Buying a Vehicle

Showrooms, test drives, finance deals, and the used-car circuit — everything you need to drive off the forecourt legally.

Every car on the road started life somewhere official — a dealership showroom, a used-car lot, or the auction house. All three are real places you walk into, not menus you open from your phone, and all three end the same way: a signed deed, a vehicle document in your pocket, and a car that’s genuinely yours.

Finding a Dealership

Dealerships you find around the map are staffed by a salesperson you interact with directly — walk up and use your third-eye to “Speak to dealer”, then “Browse vehicles”. There’s no phone app or remote catalogue; you have to physically be at the lot. Each lot rotates its own stock, and some run an everyday range while others carry a premium selection, so it’s worth checking more than one if you’re after something specific.

Not every lot offers every service — test drives, finance and delivery are set per lot, so don’t assume one has all three just because another did.

Browsing, Test Drives & Paint

The showroom dashboard lets you cycle through the lot’s current catalogue with live pricing. Before you commit, you can:

Customise the paint — pick from preset swatches or dial in a custom colour, each option carrying its own small fee on top of the car’s price.
Take a test drive — a refundable deposit is held from your bank account and you’re handed a loaner for a short window, shown on a small countdown that doesn’t lock your controls. Return it to the lot’s marked bay and confirm early, or let the timer run out — your deposit comes back minus anything you broke (dents, burst tyres, missing doors, that sort of thing), each charged individually. Disconnecting mid-drive settles the same way automatically. You can only have one test drive running at a time.

Paying: Cash or Finance

At checkout you choose how to pay:

Cash — straight off your bank or physical cash, in full, there and then.
Finance — put down a deposit and pick a payment term, and the calculator shows you the periodic instalment before you commit. The rest is billed automatically to your bills inbox over real days, not in-game time, so a term measured in “days” keeps ticking whether you log in or not.

If you can’t afford the payment method you picked, the deed itself isn’t lost — you can simply try again with a different one. The game does the real affordability check the moment you sign, not just the on-screen estimate.

Once you sign, the car is registered, a vehicle title document lands in your inventory as proof of ownership, and you’re offered a way to get the car itself:

Drive off from the pickup bay yourself (if another car’s blocking the bay, expect a short wait while it clears).
Pay for delivery and have it dropped into a garage of your choosing a little while later — you’ll get a toast notification when it arrives, even if you’re not online at the time.

Vehicle History Reports

Curious about a car’s past? Every listing on the showroom dashboard shows a free instant history — but that free version is always a clean, factory-fresh report, useful for browsing rather than due diligence. If you want the real story on any specific plate — its actual condition, who’s owned it, and any incidents on record — ask the salesperson for a paid history check instead. You’re only charged once per plate per visit; look the same one up again straight after and it’s free.

Used-Car Lots & Trade-Ins

Some lots are run by players rather than the house — a used-car business claimed and staffed like any other owned business. These lots let owners and staff:

List vehicles for sale at a suggested price based on mileage, condition and mods, though the final asking price is always up to the owner.
Take trade-ins — quote a walk-in customer a cash-or-credit offer for their current car, priced below its assessed value.

As a customer, a used lot works much like a dealership: browse the board, test-drive a house-owned demo copy, pull a free history report, and buy with cash or finance. Sale proceeds go to the business account after tax, and whichever staff member handled the sale while on duty earns a cut.

The Auction House

Repossessed cars, seized vehicles, and consignments from players and dealers alike go under the hammer at the auction house — an on-site venue only, with no remote bidding from your phone. Bidding holds your bank balance until you’re outbid, at which point it’s refunded instantly; a bid placed right at the close pushes the deadline back slightly so nobody can snipe it in the last second. Most lots carry a buy-now price for an instant win. Winners collect their car from a designated garage afterwards. You can also consign your own car for a listing fee and set a reserve you won’t sell below.

Missed Payments & Repossession Risk

Financing a car is a real loan, not a formality. Fall behind on enough instalments and it goes into default, which raises an open repossession order — and any player can pick that job up from the repossession office board, not just a designated agency. Whoever accepts it gets routed straight to your car; recover it and drive it in, and it’s gone, with the agent paid a fee cut from the outstanding loan value.

You can stop this at any point before your car is actually recovered by settling the arrears yourself, typed in-vehicle. After that the order cancels and the car’s yours again, debt cleared. If nobody picks up the repo job, it eventually resolves on its own regardless.

A defaulted loan is a financial problem before it’s a vehicle problem — see Bills, Fines & Debt for how instalments, autopay, and overdue escalation actually work.

Once you own the car outright, keys, co-owners and anti-theft basics are covered in Ownership, Keys & Security, and day-to-day running costs in Fuel & Maintenance.