Selling a junk car in Cicero

Cicero sits directly south of Austin and west of North Lawndale and Little Village, close enough to our base that the trip is mostly expressway. Its town code is also unusually broad about what counts as a junk car.

Getting to Cicero

The usual route runs about 6.4 road miles and 13 minutes: a short run down Sacramento Boulevard from Chicago Avenue to the Eisenhower, west about 2.4 miles, then south on Laramie Avenue into the center of town. From the south end, Cicero Avenue (IL-50) is the spine. Heading north it crosses the Stevenson and the Sanitary and Ship Canal before entering Cicero, with expressway ramps at I-55 just south of town and I-290 just north of it.

Cicero is an incorporated town of about 85,000 people in 5.87 square miles, bordered by Chicago on three sides, Berwyn on the west, Oak Park on the northwest and Stickney on the southwest. Cermak Road is the old 22nd Street, and Town Hall is on it.

Landmarks drivers use

• Cicero Avenue and Cermak Road: the Hawthorne Works Shopping Center, where the old Western Electric tower still stands.
• Cicero Avenue and 26th Street: Metra’s BNSF Line stops at the Cicero station nearby.
• The Pink Line: the 54th/Cermak terminal and the Cicero station sit along the north side of town.
• Hawthorne Race Course: on the south side, straddling the line with Stickney.

Two-flats, gangways and back lots

Cicero’s housing is old and dense. Just over half of homes are in buildings with two or more units, and about 41% are in two- to four-unit buildings, per ACS data. As of 2011 the average home was more than 66 years old. That means narrow lots, gangways between buildings, and a lot of cars parked behind the house or in a small garage off the alley.

Tell us exactly where the car is: front curb, back lot, garage, or a shared space by the alley. A tow truck can’t reach through a gangway, so a car parked behind a building is reached from the alley side.

Cicero rules that turn a car into a “junk car”

Cicero’s definitions are broad, and they’re worth knowing before you get a ticket:

• Inoperable means more than broken. Under § 38-116(12), it’s a nuisance to let an inoperable motor vehicle remain on private or public property, and the definition includes cars without valid plates, a state registration sticker or a town vehicle sticker.
• Ticket on the windshield. § 38-117(d) lets the town ticket a vehicle in plain view that lacks plates or a town sticker by placing the citation on the car.
• Abandoned on the street. § 94-486 treats a vehicle on the public way as abandoned if it’s too damaged to drive or hasn’t moved for 7 days.
• Street maintenance hours. § 94-280 bans parking during signed maintenance hours on major and residential streets, and a vehicle with three or more overdue citations in a year can be towed on the next violation.

The town vehicle sticker is required for residents’ cars and costs $50 per passenger car for the first four in a household (§ 106-39). When a dead car’s sticker comes due, selling it often makes more sense than paying again for a car that won’t move.

Papers to find before the call

A title in your name keeps it simple. If the title is missing, read our page on selling a car without a title first. Tell us about expired plates or stickers too; they don’t stop the sale, but they explain why the car needs to go soon.

If the car isn’t running, our non-running cars page covers what to tell us. Wondering whether a quote will hold up? Our guide to why junk car offers change explains what moves a number at pickup.