Cash For Junk Cars in Boise, ID: Free Towing, Paid at Pickup

Cash for junk cars in Boise, ID starts with a phone call, not a drive across town. We buy non-running, wrecked and flat-out worn-out vehicles inside the city limits and across the surrounding Ada County area, then send a tow truck to wherever the car is sitting. There is no lot here and no counter to walk into. Dispatch is the whole model, and that is the honest way to describe it. Call 1-800-935-8652 with the year, make, model, and whether the vehicle still rolls and steers. You get a number on that call, towing costs you nothing, and the driver pays you when the car goes on the hook. Access varies more in Boise than people expect. A North End alley garage, a Central Bench driveway behind a 1950s ranch, and a steep pull-off up toward Bogus Basin Road each call for a different truck, so tell us where it actually sits.

Call 1-800-935-8652 for a free offer on your vehicle in Boise. Free towing, cash on pickup.

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How to sell a junk car in Boise

Call 1-800-935-8652 with four things ready: year, make, model, and a straight account of what is wrong with the vehicle. Whether it rolls and steers. Whether the engine and transmission are still in it. Whether all four wheels are mounted. Whether the catalytic converter is still bolted underneath. The quote is assembled out of those answers, so describing the car accurately is how you keep the figure from moving later.

Then describe the approach, because Boise addresses are not interchangeable. North End and East End houses often keep the dead car behind the house off an alley, and a few of those alleys are too narrow for a full-size flatbed to turn around in. Driveways in Highlands, Boise Heights and Warm Springs Mesa climb and switch back. Downtown and West End jobs sometimes need a timed curb window because Front and Myrtle run one way. Apartment lots off Emerald or Overland may need a manager to open a gate. A wheel-lift reaches plenty that a flatbed cannot, but dispatch has to know which truck to send before it leaves.

Find the Idaho title before anything is scheduled, or say on the call that it is gone so the Ada County replacement can be started first. At pickup the driver checks the vehicle against your description, pays you, and loads it.

Two jobs are left to you. Take the plates off and keep them: the instruction is printed on ITD 3858 itself, and a DMV office will move an Idaho plate onto another vehicle you own. Then report the transfer within five days, which Idaho Code 49-526 requires. The online filing at DMVonline.ITD.Idaho.gov is free and goes through the moment you submit it. The paper route costs $3.50, by check written to the DMV, on ITD 3858. Do not treat that filing as optional. ITD’s own description of the form is that it may protect you from liability for towing, storage, repair and motor vehicle infractions that occur after you deliver the vehicle. Cancel the insurance once it is in.

What is a junk car worth in Boise?

A junk vehicle in Boise usually brings $150 to $700. Curb weight sets the floor, a complete driveline lifts it, and a catalytic converter still attached lifts it again. Full-size pickups, vans and body-on-frame SUVs sit at the top of that band. A four-cylinder sedan whose converter is already gone sits at the bottom. Nobody can price the car honestly without hearing which vehicle it is and what has already come off it.

What Boise owners rarely price out is the alternative. If the city ends up towing the vehicle instead of you selling it, Boise City Code sets the ceiling on what a licensed tower may charge you, and the ceiling is not low. Section 3-16-7-1 allows up to $180.00 for the tow itself. Section 3-16-7-2 allows $50.00 for each subsequent calendar day of storage, and storage runs no more than sixty days or until the date the registered owner mails notice of intent to relinquish the title, whichever comes first. Section 3-16-7-3 adds a $70.00 gate fee for collecting the vehicle or anything in it between 5:00 P.M. and 8:00 A.M. on a weekday, or at any hour on a Saturday, Sunday or city holiday, plus mileage at $6.00 and labor at $120.00 an hour. A car worth $300 can spend its whole value on an impound lot inside a fortnight.

Conditions that cut the figure: the engine or transmission already pulled, wheels gone, the interior stripped, fire damage, or a converter somebody cut off. A heavy pickup that will not start but is otherwise whole still prices near the top of the band, and a tidy-looking compact missing its converter does not. Say what is already off the vehicle when you call and the number holds when the driver arrives.

Where Boise title work gets filed and what Ada County adds

Boise is in Ada County, and Ada County runs more motor vehicle counters than any other county in Idaho. Five branches handle Idaho titles: 190 East Front Street, Suite 107, on the ground floor just east of the Ada County Courthouse; 8655 West Franklin Road; 9115 Chinden Boulevard, Suite 103, in Garden City; 1769 North Lakes Place, Suite 100, in Meridian; and 10769 West State Street in Star. All five are open 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on weekdays, all five answer on one number, 208-577-3135, and the county states that no appointment is needed because every office takes walk-ins. Two of them are inside the Boise city limits, which is the practical difference between doing this here and doing it in a county with a single counter.

The fee is not where people look for it. The Idaho Transportation Department charges $14.00 to issue any title, and each county adds a title administration fee on top of that. ITD’s published county table puts Ada County’s at $7.00, implemented September 1, 2023, for a total of $21.00. Rush handling is another $26.00. Read the right row in that table, though. The line marked “Boise” is Boise County, whose motor vehicle office is in Idaho City and whose title administration fee is $0.00. Boise the city files through Ada County and pays the $7.00.

Mailing the paperwork is the other thing that is specific to this city. Page 2 of ITD 3367, the Duplicate Idaho Title Application, revision 9/26, prints a mailing address for each county, and Ada County’s is the only entry on that list given as a processing center rather than a courthouse or a motor vehicle section: DMV Processing Center, PO Box 140019, Garden City ID 83714. It is a post office box, not a street address, and it is not any of the five counters you can walk into. ITD 3858 prints the same box. Make the check payable to “DMV”; the form says that if you want to pay cash you have to appear at a county assessor’s motor vehicle office.

On the forms themselves, ITD 3367 buys an exact copy of a lost, illegible or mutilated title and nothing else. The form says so twice, once in the header and once in the certification you sign above the notary block. ITD 3369 does the replacement and the sale in one filing, but ITD limits it to odometer-exempt vehicles, so a newer car is out. ITD 3371, revision 6/26, the Affidavit of Lost Title, is what ITD points you to when the replacement also has to add, remove or change an owner or a lien. Two further routes carry no fee at all when filed within 90 days: one for a title the department mailed that came back undeliverable, and one for a title that was issued and never arrived. Every one of these forms is rejected unless the applicant’s signature is notarized, or witnessed instead by an assessor or a deputy assessor, which is a reason to sign at the Front Street or Franklin Road counter rather than pay a notary.

A lien still showing on the record belongs in Section 3 of ITD 3367. Once it is listed there, ITD posts the new title to the lienholder at that address, and the only way to redirect it is for the lienholder to sign Section 6 and for somebody else to be written into Section 4. Page 2 says the part sellers miss out loud: a lienholder’s signature there does not release the lien. Releasing it is a separate filing, ITD 3777, Release and Satisfaction of Interest. And ITD 3738, revision 10/23, is the Bill of Sale. It is not a stand-in for a title. What it does is put the vehicle, the price actually paid and the delivery date on one signed page.

Boise abandoned and inoperable vehicle rules

Where the vehicle is parked decides which Boise office deals with it and how much time you get.

On private property it is a code compliance matter. The city’s Code Compliance office lists “inoperable or junked vehicles, or vehicle parts on private property (in plain view)” among the complaints it takes, and the route is City Code Title 4, Health and Sanitation. Section 4-1-1 defines a nuisance as any condition or use of property detrimental to the health or safety of persons or the property of others, and the list of specific nuisances begins with maintaining junk, trash, garbage or refuse on property. It never uses the word vehicle, and it fixes no number of hours. The deadline comes from the notice instead. Under Section 4-1-4 the City Attorney or a designee issues a notice setting a period, not exceeding ten days, to abate; it is served by a code enforcement officer or a police officer, by posting the property, or by certified mail to an absent owner, and immediate abatement is allowed where the condition is an imminent or ongoing threat to health or safety. Ignore it and the city removes the thing itself and assesses the cost as Idaho Code provides. Title 4 carries a second chapter, Nuisance Property Abatement, and the chapter penalty is section 4-1-6. Complaints go through the city’s online compliance service request or 208-972-8150, option 4. None of this reaches an address outside the city limits: accumulations of wrecked vehicles in unincorporated Ada County go to the county’s code enforcement specialist at 208-577-3726, and the county states plainly that it does not enforce inside a city.

On the street the clock belongs to the state. Idaho Code 49-102(1) and (2) treat a vehicle left 24 hours or more as abandoned, and 49-1805 makes an officer attach a notice in plain view saying the vehicle will be towed after 48 hours, then come back no earlier than that. Boise’s Abandoned Vehicles page walks through exactly that sequence and asks a reporter for the make, model, color, plate and state, the cross streets, and how long the vehicle has sat; the number is 208-570-6120. The city also says a vehicle is not abandoned if its registered owner cannot move it and has already asked law enforcement for help. Separately, the city lists conditions that let it tow at once rather than tag and wait, among them blocking traffic, impeding snow removal or road maintenance, an accident, the driver being arrested, and an expired registration sticker. Five or more unpaid parking citations, or at least $200 left unpaid for thirty days, is itself grounds for an impound.

Boise’s own code still carries two different numbers for the same word, and it is worth knowing which one is live. Section 3-16-2, the definitions in the nonconsent towing chapter, was amended by Ordinance 3-26 on January 27, 2026 and now defines an abandoned vehicle as one left on private property without permission, or on a highway or other property open to the public, for 24 hours or longer. The same chapter defines a junked vehicle as one extensively damaged, including broken glass or missing parts integral to operation such as tires, motor or transmission, leaking fluids, or otherwise unable to be driven legally in the condition it is found. Meanwhile the definitions chapter in Title 6, last amended in 2024, still defines an “abandoned or unidentified vehicle” as one left on a street, alley or public property for 72 hours or longer. Idaho Code 49-1817 makes the state towing chapter uniform throughout the state and bars any local rule in conflict with it, so 24 hours is the figure that governs, and 24 hours is what the city’s own public page tells you.

The January 2026 change matters most when the car is on your own lot. The city states that law enforcement can no longer enter private property to tow an abandoned vehicle and that the owner or person in control of the property has to arrange removal with a tow company licensed by the City of Boise. That follows from Idaho Code 49-1806, which did not exist in this form before House Bill 174 repealed all of Title 49, Chapter 18 and enacted a replacement chapter effective January 1, 2026. Posted property, meaning a conspicuous large-print sign naming the towing firm, can be cleared without waiting. Unposted, non-commercial property means the person in possession contacts a tow company and signs a release identifying themselves and the vehicle. And no vehicle may be treated as unauthorized solely because its registration has expired or is improper. Boise bolted its own rule onto that in the same month: section 3-16-4-6, added by Ordinance 3-26 on January 27, 2026, makes it unlawful to post property under 49-1806 with a sign naming a company that is not licensed in Boise for nonconsent tows, and requires the licensee to tell the Police Department the make, model and plate of the vehicle, where it was towed from, and who authorized the tow. Getting rid of the vehicle is now 49-1807’s job: thirty days after the first notification goes out, the tow company may ask ITD to issue it a title or a junk certificate.

One more reason not to let it get that far. Under Idaho Code 49-1802(3), when a vehicle towed at an officer’s direction is not redeemed within seven days, the last registered owner of record is guilty of a traffic infraction, unless a release of liability has already been filed under 49-526, in which case the transferee named on that release answers for it instead. That is the strongest argument for filing ITD 3858 the day the car leaves your driveway.

Selling a junk car in Boise: the Ada County specifics

You sell a junk car in Boise over the phone: describe the vehicle, take a number, and a truck comes to the address. Two Ada County facts shape everything after that. Title work is done at a county DMV branch, and two of the five sit inside the city, at 190 East Front Street next to the courthouse and at 8655 West Franklin Road, where Ada County charges a $7.00 title administration fee on top of the state’s $14.00, so a replacement Idaho title costs $21.00. And Boise sets no hour count on a dead car in your own driveway; the deadline is written into the abatement notice, and City Code 4-1-4 caps that at ten days. Call 1-800-935-8652.

Areas of Boise we tow from

We tow across Boise’s registered neighborhoods and the county area wrapped around them. That covers the North End and Hyde Park, the East End below Warm Springs Avenue, Downtown and the West End, and the Bench neighborhoods, meaning Central Bench, Depot Bench, Morris Hill and Vista running down toward the Boise Airport. West of Cole Road we work West Boise, Collister, Northwest Boise, Sunset, Veterans Park and Winstead Park out past Boise Towne Square. Southeast Boise, South Boise Village, Columbia Village and Barber Valley toward Harris Ranch and Barber Park are all in range, along with the foothill streets in Highlands, Boise Heights and Warm Springs Mesa. We also run State Street, Chinden Boulevard through Garden City, Federal Way past Micron, and Gowen Road down to the I-84 interchange.

• North End
• East End
• Downtown Boise
• West End
• Central Bench
• Depot Bench
• Morris Hill
• Vista
• Southeast Boise
• West Boise
• Collister
• Barber Valley / Harris Ranch

Frequently asked questions

How much is my junk car worth in Boise?

Most junk vehicles in Boise land between $150 and $700. Weight is priced first, so a full-size pickup or a body-on-frame SUV with its driveline intact sits near the top and a stripped four-cylinder sedan near the bottom. A catalytic converter still attached is the next biggest swing. Weigh any figure against the alternative: Boise City Code caps a nonconsent tow at $180.00 and storage at $50.00 a day. Call 1-800-935-8652 with the specifics.

Since the 2026 change, who tows an abandoned car off my Boise property?

You arrange it yourself. The City of Boise states that since January 1, 2026 law enforcement no longer enters private property to tow an abandoned vehicle, and that the property owner or the person in control of the property must hire a tow company licensed by the city for nonconsent tows. The law behind it is Idaho Code 49-1806, part of the chapter House Bill 174 repealed and re-enacted rather than amended. City Code 3-16-4-6 also makes it unlawful to post your property with a sign naming an unlicensed tower.

Can Boise Code Compliance cite me for a junk car in my driveway?

Yes. An inoperable or junked vehicle, or vehicle parts, in plain view on private property is on the city's own published list of code compliance complaints. Boise runs it as a nuisance under City Code Title 4, where 4-1-1 reaches junk maintained on property and 4-1-4 sets the deadline: a period stated in the abatement notice, not exceeding ten days, or immediate abatement if health or safety is threatened. Miss it and the city abates and assesses the cost. The line is 208-972-8150, option 4.

Where do I handle Idaho title paperwork if I live in Boise?

At an Ada County DMV branch. Five of them handle Idaho titles and two are inside Boise: 190 East Front Street, Suite 107, just east of the courthouse, and 8655 West Franklin Road. The others are on Chinden Boulevard in Garden City, North Lakes Place in Meridian, and West State Street in Star. All open 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on weekdays, all share 208-577-3135, and all take walk-ins. Mail goes somewhere else entirely, to PO Box 140019 in Garden City.

I cannot find the title. Can I still sell the car?

Usually, once a replacement is filed. The standard form is ITD 3367, revision 9/26, and through Ada County it runs $14.00 to the state plus the county's $7.00 title administration fee, $21.00 in all, with an optional $26.00 rush. It cannot be used to sell the vehicle. ITD 3369 combines the replacement with the sale but only for odometer-exempt vehicles, and ITD 3371 covers a lost title that also needs an owner or lien changed. A lien left in Section 3 sends the duplicate to the lienholder.

Do I keep my Idaho license plates when the car is towed?

Yes. The instruction is printed on the release-of-liability form itself: remove the plates on sale or transfer, and a DMV office can move them onto another vehicle you own. Then report the transfer within five days, as Idaho Code 49-526 requires. Doing it at DMVonline.ITD.Idaho.gov is free and posts straight away. The paper alternative is ITD 3858, which needs a $3.50 check written to the DMV. ITD describes that filing as what may protect you from towing, storage and infraction charges incurred after delivery.

Can a tow truck get into a North End alley or up a foothills driveway?

Often, but it decides which truck we send. Some North End and East End alleys are too narrow for a full-size flatbed to turn, and streets in Highlands, Boise Heights and Warm Springs Mesa can be steep with tight switchbacks. A wheel-lift handles a lot of what a flatbed cannot. Describe the approach, the surface and any gate when you call so dispatch gets it right the first time.

Will you take a car with no engine or transmission?

Yes, as long as we know before the truck leaves. A shell with no drivetrain, no wheels and no converter still has scrap value, just considerably less than a complete vehicle. What we will not do is quote a complete car over the phone and then argue about it in your driveway. List everything already missing when you call and the number you are given will hold at pickup.

Ready to get rid of it? Call 1-800-935-8652 and we will quote your car in Boise over the phone, tow it free, and pay you cash at pickup.

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Cash for junk cars across Idaho