Cash for Junk Cars in New Jersey | Free Towing Statewide
1-800-We-Junk-Cars buys junk, damaged, and non-running vehicles across all 21 New Jersey counties. We serve Jersey City, Newark, Paterson, Elizabeth, and every town from the Shore to the Delaware Valley. Free towing, same-day or next-day pickup, and cash payment on the spot. Whether your car sits in Bergen County or Cape May, we come to you at no cost.
How Selling Your Junk Car Works in New Jersey
Get Your Quote
Call 1-800-935-8652 or use our online form for an instant cash offer. Give us your vehicle’s year, make, model, and condition. We evaluate New Jersey cars based on current scrap metal prices and parts demand. Most quotes take under five minutes with no obligation to accept.
Schedule Free Pickup
Accept your offer and pick a time that works for you. We offer same-day pickup across northern New Jersey and next-day service statewide. Our tow trucks reach every location from High Point to Cape May. No hidden fees or towing charges come out of your payment.
Get Paid Cash
Our driver shows up at your New Jersey location, checks the vehicle to confirm its condition, and pays you cash on the spot. We handle all paperwork including the title transfer. You get the exact amount quoted with no last-minute deductions. The whole thing usually takes less than thirty minutes.
What Is Your New Jersey Junk Car Worth?
New Jersey junk cars typically sell for $150 to $800, with complete vehicles in fair condition reaching $1,500 or more. Your car’s value depends on weight, year, make, model, and current condition. Popular models like Honda Accords and Toyota Camrys bring higher prices because of parts demand. New Jersey’s coastal humidity and road salt cause rust damage that lowers value, but the state’s dense population creates strong demand for used parts. Catalytic converters, transmissions, and engines bump up offers when they’re present and working.
Scrap steel prices set the baseline value for any junk car. When steel prices rise, so does your vehicle’s minimum worth based on weight alone. A typical sedan contains 2,000 to 3,000 pounds of recyclable metal. The live scrap price tracker below shows current market rates affecting New Jersey offers. We check these prices daily to make sure our quotes reflect real-time market conditions across the Garden State.
New Jersey Junk Car Laws and Title Requirements
Last reviewed 2026-10-05 against New Jersey state sources. Fees and forms change; the official links below are authoritative.
| Who issues titles | New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission only. No county role. Title $60, $85 with one lien, $110 with two. source |
|---|---|
| Where titles are processed | Vehicle Centers only, by appointment. MVC's Vehicle Centers page lists 22; its facility-locations tab lists 19. source |
| Duplicate title form and fee | Universal Title Application OS/SS-UTA (R9/25), $60. By mail MVC quotes 8 to 12 weeks. source |
| Can you sell without a title? | No bonded title and no model-year cutoff. Only the mail-only Improper Evidence of Ownership Procedure, form OS/SS-142. source |
| Notary required? | Not for an ordinary individual sale. Required for entity letters and powers of attorney, OS/SS-2 mileage corrections, and OS/SS-150. source |
| Odometer disclosure required | Model year 2010 and older are exempt in 2026 under 49 CFR 580.17; otherwise use the title's odometer block, not OS/SS-2 alone. source |
| Who keeps the license plates | The seller. Transfer them to another vehicle you own or surrender them at any agency counter or plate drop box. source |
| Deadline to report the sale | No seller report of sale. The purchaser has 10 working days to file, and the $25 penalty falls on the purchaser. source |
| Abandoned / inoperable vehicle statute | N.J.S.A. 39:4-56.5 presumes abandonment after 48 hours, or any period with no current plates, on public or private property. source |
| Salvage or junk title trigger | Repair estimate equals or exceeds pre-damage fair market value; junk certificate OS/SS-61A costs $2.00. source |
Who Issues a New Jersey Title
The New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission issues every certificate of ownership here; no county clerk is involved. A title is $60, $85 financed with one lien, $110 with two. Only a Vehicle Center does title work, and MVC’s own lists disagree: the Vehicle Centers page names 22 for 21 counties, the facility-list tab 19. Both agree on the cities below. Jersey City and Trenton have one; Paterson, Newark, Elizabeth, Camden and Toms River have Licensing or Regional Service Centers, and Clifton has no MVC office at all.
Signing It Over, and the Ten Working Days After
Sign the seller’s section on the back of the title and hand over a bill of sale with the buyer’s name and address, the date, the odometer reading and the price. The clock is the buyer’s: N.J.S.A. 39:10-11 subsection A gives the purchaser 10 working days to submit evidence of purchase, and subsection H puts the $25 penalty on the purchaser, not on you. Pull the plates first. New Jersey plates follow the owner, never the buyer. Move them to another vehicle in your name or hand them in at a counter or drop box.
Replacing a Title That Is Gone
The duplicate is the Universal Title Application, OS/SS-UTA (R9/25), Duplicate Title checked in Step 1, $60 attached. In person, a Vehicle Center appointment. By mail the Commission quotes 8 to 12 weeks while Step 7 of the form says up to 10 weeks plus mailing time; send it to MOS Special Services, PO Box 150, Trenton 08666-0017. PO Box 017 is a different desk: the no-proof-of-ownership packet and the Foreign Title Unit. One trap: a loan ever recorded still shows as a lien after payoff, so the duplicate goes to the lienholder unless you enclose the original signed lien release.
Selling When There Is No Title at All
New Jersey offers no bonded title and no model-year cutoff that makes a bill of sale proof of ownership. The one route is the mail-only Improper Evidence of Ownership Procedure, form OS/SS-142, open to New Jersey residents and businesses. Twelve steps: a $15 DO-22 lien search, a notarized Emergency Application for Vehicle Title (OS/SS-150), a certified affidavit of newspaper publication, that notice mailed certified to your police department (step 4), a Notice of Intent to Obtain Title on OS/SS-145 mailed certified to the last owner and lienholder (step 5), three notarized witness statements and four photographs, and $60 plus 7 percent sales tax. Step 10 still names OS/SS-7, which MVC has retired; the packet encloses the Universal Title Application.
Junk Title Against Salvage Title
The Application for Junk Certificate of Title (OS/SS-61A) costs $2.00 and retires the vehicle; when applicable the original title must accompany it. Salvage is form OS/SS-61 at the ordinary $60, plus $25 if the request arrives more than 10 days after the date of sale on the title, and any lien on its face must be satisfied first. N.J.A.C. 13:21-22.3 sets the damage bar at a full 100 percent: on a vehicle eight or fewer model years old the repair estimate must equal or exceed the car’s pre-damage value.
Abandoned Cars: the State Rule and the City Rule
The 48-hour figure is statutory. N.J.S.A. 39:4-56.5 bars abandoning a vehicle on a highway, other public property, or private property without consent, presuming abandonment after 48 hours, or after any period with no current plates; the first-offense fine is $100 to $500. Under 39:4-56.6 a property owner may remove and store a car left without consent and auction it after 90 days unclaimed, and the sign-and-contract rules do not reach a single-family lot or an owner-occupied building of six units or fewer. A public agency that impounds one waits 20 business days, 15 for a junk title, under 39:10A-1. Jersey City and Paterson add ordinances reaching $2,000.
Official New Jersey sources
Cities We Buy Junk Cars in New Jersey
We work New Jersey as three dispatch blocks. The north is the dense one: Bergen, Passaic, Hudson and Essex, where Paterson sits in the bend of the Passaic River and Jersey City faces Manhattan across the Hudson, with Newark, Elizabeth and Clifton filling the ground between them. The middle block is the Raritan Valley, the Route 1 corridor into Trenton, and the Monmouth and Ocean county shore down through Toms River. The south runs from Camden and the Delaware Valley across the Pine Barrens to Atlantic City and out along the Cape May peninsula. Newark, Elizabeth, Trenton, Camden, Clifton and Toms River are served areas rather than pages of their own.
Two New Jersey facts change how a sale goes. The first is counter access. The MVC’s Vehicle Centers page lists 22 offices for 21 counties and its facility-locations tab lists only 19, so check both before booking: a seller in Newark goes to East Orange, Paterson to Wallington, Elizabeth to Springfield, Camden to Runnemede, Toms River to Lakewood. The second is plates. Under N.J.S.A. 39:4-56.5 a vehicle sitting with no current plates is presumed abandoned from the first day, with no 48-hour grace period and no requirement that it look derelict, and the presumption reaches private property as squarely as the curb. That is why so many cars we tow here are expired-plate drivers in a side yard rather than wrecks: the sticker runs out, a neighbor complains, and the clock is running.
Don’t see your city? We serve all of New Jersey. Call 1-800-935-8652 to confirm pickup at your location.
Frequently Asked Questions — Selling a Junk Car in New Jersey
Which MVC office can actually handle my New Jersey title?
Only a Vehicle Center, and only by appointment booked at telegov.njportal.com/njmvc. The MVC's Vehicle Centers page lists 22 of them for 21 counties, while its facility-locations tab lists 19, so confirm the office is open to title work before you drive. Licensing Centers handle driver transactions and Regional Service Centers handle driving records, points and restorations. Jersey City and Trenton are Vehicle Centers; Paterson, Newark, Elizabeth, Camden and Toms River are not, and Clifton has no MVC office at all.
What does a duplicate New Jersey title cost and how long does it take?
Sixty dollars, on the Universal Title Application, form OS/SS-UTA, revision R9/25, with Duplicate Title checked in Step 1. At a Vehicle Center you pay by card, check, money order or cash. By mail the Commission quotes 8 to 12 weeks while Step 7 of the form says up to 10 weeks plus mailing time, and it goes to MOS Special Services, PO Box 150, Trenton 08666-0017. Start it before you schedule a tow.
The car was never titled to me. Can I still sell it in New Jersey?
Only after you get a title in your own name, and New Jersey makes that slow. There is no bonded title here. The Improper Evidence of Ownership Procedure, form OS/SS-142, is mail-only and runs twelve steps: a $15 DO-22 lien search, a notarized OS/SS-150, newspaper publication, certified notice to your police department and the last owner, three notarized witness statements, a VIN tracing and photographs. Call 1-800-935-8652 and we will tell you whether it is worth starting.
Do I keep the plates when you tow the car away?
You keep them, and you have to do something with them. New Jersey plates belong to the owner and cannot be handed to a buyer. Either transfer them to another vehicle registered in your name or surrender them, which you can do at any MVC agency counter, in the plate drop box outside most of them, or by mail to one of the agencies MVC lists for that purpose. A receipt is mailed back as proof.
What makes a New Jersey car a salvage vehicle rather than a junk one?
The repair math. Under N.J.A.C. 13:21-22.3, a vehicle eight or fewer model years old is economically impractical to repair when a bona fide repair estimate equals or exceeds its fair market value immediately before the damage. That is a 100 percent threshold, stricter than the 70 or 75 percent used by many states. Salvage goes on form OS/SS-61 at the usual $60. A junk certificate, form OS/SS-61A, costs $2.00 and ends the vehicle.
Does my junk car need a current New Jersey inspection sticker?
No, and many New Jersey junk cars were never subject to inspection in the first place. N.J.A.C. 13:20-7.2 exempts gasoline passenger vehicles of model year 1995 and older at 8,500 pounds GVWR or less, fully electric vehicles, motorcycles, and historic vehicles that are at least 25 years old, unmodified and carrying QQ plates. A lapsed or missing sticker changes nothing about the title work or the price we quote.