Vehicles

Any street car can be driven from your first minute. As a civilian, getting behind the wheel of a police car or an emergency vehicle is Theft, two stars. Owning one needs only the money, in cash, and your first pays the Own a vehicle goal: $1,000 and 150 XP.

Buying

Dealership	Sells	Prices, before tax
Premium Deluxe Motorsport (total level 10)	Sports, super, every convertible	$2,500 to $3,625,000
Los Santos Benefactor Autos	Compacts, coupes, muscle, SUVs, sedans, sports classics	$2,500 to $405,000
Larry’s RV Sales	Off-road, vans	$2,500 to $255,000
Sanders Motorcycles	Motorbikes	$2,500 to $1,300,000
Mr Spokes Cycles	Bicycles	$200 to $12,500
Grapeseed Autos	Utility	$2,500
Higgin’s Docktease	Boats	$4,200 to $530,000

No dealership sells helicopters, planes, lorries, or the armed and military specials, and the Kosatka submarine isn’t for sale either.

How a price is set: by how fast the vehicle is, lap time counting three quarters and top speed a quarter. A motorbike costs a tenth of a car that’s just as fast; boats and bicycles cost a quarter of their GTA Online price. No vehicle costs less than $2,500 or more than $5,000,000. A few examples:

Vehicle	Price before tax
Asea	$3,000
Buffalo	$36,500
Kuruma	$69,500
Sultan	$125,000
Alpha	$130,000
Adder	$280,000
Bati 801	$300,000
Zentorno	$665,000
Pariah	$1,675,000
Krieger	$2,450,000
Emerus	$2,500,000
Seashark	$4,200
Dinghy	$41,500
Tug	$315,000

The showroom shows every price with the 6% tax included.

In the showroom E opens and shuts the doors, and a convertible’s roof goes up and down. The colour on display is the colour you get. There’s no test drive and no refund. Your new car waits on the lot with an arrow over it, with a full tank and its plate showing your name if it fits in 8 characters. There’s no limit on how many you own.

Your own car

It appears when you log in where you last used /park, and goes away when you log out. It keeps its fuel, mileage, dirt, lock, paint, parts and boot; only /park saves where it stands. /park works from the driver’s seat with the car stopped.
Finding it: your cars show on the map as “Personal Vehicle”. K lists them: Information shows lock, fuel and mileage, and Track sets a waypoint.
Wrecked? It comes back at once, free and repaired, at the spot it appeared at when you logged in, with its parts and its boot. There’s no insurance, and none is needed.
Left unlocked? Anyone can drive it off. They’re told it’s yours, and they can’t lock it or sell it.

Keys and locks

Your account is the key. X on your own car, on foot: Toggle Lock, Toggle Engine, Doors (hood and trunk too) and Windows; on anyone else’s, just Doors and Windows while it’s unlocked. /lock and /unlock work on the car you’re in, your own car within 4 m, or the last car you drove. Locked, nobody else can open its doors or boot, and the lock stays through logouts. You can lock a street car that’s nobody’s, and then only you can unlock it. /engine switches the engine on and off.

Getting in, changing seats and breaking in

Getting in as a passenger with G works while the car is nearly still, close to the ground, and with a free seat.
Changing seats is G too. Nobody slides into the driver’s seat for you any more: when the driver gets out, you stay where you are until you press G. The two front seats swap with each other, and so do the two rear seats. If a bag or something else is sitting on the seat you’d move to, you’re told there’s one there and you stay put.
Smash Window: walk up to a car and press E at a window (H if you’ve something in your hands) to put it through with a swing everyone sees. You need to be at the glass, and it has to be within easy reach, so a tall lorry’s cab is never offered. It’s offered on the rear windows, and on a front window when something is sitting on the seat behind it: a smash and grab. It isn’t offered while you’re getting into a car, holding a pump nozzle or refuelling, and never on a job’s car. Smashing doesn’t unlock the car, open the glovebox or pull anyone out, and costs no heat.

Fuel

Fuel burns only while the engine runs: by speed with your foot down, a trickle off the pedal. Big vehicles, a shot fuel tank and each passenger burn it faster. Flat out at about 110 km/h (67 mph) an ordinary car empties a full tank in about 12 minutes, a big one in under 5.
A warning comes at 25%. At 0 the engine dies, and an empty car won’t start.
Bicycles, boats, helicopters, planes and electric cars use no petrol. A street car’s tank holds anything from 15% to full.

At the pump: from the driver’s seat, E at a pump. On foot, E at the pump takes the nozzle, E at the filler cap fills, and E at the pump hangs it back. You pay for what went in, $8 for every 1%, $800 a full tank, plus tax, from your cash; the pump stops when your cash does.

At the pump
How long	A full tank takes a few seconds, longer in a big car
How far	You must be at the filler cap, within reach of the hose
Stopping	`E` stops it, and the label on the ring reads “Stop”. Walking off, being knocked down or hurt also stops it; from the driver’s seat, moving the car or leaving it does
Hanging it up	Walk too far with the nozzle, get in a car, die or get knocked over, and the nozzle goes back on the pump by itself
A wrecked pump	A pump shot to pieces offers nothing, and its nozzle goes back on the hook

From the driver’s seat the engine is off while it pumps.

Station tanks: each of the 24 gas stations has its own tank, refilled only by the trucking petrol run. A station counts as dry when less than a fill-up is left. Its blip turns yellow when it’s running low and grey when it’s dry, and then its pumps shut. When one runs low or dry, everybody online is told in chat with a notice from Billy at the Trucking Guild. A pump away from any station is public: same price, never dry.

Jerrycans: every gas station counter sells one, empty. Hold it at a pump and press E to fill it (a quarter of a tank, $200). To pour it, X on the car and Refuel (Jerrycan).

The mod shop

Seven garages (“Mod Shop” on the map): three Los Santos Customs, two Beeker’s Garages, Benny’s Motor Works, and the Runway 1 Hangar for planes and military vehicles. Drive in at the wheel. Police vehicles are turned away, and no garage takes bicycles, boats, helicopters or emergency vehicles. You buy only while you’re inside a garage. New players (under an hour played) see an extra label at the door inviting them in.

Repair is the first row while the car is damaged: $1,200. It’s the only repair you can buy.
Performance parts cost a fixed price plus a share of the car’s dealership price, so a hypercar’s parts are dear and a cheap car’s are never free. Each level costs more than the one before; prices are rounded to $50.
Everything else costs the same on any car: see the table.
Armour and nitro aren’t for sale, putting a part back to stock is free, and 6% tax goes on top.
Only your own car keeps its mods. Work on any other car is lost when the car goes.

Part	Level 1	Level 2	Level 3	Level 4	Level 5	Plus a share of the car’s price
Engine	$1,000	$2,000	$3,500	$5,000		0.5%, 1%, 2%, 3%
Transmission	$750	$1,500	$3,000			0.5%, 1%, 2%
Turbo	$4,000					2%
Brakes	$500	$1,000	$2,000	$3,000		0.25%, 0.5%, 1%, 1.5%
Suspension	$250	$500	$1,000	$1,500	$2,000	0.1%, 0.2%, 0.4%, 0.6%, 0.8%

All five parts at their top level come to $17,250 on an Asea, $28,650 on a Sultan, $78,850 on a Zentorno, $244,850 on a Krieger and $249,500 on an Emerus.

Flat price, any car	Cost
A body part	$1,000
A small part (trims, dash, dials, doors, seats, plaques, speakers, aerials and the like)	$500
Hydraulics	$2,500
Drift tyres	$3,000
Horn, headlight colour, wheel colour, dashboard colour, neon colour, plate style	$500 each
Rims, tyre design, tyre smoke, livery, xenons	$1,500 each
Neon layout	$750 a strip: $750 for front or back, $1,500 for sides or front and back, $2,250 for three, $3,000 for all four
Paint: classic or metallic	$500
Paint: pearlescent	$1,500
Paint: matte	$1,000
Paint: metal	$2,000
Paint: chrome	$5,000
Window tint: Light Smoke or Green	$1,500
Window tint: Dark Smoke	$3,500
Window tint: Limo or Pure Black	$5,000
Custom plate text	$5,000

Plate text is 1 to 8 letters, numbers and spaces, and no other car may be wearing it.
Rims with several designs (Benny’s, Bespoke, Track, Street) are one row: press left and right to preview each design, and Enter buys the one showing, unless it’s marked (installed).

The boot

E at the back of a car, on foot. A rear-engined car keeps its boot at the front; a motorbike has saddlebags, a bicycle nothing. Your own car keeps its boot for good, through wrecks, impounds and restarts; any other car loses everything in it when the car goes. With your hands full, E at the boot puts what you hold straight in, and a bag-sized thing can also ride on a seat: see Carrying things. You can’t open a boot while the car is moving or on a job’s car. A model the game doesn’t place in a class gets 40 kg (88 lb). A boat’s hold depends on its hull instead, and your own boat’s hold carries fish: see Fishing.

Vehicle	Boot
Cycles, trailers, trains	none
Motorbikes	8 kg (18 lb)
Hyper cars	15 kg (33 lb)
Supercars	20 kg (44 lb)
Compacts, sports, sports classics	30 kg (66 lb)
Coupes	40 kg (88 lb)
Muscle	50 kg (110 lb)
Sedans	60 kg (132 lb)
Off-road	80 kg (176 lb)
Emergency vehicles	80 kg (176 lb)
SUVs	100 kg (220 lb)
Planes	100 kg (220 lb)
Utility, service vehicles	150 kg (331 lb)
Military vehicles	200 kg (441 lb)
Vans	250 kg (551 lb)
Industrial vehicles	300 kg (661 lb)
Commercial lorries	400 kg (882 lb)
Helicopters	60 kg (132 lb)

The impound

Only an arrest impounds a car: the one you last drove, if it’s your own and within 60 m of you. The fee is $1,000 a wanted star you had, plus $10,000 with an APB, and while it’s under $50,000 it grows $1 to $5 a minute. Get it back at the LSPD Auto Impound: X on your car, Clear from impound, paid in cash. Until then nobody can get in it, even across logouts.

The tow: if a tow driver of rank 3 (Contracted) is on duty nearby when you’re arrested, the car waits at the kerb for a couple of minutes as a live tow call, and the officer is told a tow has been called. If no driver comes, the lot sends its own truck. See Tow dispatch.

Selling and pushing

Selling: the scrapyard always buys your own car, for 95% of what you paid, less $1,000 for each km of mileage your vehicle menu shows (mileage is always in kilometres, whatever your Measurement System). It’s gone for good, parts and boot too.
Pushing: hold Numpad 8 at either end of a car and steer with A and D. The prompt shows when you’re close, and pressing the key walks you to the nearer end and turns you to face the car; let go and you stop. It works on cars, bikes, vans and anything up to ambulance size, locked or not, upright and in one piece, as long as nobody is in the driver’s seat or its engine is off. That’s how a dry car gets to a pump. The key is listed as “Push a vehicle (hold)” in Settings > Key Bindings > FiveM, and you can rebind it there.
Car washes: Strawberry $350, Little Seoul $500, plus tax.

Tips

/park before you log out. Logging out doesn’t save where the car stands.
Lock it. Unlocked, anyone can drive it off or open its boot.
Engine off while you wait. A running engine keeps burning fuel.
Tune only your own car.
Take a full jerrycan into the country. Stations run dry; public pumps never do.