Plainfield went from about 4,500 people in 1990 to nearly 45,000 in 2020, and the growth was mostly subdivisions: roughly 80 percent of homes are detached houses and 88 percent are owner-occupied. That makes a Plainfield pickup straightforward in one sense, since the car is nearly always in a driveway or garage. The village’s code is the part worth reading. For how our junk car buying works around Chicago in general, start on the home page.
One o’clock, not two
Plainfield’s overnight street ban starts an hour earlier than the 2 a.m. bans in Woodridge or Hinsdale. Section 5-167 bars parking on any village street from 1 to 6 a.m., with police permission available up to three times in a calendar month. Once 3 inches of snow is on the street, no parking at all until it’s plowed.
So a car that dies on the way home and gets left at the curb at 11 p.m. has two hours before it’s in violation. Get it pushed onto the driveway, then call.
Seven days to a nuisance
Article VII of Chapter 5 covers inoperative motor vehicles, and it uses a seven-day clock for nearly everything:
- Inoperative: engine, wheels or other parts removed or altered for 7 days, or unable to run under its own power.
- Abandoned: not moved for 7 days or more and apparently deserted.
- Expired plates: 7 days or more past expiry.
Any of these, on public or private property, is a public nuisance (Section 5-193). The property owner or occupant must dispose of the vehicle, and police give notice to remove it within 7 days. A car that’s a traffic hazard can be towed right away, at the owner’s cost.
The exemptions are narrow: a car kept inside a building, one at a wrecking or junk business, or one temporarily disabled for ordinary repair.
Getting around Plainfield
I-55 runs along the east edge, with exit 261 at Route 126 (Main Street). Route 59 is Division Street and shares the road with US 30 through town; at either end of that overlap, US 30 peels off as 143rd Street to the north and Joliet Road to the south. Downtown, trucks over 20,000 pounds stay off Lockport Street between Route 59 and James Street except for local stops, so a downtown pickup may come in from a side street.
Which side of the county line
Plainfield reaches into Kendall County on its west side. We buy junk cars in Plainfield on the Will County side. If you’re on the Kendall side, ask when you call and we’ll tell you straight away whether we can come.
Selling it
The steps are in our guide to selling a junk car, and the form takes the car’s details and where to find it. East of the village line is Romeoville, where we also buy junk cars, Bolingbrook shares the northeast line, past Romeoville is Lemont, and northeast up I-55 and I-355 is Woodridge. The rest are on our map of covered towns.