Rental Cars and Sunpass

[mike28j]

I just got back from a trip to Fort Lauderdale where I rented a car and accidentally ended up on a toll high that was cashless. The $1.04 toll ended up being $13 with fees since I had the car for 3 days. Lesson learned.

I will be traveling from Fort Lauderdale to Disney in March and want to avoid this happening again if I can. My rental was with Avis, and I recall it having what appeared to be a mini-transponder on the windshield. My rental in March will be with Alamo, and I can only assume it will have one of these too. I would rather get a sunpass as I will be charged the sunpass rate as opposed to the toll-by-plate rate which is higher.

I live in Ontario but travel to Florida quite a bit, and I have no problems buying the $20 transponder that can be moved from vehicle to vehicle.

Does anyone have any experience with a sunpass transponder and a rental car?

How do I know that my transponder will be read and not the rentals (if it has one)?

Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

Mike

 

[MIChessGuy]

I ordered a portable Sunpass for use in my Alamo rental car next week. I hadn't thought about the possibility of the Alamo car already having a company transponder in it; if I see one, I guess the plan would be to make absolutely certain that Alamo's is switched off before adhering my own transponder. Then I will connect to the Sunpass website via smartphone and add the rental car's information to my personal account. Upon returning the car, I will be sure to take my transponder with me and remove the rental from my Sunpass account.

I almost always drive down, so I thought it would be helpful to have the Sunpass for future trips as well as the upcoming rental car. It'll save me some time at the tail-end of the drive on the Turnpike and the Western Beltway.

 

[mike28j]

I ordered one today, let me know if you have any issues, so I know if there's something I have to look out for or be careful of.

 

[mom_rules]

I bought one at Publix last year and have used it many times over the last year and a bit(I'm from Canada and have DVC so we're there 6-8 times over the winter) As long as you remember to put your sunpass in the windshield and then go online and register your rental car you will not have a problem. We signed up for automatic top-up when our sunpass gets to below $10.00.

Good luck and happy driving!

 

[Capt_BJ]

most rentals don't have an actual sunpass in the car

"fleet" companies are handled differently ... basically they use the toll by plate system where a photo is taken of the plate and electronically processed

if you put a valid SUNPASS in the rental, the system reads this B4 it defaults to the photo system.

The order of processing is (appears to be IME)

SUNPASS

tag registered to a SUNPASS (why it is important to register the TAG # of the rental on your account and remove it promptly after) [I have driven my car to Orlando and back and not had my SUNPASS in the car, but the tolls appeared on my SUNPASS bill just like normal] {this is also why a SUNPASS MINI is a bad choice for rentals ... you can only register a TAG one time, and it can not be changed <unless they changed the system very recently>}

tag registered to a fleet (for a rental this goes to a third party company that does the billing and that's where the fun happens)

no to all these can mean a toll violation, or in some areas the system implements TOLL BY PHOTO and sends monthly bills. Miami is this way and the crosstown in Tampa, but nothing in Orlando area that I'm aware of.

****
I still see some rentals with a SUNPASS in the car - these typically have the SUNPASS in a metal box (shield) with a door that can be opened and closed to turn the SUNPASS on/off


https://www.sunpass.com/rentalcar

 

[MIChessGuy]

Yah, I had forgotten the distinction between toll-by-plate and Sunpass. My hope (pipe dream? ) is that everything will work smoothly once I have added the rental car's plate to my Sunpass account. We'll see....

 

[MIChessGuy]

Follow-up: I picked up my Alamo rental this evening. Unfortunately my cell phone had no signal inside the MCO garage, so I headed out to just past FL 528 and parked briefly at the Hampton Inn. There I was able to add the Alamo rental to my Sunpass account with no issues.

Now the bad news (maybe) -- I just checked my activity and apparently the system didn't pick up my transponder on one of the two tolls on 528. The total toll from the airport to I-4 on the Beachline comes to $1.87 using Sunpass. My account shows only one toll paid for 78 cents. Maybe it's just a delay of some sort, and even if it was a malfunction, my rental car's plate is now connected to my Sunpass account anyway. Just have to wait and see.

 

[vicki_c]

thanks for the report MIChessGuy! Hope that all sorts itself out, it might. We'll be there Friday night.

(PS - I told you about the cell signal - LOL! that garage is awful!)

 

[MillauFr]

Follow-up: I picked up my Alamo rental this evening. Unfortunately my cell phone had no signal inside the MCO garage, so I headed out to just past FL 528 and parked briefly at the Hampton Inn. There I was able to add the Alamo rental to my Sunpass account with no issues.

Now the bad news (maybe) -- I just checked my activity and apparently the system didn't pick up my transponder on one of the two tolls on 528. The total toll from the airport to I-4 on the Beachline comes to $1.87 using Sunpass. My account shows only one toll paid for 78 cents. Maybe it's just a delay of some sort, and even if it was a malfunction, my rental car's plate is now connected to my Sunpass account anyway. Just have to wait and see.

I wouldn't worry about it. Sometimes the tolls take a day or two to post to your account.

 

[Capt_BJ]

concur ... sometimes they post a little slow

 

[MIChessGuy]

concur ... sometimes they post a little slow

That's exactly what happened. I was not expecting it because the first toll posted to my account only minutes after my transponder was read. But the second toll did not post until about 14 hours later! Ah well, that's the government for ya....

 

[mike28j]

That's exactly what happened. I was not expecting it because the first toll posted to my account only minutes after my transponder was read. But the second toll did not post until about 14 hours later! Ah well, that's the government for ya....

Thanks for the updates, it definitely validates my decision to buy the sunpass, I'll just have to make sure i add the plate to the reservation.

You mentioned you called them, do they have operators working 24hrs/day? My flight doesn't land until after midnight. I guess worst case i could log onto to their website and handle it that way.

 

[mmouse37]

I had ordered a SunPass about 2 years ago as we are in Florida several times per year. I have never registered any of my rental tag #'s with SunPass. Actually never realized I needed to do this. I just pop it on the windshield and away I go. Never had a problem and the tolls show up on my account. It has been in about 10 different rental cars and never had a problem and never had any other fees above and beyond the actual toll posted to my account.

I will go read about SunPass and rental cars but actually never thought to register a rental. I love having the SunPass and not having to worry about having toll money handy!!!

MJ

 

[MIChessGuy]

You mentioned you called them, do they have operators working 24hrs/day? My flight doesn't land until after midnight. I guess worst case i could log onto to their website and handle it that way.

I wrote imprecisely in my prior message. What I meant by my "cell phone" comment was that I actually accessed the SunPass website using my phone's mobile browser and added the rental car that way. It's my understanding that nobody is there on the weekend, so that was the only way to do it without waiting until Monday (or maybe Tuesday, in view of MLK Jr. Day).

Once I got outside the MCO garage, I was able to access the SunPass website and needed only a couple of minutes to add the rental's plate. Then I pulled back onto Semoran and the Beachline was right there -- worked out pretty well.