Going to rent a car for the first time in about 30 years for vacation this year. We need to transit occupied Illinois as part of the trip. I know from my last time circuiting Chicago that they are no longer using attendants and either use a transponder or the photo your plate and send a bill.

Since this won't be a vehicle registered to me, I assume the rental company gets the bill and any tolls would show up as a charge later on. As I would like to avoid that along with any surcharges they might tack on I'm open to buying an EZ Pass or similar device for our trip.

Michigan doesn't have toll roads and I rarely use either the Ohio or Indiana turnpikes so I've really had no reason to get a transponder prior to this trip.

Thanks for any insights.

quote:

Originally posted by Appliance Brad:
I assume the rental company gets the bill and any tolls would show up as a charge later on.

That’s what happened to me last time I was in Chicago a few years back.

You can bring your own, or use the one already installed in the rental.

Iirc, we paid a fixed fee per day to use theirs, and never got an additional bill. That was in January or maybe last August. Several years ago there was no daily fee but they charged us a few weeks later for the actual costs.

One time the EZPass box didn't block the signal, so though we didn't want to use it, it did get scanned, and we then got hit with the daily charge x 14 days. Idk how to prevent that in the future if you don't want to use theirs.

Very recent experience with this, and Mrs. Lee worked for many years for the company that manages the toll transponders for rental car fleets.

I rented a car at ORD and drove to South Bend, IN, where I worked for the week, then returned the car to ORD and flew home. The rental car company charged me $5/day for even taking the car out of state. If I hadn't told them, I doubt they'd have known.

The IL toll authority started mailing me bills for tolls, which I paid. But then I started getting bills for tolls incurred after I had returned the car. This went on for MONTHS and it was very hard to reach anyone there. They asked me to send a copy of my rental agreement, which I did. They assured me this would fix everything. Bills kept coming and coming. I wrote them a letter stating what was going on, said I'd never pay a dime for a toll incurred outside of my rental period and to stop contacting me. That worked.

If possible, bring your own unit and have the rental car's unit removed. Try and figure out the cost in advance for bringing your own vs using their unit. Make sure you know all administrative charges the rental company adds on.

My last experience with this involved paying the toll attendant, and the rental car’s unit also scanned even though it was in the off position. Along with the double charges, the rental company added a "processing fee" that was well over 2X the total combined toll charges. It was travel for work so I had receipts and I just let out travel office deal with getting the charges removed.

With enterprise I got toll bills a few weeks after turning in the rental. It was much higher than just paying myself although I don't recall exact numbers.

Just google (rental company name) rent a car toll fees it should bring up their toll policy.

Here's Nationals position on tolls, it's broken down by region, basically they charge a daily fee based on your rental area, if you don't get hit with any tolls, the fee is waived.

Link

I was in England and about 2 weeks after leaving I got a toll charged to my CC by Hertz.

U-Haul also bills later if you hit unattended tolls.

I forget what state we were in not long ago, there was no option to pay at a booth. We were able to pay through an app with our plate number

I should have added, Enterprise charged me a premium for the tolls. I should have jut paid myself.

What about a little black tape? Make that C an O.

quote:

Originally posted by sigmonkey:
U-Haul also bills later if you hit unattended tolls.

Yeah they do. I rented a trailer a few times here in the Dallas area. I have a Texas Toll Tag transponder on the truck, but one of the toll thingies got me once for the trailer by mistake. It only happened once, it was about $2, so I didn't bother trying to fight it, especially since I'd have to fight it with the toll tag people.

Eurocar also bills your card later after getting caught via camera speeding on the Autobahn west of Munich. Forget what you hear about no speed limit.

in VA, if you have a rental and run thru a toll, (here we us an EZpass) they will photo the tag, and the rental co will send EZpass your info,

had that happen with a Uhaul van I rented and forgot to get my EZpass out of my other vehicle,

So will EZ Pass work with the IL toll system?

Just taking the toll option with the rental is probably 4-5 times what I would spend in tolls.

Their website seems to indicate it will: Ipass.

It also mentions:
Renting a car?
Your I-PASS transponder can be used in a rental vehicle. Before you hit the road, be sure to add the rental plate as well as the start and end dates for the rental period to your IPASS account.

IIRC you're supposed to do something lol. Notify the Tolling provider? (or the rental company? lol) Sorry it's been too long.

But I do know that about 15 years ago I rented a car to drive to DC. My EZ-Pass worked fine the whole way, except for one toll in Delaware maybe it didn't get picked up. It was like a $1 toll. I got hit with the toll, a fine/surcharge for the toll, a fine/surcharge from Ez-Pass, fine/surcharge from the rental company, all said and done the $1 toll cost me $75-100.

I used to rent cars in Florida all the time and quickly learned that allowing the rental company was way more expensive than just purchasing my own transponder. Florida uses Sunpass and you can just add the rental car to yours by inputing the plate number into their app and then are only charged the regular rate.

I used my NH EZPass all over the midwest toll roads when I lived in Michigan, it worked just fine across all of them. Rental cars rip you off- the pre-pay thing is probably the best "deal" but it's still very expensive comparatively. If you just roll through, they will send an invoice some time later with a steep processing fee. I've had one for like 20 years now so I don't remember how the "start up" costs were but in NH, the transponder was like $7 when I had to replace it this spring and it just auto-loads like $30.00 to my account any time the balance drops below $10.00. You don't have to do that and can add cash manually which may be better for your case but up here you can't get too far without NH or one of my neighbors wanting their pound of flesh.


So short version- see how expensive a new account is and maybe go that way. It'll cover you if you hit up I80 across Indiana and Ohio too.