How to Junk a Car in Chicago, Step by Step

Junking a car in Chicago is one phone call and a short stack of paperwork. The phone call is the easy part. The paperwork is where people slip, and in this city a slip follows you, because tickets, tow bills and abandoned-vehicle fines go to whoever the state still shows as the owner.

Below is the order we’d do it in if the dead car were our own, sitting behind a two-flat with a cracked windshield and a winter’s worth of salt on it.

How to junk a car in Chicago, step by step

1. Find the title, or list what you have instead. An Illinois title gets signed over to the buyer at pickup. If it’s lost, tell the buyer which papers you do have: registration card, an old bill of sale, insurance card, your ID. Illinois rules decide which papers work for a scrap sale, and we confirm that on the call. Our guide to junking a car without a title in Illinois covers the duplicate-title route.
2. Check the title for a lienholder. If a bank or credit union is printed on it, you need their lien release before the car can be junked cleanly. The junking section of the Illinois Vehicle Code, 625 ILCS 5/3-117.1, names a valid lien release specifically, which tells you how much weight the state puts on it.
3. Get an offer using the real details. Year, make, model, what’s wrong, whether there are keys, and exactly where it sits: street, alley, driveway or a tight garage. Ask every buyer two questions: is towing free, and will anything be deducted at pickup?
4. Empty the car and pull the toll tag. Check the glovebox, trunk, door pockets and under the seats. Clear paired phones and the garage door opener. Then deal with I-PASS (details below).
5. Peel off the Chicago city sticker. The Municipal Code makes this the seller’s job, and you’ll want the pieces later.
6. Remove the license plates. In Illinois the plates stay with you, not the car.
7. Sign the title over at pickup and report the sale. Get a receipt or bill of sale, then send the Secretary of State your Seller’s Report of Sale.
8. Cancel or move your insurance once the car is gone and the plates are in your hand.

That’s the whole job. The rest of this page explains the steps that trip people up in Chicago specifically.

The city sticker comes off before the tow truck leaves

Chicago’s wheel tax emblem is tied to one vehicle. Section 3-56-080 of the Municipal Code says that immediately upon the sale of a car carrying a sticker, the seller shall remove the emblem, and at that point it “shall cease to apply” to the car that was sold.

Don’t throw the pieces away. If you’re replacing the car, the City Clerk can move the remaining time on that sticker to your next vehicle, and the old sticker is part of the paperwork. Our Chicago city sticker guide for sold and junked cars has the transfer steps and fees.

A razor scraper and a little glass cleaner usually lift it in a few strips. Keep the number readable.

Plates: yours to keep, return or reuse

Illinois is a plates-stay-with-the-seller state. Under 625 ILCS 5/3-501, the registration expires the moment you transfer the car, you get no refund of the registration fee, and you remove the plates and registration stickers. Then you either forward them to the Secretary of State or have them assigned to another vehicle, which carries the fees set by law.

Practical tip: a pair of pliers and a flat screwdriver handle most rusted plate screws. If one snaps, the tow driver can usually help, but take care of it before they arrive.

I-PASS: the account matters more than the tag

The Illinois Tollway has been replacing the old plastic transponders with windshield sticker tags. According to the Tollway, as reported by NBC Chicago, sticker tags are mounted near the rearview mirror, are not designed to be moved between vehicles, and “last until removed from the vehicle.”

So do two things. Log in and delete that car and its plate from your I-PASS account, then scrape the tag off the glass. If you still have an older battery transponder, the Tollway has asked people to return it or recycle it; NBC Chicago points to Earth911’s lithium-ion battery search by ZIP code.

Reporting the sale

Most Illinois titles have a tear-off Seller’s Report of Sale at the bottom; the standalone version is form VSD 703. LegalClarity’s summary notes it records the buyer’s name and address and the date you let go of the vehicle, and that it should go in immediately after the sale. That date is your cutoff in state records. Our Illinois bill of sale guide covers what the receipt itself should say.

Why the paperwork matters more in Chicago

Here’s the scenario worth worrying about. You sell a dead sedan to someone off a marketplace post who swears he’ll fix it. He doesn’t. Three weeks later it’s sitting on a side street two wards over, a neighbor calls 311, and the city tows it.

Who gets the bill? Chicago’s abandoned vehicle ordinance, 9-80-110(d), makes the person in whose name the vehicle was last registered prima facie responsible for the violation. That same owner is liable to the city for towing and storage, postage for notices and collection costs. The fine schedule in 9-100-020 lists $75 for an abandoned vehicle, and the ordinance counts each day as a separate offense.

Pulled plates and a filed report of sale are how you show the car stopped being yours on a specific date. Skip them and you’re arguing from memory.

Getting a dead car out of a Chicago street, alley or garage

Most junk cars in this city aren’t in a nice open driveway. They’re nosed into a narrow garage off an alley, or parked on a residential block because they died there.

If it’s on the street, the clock is running. Under 9-80-110, a car on the public way that can’t be driven in its present condition, or that hasn’t been moved for more than seven consecutive days and looks deserted, can be treated as abandoned. Winter adds two more rules:

Rule	What it covers	Fine (9-100-020)
9-64-060 winter overnight ban	Signed streets, 3:00 a.m. to 7:00 a.m., December 1 to March 31, tow zones	$60
9-64-070 snow routes	Signed “Snow Route” streets once snow on the street exceeds two inches, until plowing is done	$60

A car that won’t start can’t be moved for a plow, so a junk car on a snow route in January is a tow waiting to happen.

If it’s in an alley or garage, tell us what the truck will face: alley width, low garage door, a car parked tight against a wall, flat tires, a seized parking brake, no keys. None of those stop a pickup. They just decide which equipment comes. We tow it at no charge either way, and same-day pickup is often possible.

We pick up all over the city, from Jefferson Park on the Northwest Side to Mount Greenwood on the far Southwest Side; our Chicago junk car pickup page covers the rest of the neighborhoods.

Who buys junk cars in Chicago, Illinois?

Three kinds of businesses buy them:

• Junk car buyers who come to your address, quote by phone and tow the car away. That’s us: Cash For Junk Cars Chicago - Free Pickup LLC buys junk, wrecked and non-running cars, trucks, vans and SUVs across Chicago and the Cook, DuPage and Will County suburbs.
• Auto parts recyclers and salvage yards, some of which want you to deliver the car.
• Scrap processors, which shred the hulks and mostly buy in volume from the first two.

Illinois regulates recyclers, rebuilders and scrap processors under Chapter 5 of the Vehicle Code. Even the City of Chicago follows that rule: when the auto pounds dispose of unclaimed cars, 9-92-100(b) requires that they go to a person holding a Chapter 5 license as an automotive parts recycler, rebuilder or scrap processor.

When you compare offers, compare the terms, not just the number. Is towing free? Are you paid at pickup? Will the price change once the driver sees the car? With us, the tow costs nothing and you get paid when the car leaves. You can read more about how we handle cash for junk cars in Chicago or request an offer online.

What happens to the car after it leaves

This is the part most sellers never think about. Under 625 ILCS 5/3-117.1(a), whoever possesses a junk vehicle has 15 days to surrender the title (or other ownership document) to the Secretary of State and apply for a junking certificate. Once that certificate issues, “a certificate of title shall not again be issued for such vehicle.”

In plain terms, a junked car is finished as a road vehicle in Illinois. So if yours could still pass for a running used car after a cheap repair, price that out before you call anyone. If it can’t, the steps above get it gone cleanly, with a dated record that it’s no longer yours and nothing left on the block for a neighbor to report.