Originally Posted by
Analise
I wrote my above post poorly. What I meant is what if you want to use your own transponder in a rental car that has one built in? For example, when I was in FL in Dec, if I had taken a toll road, I would not only have been charged the toll but also be charged an additional daily fee for using the transponder.
If I rent a car in MA and bring my EZ Pass transponder with me, will rental car companies de-activate the car's transponder at my request so I can pay with my own transponder in multiple New England states and avoid their daily transponder fee?
I haven't rented a car in New England (BOS to be specific) in a while and when I did last time, I brought my EZ Pass transponder with me and had no problem using it. But that's maybe 10 years ago?
in Hertz cars, you can either slide closed the metal housing that holds their transponder or remove it and place it in the shielded bag that you should store your transponder in when not using it. Not sure about other companies, but I'm guessing that there's a way to do one or the other.
Note that in Massachusetts all toll booths have been eliminated and replaced by sensors placed at intervals on the highway. Anyone without a properly read transponder is billed by mail, which of course means a surcharge added by the rental car company. So whereas in the past I simply would close the metal housing in my Hertz rental car and flash my own transponder when going through a toll booth, I now pull their transponder out of the metal housing, put it in my shielded bag, and replace it with my own transponder for the duration of the rental.