Selling a junk car in Palos Park

Palos Park is the least densely settled town we serve. About 4,900 people (2020 Census) live across more than six and a half square miles, which works out to big lots and long driveways. From our lot in Crestwood it’s about six miles: Cal Sag Road to 127th Street, then McCarthy Road and 123rd Street. Twelve minutes or so without traffic.

Where Palos Park sits

Palos Park is a village in southwestern Cook County, in Palos and Lemont townships, ZIP code 60464. Hickory Hills is to the north, Palos Heights to the northeast and Orland Park to the southwest. IL-7 has an interchange at 123rd Street and McCarthy Road inside the village.

The village code gives several roads their own parking sections: 86th Avenue, 123rd Street, Wolf Road, US Route 45 and North Woodland Trail. The Palos Park station on Metra’s SouthWest Service runs to Union Station on weekdays and Saturdays, and Pace route 379 serves the village.

Big lots, garages and the old project car

Nearly 90 percent of homes are owner-occupied, and about 85 percent are single-unit, mostly detached houses, by 2020 to 2024 census estimates. More land often means more room to keep a car that hasn’t moved in years: the project car in the side yard, the pickup by the shed.

Palos Park’s code is specific about those. Section 676.09 calls a vehicle an “inoperative or junk vehicle” if it has no current state or village license, or if it’s severely rusted, wrecked or dismantled. It then splits them in two:

• Restorable junk vehicles are allowed on a residential lot only inside a legal garage.
• Wrecks, meaning vehicles not economical to restore as decided by the police chief, aren’t allowed in residential areas at all.

A separate chapter covers abandoned vehicles: one in disrepair and undrivable, or unmoved for seven days or more and apparently deserted (§ 470.01). After seven days, the police chief may order it removed from private property (§ 470.02).

If the restoration isn’t happening, selling the car for scrap clears both rules. If you’ve already pulled parts off it, our page on stripped and incomplete cars explains how that changes the offer, and scrap it or sell it for parts helps you decide whether to keep stripping.

Parking on Palos Park streets

• Overnight. No parking on a street for more than 30 minutes between 2:00 and 5:00 a.m., any day (§ 480.03).
• Snow. No parking on any public street within eight hours after a snowfall of two inches or more, and until removal is done (§ 480.04).
• Permit areas. Police, with Council approval, can post “Parking by Permit Only” areas (§ 480.14).

Most Palos Park pickups won’t involve the street at all. The usual question is how to get a truck to a car at the back of a long driveway.

Long driveways and tight turns

A car that’s sat at the far end of a gravel drive for years may have flat tires, seized brakes or a few saplings growing around it. None of that stops a pickup, but tell us about it. The driver wants to know the length, the slope, whether there’s a turnaround, and whether anything overhead (branches, wires) is low. The scrap car removal page explains the rest of the visit.

Also near Palos Park

We also cover Palos Heights to the northeast, Palos Hills next door and Orland Park to the southwest.