Selling a dead or junk car in Carteret

What Carteret's towing chapter says

Chapter 238 is the borough rule we found that touches dead cars. The council appoints companies "engaged in the business offering the services of a motor vehicle towing or wrecker service, whereby damaged or disabled motor vehicles are towed or otherwise removed from the place where they are damaged or disabled." Every tow truck has to show the official towers' license the borough issued, along with the tower's name.

Basic towing covers moving a car from a street, a parking area or a storage lot. It leaves out "recovery of an automobile from a position beyond the right-of-way or berm or from being impaled upon any other object within the right-of-way or berm." Pulling a car out of that spot is billed on top. For winching and wrecking, official towers may add $90 an hour with a light-duty wrecker, $150 with a medium one and $250 with a heavy-duty one, counted in quarter hours. Those are the borough's limits on its towers, not anything we charge.

No junk-car ordinance turned up

Our read of the borough code found towing rules but no clock for a dead car on a driveway or lawn. Carteret could still have one somewhere else in its code, so ask Borough Hall. Until then, the New Jersey rules below are the ones that hold.

New Jersey sorts left-behind cars by whose ground they sit on. On public ground, they are auctioned or junked. On private ground, a public sale comes first, and when no buyer completes one, the landowner can seek title in their own name (N.J.S.A. 39:4-56.6). Repair shops get their own rule: a car may be deemed abandoned once it has sat at a shop for more than 60 days without consent, or once 60 days have passed since notice that its repairs were finished. If a shop is holding yours, see stuck at a repair shop.

The MVC office we checked

Title transfers happen in person at an agency; the MVC does not take them by mail. Dayton's Vehicle Center, 2236 Rte 130 North, is one Middlesex County office we looked at. From central Carteret that is roughly 20 miles southwest, as the crow flies. Middlesex may run more offices than this one; the MVC location list has them all.

Signing it over in New Jersey

Sign where the back of the certificate asks for the seller. The Carteret buyer gets it along with a bill of sale. For a Carteret sale it lists the buyer's name and home address, plus the sale date, mileage and price. Then the buyer signs their part and brings it all to an MVC agency, with Form BA-49 if needed. A New Jersey title has to be transferred within ten working days of the sale. After that, there's a $25 penalty.

Title missing? A replacement is $60, and the OS/SS-UTA application has to go to a Vehicle Center by appointment. Read selling with no title first.

Take the plates off first. New Jersey plates stay yours, not the buyer's. Return them to an MVC agency, or put them on a different car of yours. After you sell covers the rest.

Towns around Carteret

Carteret is in Middlesex County. Linden is about 3 miles away, Rahway about 3.2, and Perth Amboy and Roselle about 5. Statewide rules are on the New Jersey page.

Getting an offer

Ring (877) 421-6008 or fill in the form online. Fill in our form and we'll make an offer on your Carteret car. We collect it from its parking spot, whether that's a driveway off Pershing Avenue, a lot by Borough Hall, or the shop that finished with it.