Cash for Junk Cars in Louisiana | Free Towing Statewide

How Selling Your Junk Car Works in Louisiana

What Is Your Louisiana Junk Car Worth?

Junk car prices in Louisiana typically range from $150 for stripped or severely damaged vehicles up to $1,500 or more for complete cars with working drivetrains. Louisiana’s humid subtropical climate causes serious rust problems, especially in coastal parishes near the Gulf where salt air speeds up corrosion. Flood damage from hurricanes and tropical storms also hits many Louisiana vehicles hard. Your car’s value depends on weight, condition of the engine and transmission, whether the catalytic converter is still there, and current demand for specific parts. Trucks and SUVs usually bring higher prices because of strong regional demand.

Scrap steel prices set the floor for any junk car’s value. When steel markets run strong, even badly damaged vehicles bring better offers. Louisiana has several scrap processors, and regional competition helps keep pricing fair. Vehicles get weighed at recycling facilities, so heavier trucks and full-size sedans earn more than compact cars. The live scrap price tracker below shows current market rates affecting Louisiana junk car values.

Louisiana Junk Car Laws and Title Requirements

Last reviewed 2026-10-05 against Louisiana state sources. Fees and forms change; the official links below are authoritative.

Who Issues a Louisiana Title and Where You File It

Louisiana titles come from the state Office of Motor Vehicles; parish clerks of court have no titling role. You file at an OMV office, by mail to the Baton Rouge headquarters, or through a Public Tag Agent — which can be a parish or city governing authority — whose convenience charge R.S. 47:532.1 caps at twenty-three dollars.

Signing It Over: Notary, Two Witnesses, or Neither

R.S. 32:705(B) defines what counts as an endorsement, and it gives five routes. A private sale uses your signature before a notary, or two witnesses who swear a written acknowledgment. Three others drop both: (B)(3) an insurance company taking a settlement or total loss, (B)(4) a dealer licensed by either Louisiana motor vehicle commission, and (B)(5) a federally insured lender’s officer. The buyer has five days to apply for the new title under R.S. 32:707(A); you have fifteen days to file Notice of Transfer of Vehicle, form DPSMV 1697, under R.S. 47:510(B).

No Title? The Auto Hulk Affidavit

Louisiana sets no model-year cutoff for a title-free sale, only a condition test. R.S. 32:702(3) defines an auto hulk as material not self-propelled, unable to carry persons or property on a highway, and worth most as scrap. R.S. 32:718 lets its owner sign a dated Auto Hulk Affidavit, form DPSMV 1801, in lieu of a title, for a secondary metal processor or licensed dismantler. Under OMV Policy 120.00 the buyer keeps that affidavit, your license copy and a dash-VIN photograph for two years and files the VIN in the Salvage Yard Auto Hulk database before crushing, which retires it. The other route is a permit to dismantle: R.S. 32:717(A) has the scrap buyer surrender the assigned title on form DPSMV 1633, though under (B) the commissioner may issue it without a title for a car over fifteen years old and unregistered anywhere for three years. R.S. 32:718(D) applies the hulk route in lieu of 32:717, so the two are alternatives.

Replacing a Lost Louisiana Title

The duplicate is not its own form: it is the Duplicate Title Affidavit printed on the Vehicle Application, form DPSMV 1799. Mark lost, mutilated or never received, then notarize it or sign before an OMV or Public Tag Agent employee, which OMV Policy 15.00 accepts instead. A lien is the usual holdup: that policy wants proof of satisfaction, and on an unsatisfied one the lienholder signs the notarized Affidavit of Non-Possession on the same form and the duplicate goes to him. Policy 69.00 prices Duplicate Title at $68.50 and Certified Copy of Title at $15.00 as separate line items, so the duplicate bills at the full certificate-of-title rate under R.S. 32:728(1) — even though R.S. 32:713, the lost-title statute OMV names as its authority, calls the replacement a certified copy.

Flood Cars: Salvage Title or Certificate of Destruction

A total loss is damage of seventy-five percent or more of market value, and R.S. 32:707(I) gives the insurer thirty days to send the endorsed title in with a salvage application. Water damage runs on R.S. 32:707.3, which issues a certificate of destruction when a flooded total loss traces to a gubernatorially declared disaster and the power train, computer or electrical system went under. That brand is terminal: no salvage or reconstructed title ever follows, and the car cannot be resold.

Abandoned and Inoperable Vehicles

R.S. 32:471(1) draws the state line: a car is abandoned once it is inoperable and unattended on public property for more than twenty-four hours, or has sat on private property without the owner’s consent for over three days. R.S. 32:473.1 then gives twenty-four hours from an officer’s windshield notice before the parish or city tows it under the Towing and Storage Act. Municipal codes bite sooner: Shreveport counts one flat tire as inoperable; East Baton Rouge gives fifteen days from service.

Cities We Buy Junk Cars in Louisiana

Louisiana runs on 64 parishes instead of counties, and we cover all of them. Baton Rouge is the consolidated city-parish seat of East Baton Rouge, where I-10, I-12 and I-110 meet; Shreveport is the Caddo Parish seat on the Red River, where I-20 enters Louisiana from Texas. Between them we work the I-49 corridor through Natchitoches and Rapides Parish and the I-20 run east into Ouachita Parish. South of the capital we cover Orleans and Jefferson parishes, Acadiana, Calcasieu Parish on the Texas line, and the Terrebonne and Lafourche bayou country toward Grand Isle. New Orleans, Kenner, Lafayette, Lake Charles, Monroe and Alexandria are all on routes we already drive; call for a quote in any of them.

Two things here shape the paperwork more than the tow does. No parish issues a title — every one comes from the OMV — but a parish or city governing authority can be licensed as a Public Tag Agent, alongside new-car dealers and auto title companies, and file your duplicate title application locally for a convenience charge capped at twenty-three dollars. The second is flood history. A car written off as a water-damaged total loss after a declared disaster leaves the OMV with a certificate of destruction instead of a salvage title, and that vehicle can only be dismantled, parted out or crushed. If yours carries that brand, say so on the first call. It does not block the sale; it settles what the car can become.

Don’t see your city? We serve all of Louisiana. Call 1-800-935-8652 to confirm pickup at your location.

Frequently Asked Questions — Selling a Junk Car in Louisiana