Selling a junk car in Rock Island

The categories Rock Island bans

Section 9-118 bars parking, storing or leaving any of these "whether upon public or private property within the city": an abandoned vehicle on private property, an abandoned vehicle on city property, a hazardous vehicle, a vehicle with evidentiary value, an inoperable motor vehicle, or an unregistered vehicle. Each one is "declared a public nuisance."

City property has the tightest limits. Two hours there without permission, or twelve in a city-owned lot, is enough to count as abandoned. Streets and alleys are the exception, because the 72-hour rule covers them.

Inoperable, by the city's test

Section 9-119 calls a car inoperable when essential parts such as the engine or wheels are gone, or when damage or alteration leaves it "incapable of being driven under its own power for a period of at least seven (7) days." Three cases are excluded: a car down temporarily for ordinary service or repair, one "kept concealed within a building when not in use," and one at a properly zoned repair, wrecking or junking business.

The one-unregistered-car allowance

Section 9-126 adds a small exception. An owner or renter may keep "no more than one unregistered vehicle that does not fit into any of the other categories." So a single car with lapsed plates that still runs may be tolerated. A second one, or one that is also dead, is not. On properties approved for unrelated group living, Section 11.25 says no partly dismantled, inoperable or unregistered vehicle may be stored on site at all.

Towed from a street

Section 9-30 makes an unattended car parked against any city ordinance, or left overnight in a city parking lot, a nuisance that can be impounded. To get it back, you pay the towing and impounding costs plus all fines and penalties.

Illinois title steps from Rock Island

Titles are not a county job here. In Rock Island, these come from the Illinois Secretary of State, in person at a facility or by mail to Springfield.

Selling means completing the Assignment of Title with all sellers' and buyers' names, printed and signed, plus the odometer certification. No notary appears in the Illinois seller guide. Write a Rock Island bill of sale that shows the price and the day you sold. Keep the plates; they are yours. Rock Island sellers should mail the "Seller's Report of Sale" (VSD 703) to the Secretary of State shortly after the sale. Once it is filed you are no longer on the hook for the car. The car stays legally yours until the buyer applies for a title.

For a car going to scrap, a junking certificate is the route, and anyone can receive one by assignment. A buyer of a normally titled car has 20 days to put it in their name. Emissions testing does not reach Rock Island County.

The neighbors

Moline is 4.8 straight-line miles from Rock Island; East Moline is 10.8 and Galesburg 37.5. The Illinois page has the statewide rules, and selling several junk cars helps if more than one has piled up.

Getting an offer

Reach us online or at (877) 421-6008. The offer form asks the details. In Rock Island we load from a residential block, the lot behind a rental, or a shop near downtown Second Avenue.