the on-line reservation system to take my booking for some reason, so I gave up on them, and went with Nippon. Got a Subaru Legacy last time at Narita, ski racks, snow tyres and a baby seat as well. Turned up a day late because of a flight delay, but no problems at the desk, even with my reservation confirmation only in English. This time getting smething smaller, no wife or child this time Link to post Share on other sites
Recommended Posts