Sell your car in Sacramento: running, old, wrecked or won't start
In Sacramento, a dead car can draw a City code notice on the street or in your own yard. Get an instant offer first, then free pickup from any part of the metro, running or not. This page also covers an air district grant for retiring an old car, a police-watched spot for meeting a private buyer, and the nearest DMV field offices.
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Offer first, then the route
- Start the offer online, or call. Say whether the car starts and where it sits: street, driveway or garage.
- Once you accept, the route sets the pickup day. Downtown and the close-in suburbs come soonest, while Davis and the outer edges of Placer County may take an extra day. A driveway or a curb works the same.
- Have the title and your ID ready at pickup. Titles issued outside California are fine. If the car needs a smog certificate, we'll tell you which rule covers it when we buy it.
Where we pick up around Sacramento
Inside city limits, free pickup runs from downtown (95814) to south Sacramento (95823). Elsewhere in Sacramento County it reaches Elk Grove (95758), the county's largest city after Sacramento, and the suburbs out to Folsom. Across the county lines it covers Roseville in Placer County, and West Sacramento and Davis in Yolo County.
A notice on the windshield: in Sacramento, City Code Enforcement handles a car left broken down on a City street, and reports of one go through 311. The notice says how long the owner has to fix the problem, and it carries the phone number of the officer who wrote it. The City says an owner can call before the tow to ask for more time.
Cash for your car in Sacramento
Before you sell an old car here, check one local grant. The Sac Metro Air District's Clean Cars 4 All helps income-qualified Sacramento County residents retire a car and put up to $12,000 into a cleaner replacement. The car has to run, be 15 model years or older, have a California title and have been registered in California for the past two years. Its eligibility page, read in September 2026, still shows a notice that new applications were paused in June 2024, so confirm it is taking them.
A dead car, or a household over the income limit, can't use that route. Selling still can: a non-runner gets a price and leaves on a truck, which is how cash for junk cars in Sacramento works with us. If the City would call yours wrecked or dismantled and the keys or title are gone as well, those cases are covered under selling a junk car.
Inside city limits, pulling an engine or transmission and doing body work belong in a fully enclosed building, not the driveway. Before you take on a blown engine, a transmission rebuild or crash repairs, see whether the repair is worth it in selling a car with engine problems, selling a car with a bad transmission or selling a damaged car.
Three City code lines a parked car can cross
- •The City’s Vehicle Abatement Program calls a street-parked car a nuisance when it is abandoned, wrecked, dismantled or inoperative, unregistered for over six months, or left unmoved past 72 hours (City vehicle abatement page)
- •In a yard or driveway, City Code 8.04.100 treats keeping an inoperable or partly dismantled car as a nuisance. The fixes the City lists are to repair it, remove it or keep it in a garage, and you may be asked to show that a stored car runs (City list of common violations)
- •On private property, a parked car must stand on asphalt, concrete or another solid surface. Grass, dirt and crushed granite fail City Code 10.44.010 (City list of common violations)
Asked by Sacramento sellers
I'm selling to someone from a listing. Where in Sacramento should we meet?
Sacramento Police run an Online Exchange Zone in marked parking spaces in front of the Joseph E. Rooney Police Facility, 5303 Franklin Blvd. The City says the zone is lit and on video at all times. The building itself has no public counter. Sell to us and you skip the meetup, because we come to you.
Is there a time limit on fixing a car outside my house in Sacramento?
Inside city limits, minor work outdoors, such as an oil change or a flat tire, can't run past 48 hours (City Code 10.52.020). Removing an engine or transmission, body work and other major repairs belong inside a fully enclosed building (10.52.030). Either way, the car must be registered to someone who lives there, and no more than two cars can be under repair at once.
I live in Carmichael, outside city limits. Do the City's rules still apply?
No, the County's do. Sacramento County Code Enforcement handles vehicle abatement in the unincorporated county, which includes Carmichael. Its page lists the state Vehicle Code sections it enforces, covering cars parked over 72 hours, lapsed registration, and abandoned or dismantled cars. Pickup works the same there as in the city.
If my buyer wants to finish the transfer at the DMV, which office should we use?
Whichever is nearer. The Sacramento field office is at 4700 Broadway and Sacramento South is at 7775 La Mancha Way. Outside the city, the Carmichael field office is at 5209 North Ave. All three list title transfers, and each one's page on the California DMV site shows the current wait with an appointment and without one.
Before you sign the title over to anyone, us included, read our California selling guide.