Auto Shops, like other functional properties in Grand Theft Auto Online, are a great source of income when utilized correctly. But, they're also a pain to run.
The common problem with Auto Shops, in particular, is the staff. The staff can do the selling and driving for you so you don't have to deliver the client's cars yourself. This lets you do multiple things at the same time, which allows you to maximize your time and your profits, which all sounds great until the staff members get behind the wheel.
There's an ongoing problem with the Auto Shop staff, specifically, with how they drive. The words "incompetent" and "blind as a bat" have been thrown around to describe how Auto Shop staff in GTA Online drive vehicles.
Anyone who owns an Auto Shop in GTA Online will tell you, Rockstar designed Auto Shop staff so that they damage the cars. It's the price you pay so you don't have to deliver the cars. Admittedly, this can take a lot of time.
It's one of the milder inconveniences in GTA Online that you can never really do something about - until now.
Apparently, as pointed out on Reddit, Auto Shop staff "can now finally deliver vehicles off with no damage."
Naturally, players celebrated this update. However, as u/Cookiesrdelishus points out, it's always been "more profitable" to have staff deliver for you even though they dinged the cars. As they explain, while the damages do lower the profit you make per car, it also takes up your time, which you could have used to do other jobs and make up the difference if not more.
So, unless you're looking to level up your Los Santos Tuners Reputation, it's now even more worth it to buy an Auto Shop and wait for the money to come in, at least, until Rockstar will realize that they "fixed" this issue by mistake and brings back the old blind drivers to replace your Auto Shop staff.
@Hassan,
Thanks for posting this. I was going to ask the same question. I assumed they were a lot more expensive but this is good. I can probably save up for one easily. Get the cheaper one.
@RetroRanger,
The cheapest one costs $1,670,000 at Mission Row, and the base price of the most expensive one is $1,920,000 located in La Mesa.
Looking forward to get the crew to deliver cars again, been doing that my self as I didn't want to loose to much money due to damaged cars - Got to test a lot of cars though by doing deliveies my self 🙂
@PixelPerfect,
Was going to say the same thing. One of my biggest gripes for the damaged vehicles but since they fixed this and made it more realistic, I might invest. I can't remember how much it costs though.
I might buy an auto shop. I never actually did this on either of my accounts but since they fixed something like this, I can see it being worth it more so now than before.
So they finally decided to fix this. Color me surprised. Trouble is, I think this may be what is causing issues with the latest bug. I am not 100% but I feel like they did not properly test and check things before releasing this update. Now we have to wait on who knows how many patches to resolve the issues.