Oak Forest is ringed by Cook County forest preserves, and its main roads are easy to describe: 159th Street (US 6) and Cicero Avenue (Route 50) cross near the old Oak Forest Hospital site, and Central Avenue is the street with city hall, the police and fire stations, the library and the high school. Our junk car buyers for Chicago and the suburbs collect anywhere in Oak Forest, from driveways to apartment lots.
No overnight ban, but plenty of signs
Unlike its neighbours in the Palos area, Oak Forest has no citywide overnight ban for cars. Boats and trailers are barred from city streets from midnight to 8 a.m., but cars aren’t. That doesn’t mean a dead car can sit anywhere, though. The posted rules worth knowing:
- No parking on Cicero Avenue from 149th Street to Route 6.
- No parking on 151st Street between Oak Park Avenue and Chestnut Road.
- No parking on 163rd Street, Long Avenue to Central Avenue, 9 p.m. to 6 a.m.
- Resident-only permit zones on several streets during school days, and a commuter-lot permit zone near 159th and Cicero.
- No parking on a parkway, or between a house and the roadway, except in the 12 hours after a heavy snowfall.
Snow itself clears every public street for 12 hours after 2 inches, unless the street has been plowed.
The abandoned-vehicle rule
Section 132.11 is where a dead car gets into trouble. “Abandoned” covers a vehicle without a current valid license, one that’s wrecked, dismantled or inoperative, or one unmoved for seven days, and any of them is a nuisance on public or private property. Unregistered vehicles in a residential district must be garaged. A car in major disassembly or disrepair can’t stay on residential property for more than seven days.
Police may remove an abandoned vehicle seven days after a warning, and the property owner pays for the removal. If someone else left the car on your land, read what Illinois allows for a car left on your property before the warning runs out. Our tow, by comparison, is free. Every vehicle housed in the city also needs a current city sticker on the lower right of the windshield, valid July 1 to June 30, so a car that never moves still carries a yearly cost. Start your offer here.
Oak Forest cross streets
I-57 clips the city’s southeast corner, with exits at 167th Street and at US 6. The Rock Island District stops at Oak Forest station, at 159th and Cicero. About a quarter of homes are in buildings of five or more units, so if you’re in a complex, clear the pickup with the manager first.
The full sale process, from finding the papers to handing over the keys, is in our step-by-step selling guide.
Over the Oak Forest line
Crestwood lies just north, up Cicero Avenue, and we buy junk cars in Crestwood as well as next door in Midlothian. Oak Forest’s other borders run with Tinley Park to the southwest and Country Club Hills to the southeast, where we’re junk car buyers too. Every other town is on our areas page.