Sell your car in Lincoln: running, wrecked or won't start
We buy cars in Lincoln and the towns around it, and you can ask online or by phone. If you're moving out, pickup is set around your move-out date, not after it, and a title from another state is fine.
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Closing out the car in Lincoln
- Bring the plates back to the county. For a refund, the Lancaster County Treasurer's office asks for both plates, the pink registration and your ID. It says a missing plate or registration can shrink the refund.
- Lost the pink registration? The county sells a duplicate for $6.50. Get it at the counter, or mail a note with your plate number and a check or money order to Motor Vehicle Services.
- Tell UNL the car is gone. On campus, your license plate is your parking permit. Parking and Transit Services asks permit holders to report a change of vehicle or plates promptly, online, by email or at 402-472-1800.
Where we pick up around Lincoln
Pickup covers Lincoln, downtown's 68508 included, and the towns around it: Waverly (68462), Hickman (68372) and villages such as Bennet, Firth, Malcolm, Roca and Denton. Eagle is in range too, just over the county line in Cass County.
Selling it yourself? Meet at the police Swap Spot. Lincoln police set up the Swap Spot at the station at 1501 N. 27th St., on the northwest corner of 27th and Holdrege, to cut down on fraud and robbery when strangers meet. Exchanges are allowed in its parking lot from 5 a.m. to 11 p.m., and in the lobby during regular hours.
Cash for your car in Lincoln
Lincoln's junk-vehicle ordinance doesn't stop at the city limits. In the three-mile zone around the city, the Lancaster County Sheriff's Office enforces it. If you're restoring a car rather than selling it, the City Clerk's office in the County-City Building, 555 S. 10th Street, Suite 103, takes hobbyist permit applications.
Junk cars in Lincoln still get an offer, and so do old, wrecked and non-running ones. Tell us what's wrong with it and whether it rolls, and pickup comes to where it sits, whether that's a driveway in town or an acreage in the county. If the car is only worth its parts, see how selling a junk car works.
If the trouble is a wreck, a blown engine or a worn-out transmission, each has its own guide: selling a wrecked or accident-damaged car, selling a car with a blown engine or head gasket and selling one whose transmission slips or won't go into reverse.
If the car is parked at UNL
The university runs its own rules. UNL Parking and Transit Services says a vehicle that isn't operational and is parked on campus can be towed or immobilized. A car in a campus lot with no permit or no plates gets a citation, and if its VIN can't be seen, it can be towed right away. If your car has died in a campus lot, or you've already taken the plates off, get it moved or picked up before the citation turns into a tow.
Asked by Lincoln sellers
Will Lincoln police help if a Swap Spot sale goes wrong?
Not with the deal itself. Police don't guarantee anyone's safety there, and they treat every sale as a purely civil matter. They won't act as mediators or witnesses, and they won't judge fair market value. Their video is kept for 10 days, so if a payment turns out to be bad, ask for the footage within that time.
Which county counter handles car titles in Lincoln?
The Lancaster County Treasurer handles titles and registration here, working with the Nebraska DMV on more than 300,000 of them. It has two counters. Motor Vehicle Services at 625 N. 46th St. takes appointments. The downtown window in the County-City Building, 555 S. 10th St., Room 102, processes titles only until 1 p.m. and takes no out-of-state titles. The Sheriff's inspection for out-of-state and salvage titles is at 46th Street only, weekdays from 8 a.m. to 4:15 p.m.
I'm a UNL student with plates from my home county. Which office takes them back?
Most likely your home county's. Lancaster County says a full-time student who doesn't live here year round doesn't have to move the car's registration to Lancaster County. The Nebraska DMV's refund rules send the plates and registration to the county treasurer where the car is registered. So if your car still has home-county registration, that treasurer handles it, not the 46th Street office.
The title, bill of sale and plate rules that apply anywhere in the state are on our Nebraska page.