Sell your junk car in Markham: pickup day, step by step
Where do I start selling my Markham junk car?
Call us or fill in the form, and Top Dollar Junk Cars does the rest. We buy junk and non-running cars all over Markham, from the Kedzie Avenue side of the city to Dixie Highway, tow them away free, and hand over payment at loading, in cash or digitally. Same-day pickup is often possible.
Markham is about 7.6 road miles from our yard, about 6 miles in a straight line, and it's covered in our town-by-town directory. Below is how a pickup here goes, from the first call to the payment, followed by the one city rule worth reading closely before you decide to keep a dead car.
Selling a junk car in Markham, from the call to the payment
- The call. Phone us or use the form up top. Tell us what the car is (year, make, model), how it died and where it's sitting: driveway, street, lot or shop. Then tell us which papers you have. A title keeps it simple. Without one, we'll go through what you've got (maybe a registration card, maybe just a bill of sale), since Illinois rules decide which papers are accepted for a scrap sale; see how a sale works without the title. Our figure has no expiry date, so you're free to compare it with other offers before saying yes.
- The route in. The truck leaves our yard along Cicero Avenue, runs about a mile, then joins the Tri-State (I-294) for about 4.4 miles. The Tri-State is one of three interstates with stretches inside Markham, with I-57 and I-80. In the city, 159th Street (US 6) runs east to west, and Kedzie Avenue, Crawford Avenue (Pulaski Road), Wood Street, Dixie Highway and 167th Street are the secondary arterials. Landmarks help: the Canterbury Shopping Center takes up the area bounded by Richmond Avenue on the east, 159th Street on the north and Kedzie on the west, and the city holds about 500 acres of Indian Boundary Prairies, including the Gensburg-Markham Prairie, a National Natural Landmark.
- Where the truck stops. Under Schedule I(G)(3) of the city's parking schedule, a tow truck may be on a residential street, a driveway or a vacant lot only for a short job: under two hours, for a pickup or to move a disabled vehicle. A junk car pickup fits. Nearly every home here is a detached single-family house (94.6%, Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2020 to 2024); odds are your car sits on a driveway. If it's at the curb, check the side: parking is banned at all hours on the side of a street with fire hydrants, and at all hours on Kedzie, Crawford, Central Park and Wood Street, on the north side of 167th and on parts of 159th.
- Loading. The driver gets the car onto the truck from where it sits, so tell us on the call about missing keys or flat tires. Don't push it out to the street to tinker with first: § 90.06 limits work on the right-of-way to getting a broken-down car running again, within 24 hours of the breakdown, and forbids towing one onto the right-of-way to repair it.
- Payment. Payment changes hands as the car is winched onto the truck, by Cash App, Zelle or cash. If there's another dead car parked at your address, it can leave on the same visit.
Markham's 7-day nuisance rule, read closely
§ 90.01 is short, but every clause matters if your car has quit for good. It covers an inoperable vehicle, meaning one with parts removed or disabled for 7 days or more, kept on private land in plain view of the public. That car is a public nuisance, and after notice the owner must dispose of it.
Look at what takes a car outside the rule. A building does: a car kept inside one isn't covered (a tarp isn't a building, though, and neither is the driveway). Historic status for a car past 25 years old does too. The last exemption covers businesses that wreck or junk vehicles, on their own premises, which is no help to a homeowner.
And the 7 days run from when the car was disabled. A car that died a month ago already qualifies.
Two other sections back it up. § 90.16 prohibits abandoning a vehicle on a vacant lot or on private property. And § 37.04 requires a city vehicle sticker, stuck at the lower right corner of the windshield, for every vehicle belonging to a resident or to anyone whose license or state registration shows a Markham address. Passenger stickers carry no fee, but they run January 1 to December 31 and have to be picked up by the end of February, so a car you've given up on still needs one while it stays.
Neighbors handle it differently. Across Markham's northwest border, Midlothian gives a dead car just 2 days in a residential district before it has to be garaged or fully enclosed. Harvey, on Markham's east side, is reached from our yard by leaving the Tri-State earlier, at 147th Street. Country Club Hills, the neighbor to the south, is a straight run down Cicero Avenue with no tollway at all. And for Flossmoor, south of Country Club Hills, the truck stays on the Tri-State longer before turning off along 175th Street and Governors Highway. The trip always starts from the same place, our yard in Alsip.
What Markham sellers want to know
Our broken-down car is parked on the hydrant side of a Markham street. Is that already against the rules?
Yes, around the clock. Schedule I(A) allows no on-street parking at any time on whichever side of a street has the fire hydrants; the only listed exception is a short stretch of Wolcott and Honore. Get it onto the driveway if you can, and mention the street when you call.
Snow is forecast and my car can't move off a Markham street. What happens at 2 inches?
Parking ends on both sides of every city street, and cars left there can be towed (Schedule I(C)). A dead car has no way of getting out of the plows' path, so call as soon as the forecast turns.
Does Markham have an overnight parking ban?
Yes. Schedule I(B) of the city parking schedule bans parking on all streets from 3 to 5am (Ord. 86-O-1218). A dead car left at the curb breaks it every night, which is why the driveway is the place for it until pickup.
Can you take two dead cars from the same Markham address?
Yes. A single visit can load more than one car from one address; just tell us how many on the call. Clearing them together also ends the § 90.01 problem for both at the same time.