‘Are we serious? I need to pay to go home’: Man’s phone stops working in rented Toyota. Then he tries to use the navigation

A man driving a rented Toyota Corolla tried to use its navigation system when his phone died. Much to his surprise, the vehicle requires you a subscription to use its navigation system.

Dino (@dino._.dos) recently posted a TikTok about about his unpleasant — and inconvenient — discovery.

“I don’t know what it is that Toyota’s smoking dude. But I got sent to Virginia for training. And while I’m here they gave me a 2026 Toyota Corolla. It’s a rental car, base model but it’s actually like really nice. I’m really liking it, right? Super comfortable,” he says.

Dino found this out when his phone died 10 or 15 minutes from his hotel.

“Not to worry though, I have a 2026, I can just use the navigation services in the car, right? Right? So my phone dies and I’m like I’m not stressing. I go to put my address in. And you can’t type so I got to talk to it cause I’m driving,” he continues.

He says that he asked the system to take him to the Country Inn & Suites.

“That thing comes back and says subscription required for navigation services. And it said it all like elegantly too. It’s like, ‘subscription required for navigation services.’ Are we serious? I need to pay to go home? In the car that I rented?” Dino rants.

“Toyota, you’re out of your mind. I don’t know who else is doing this. I’ve never had to deal with this cause my phone never dies. But like, ugh.”

“Can you just plug it in?”

At least one person in the comments section of Dino’s video asked why he didn’t just use one of the car’s USB ports. The 2026 Corolla comes standard with four separate USB-C ports: two in the front and two in the back.

It also comes standard with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. So if Dino plugged in his phone, he would’ve been prompted to use one.

According to data analytics firm McKinsey & Company, 85% of drivers prefer CarPlay/Android Auto to on-board navigation. This is largely attributed to accessibility and familiarity.

Further, switching routes, looking up previous searched addresses, and navigating to new locations on a smartphone is relatively straightforward.

Consequently, every vehicle with CarPlay and Android Auto effectively comes with on-screen navigation. That’s provided of course, that their phone is among the vast majority that are iPhones or Androids. And that the device has some battery life left.

Do most cars require you to subscribe to navigate?

Dino isn’t the only person to lament subscription-based service models on vehicles. BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota & Lexus, Porsche, and Audi also offer subscription packages for their respective vehicles. Usually, the navigation service is bundled in with the sale of a new vehicle. However, after a pre-set amount of time or a trial period is over, drivers have to start paying to keeping use it.

Many drivers have criticized automakers for putting such features behind software paywalls. Tesla received a lot of hate for putting previously standardized AutoPilot features on a subscription fee model.

Others, like Dino, have also skewered Toyota online for making drivers pay monthly to use remote start on their cars.

The end of subscriptions for on-board navigations?

The mass adoption of CarPlay and Android Auto on vehicles has contributed to the decline of people subscribing to their vehicle’s navigation service.

As Redditors pointed out in a thread, there’s also the question of efficacy. Built-in navigation suites on many vehicles don’t seem to have kept up with the times. To be fair, it’s difficult to keep up with massive corporations Apple and Google, which are constantly expanding and updating ]maps coverage.

Google Maps holds a whopping 67-80% of live-traffic sector share. Apple Maps comes in second, with 11% to 25%, and Waze is estimated at hovering around 8% to 12%.

Motoring Chronicle has reached out to Toyota via email and Dino via TikTok direct message for further comment.

This story is republished with permission. It first appeared at Subplot News.