Repaired parts vs New parts

[sesse22]

So I was wondering, how does it affect the final payment of the vehicle if it has repaired 100% condition parts or new/bought 100% conditoion parts? It seems that the final payment I receive pays all replacement parts+tasks+all tasks completed.

Am just wondering that should I be repairing them or buying because buying is much faster.

Also would like to know if its worth restore the cars I buy from auction. Recently bought my first 2 cars and was wondering is it worth to restore them or are they basically for me only.

Thanks in advance.

[sesse22]

About that restoration thing. Found out there is an restoration bonus!

[Haildodger]

Repairing parts gives you xp. Value wise there isn't any difference between a new part, or one that has been repaired to 100%. And yeah, restorations are a good source of both xp and cash.

Be aware that if you are restoring vehicles for cash that performance parts will give a nice return on investment. However tire swaps and, or new paint will yeild no return.

[Pysteve]

cost less to repair then to order a new part. so overall, if you can repair it, do it.

[Demosthenes]

You will make *roughly* the same amount of money in the same amount of time performing customer repairs vs. fixing up auction vehicles and selling them (press "O" to see the vehicle status, and that screen includes the Sell Car button). I haven't timed any repairs / restorations to prove this, and I think being picky about repairs would actually be better off for getting rich quick.

For me, it's more about the variety it adds to the game. I find more fun by alternating between customer repairs and auction restorations.

I'm speaking for playing outside of Expert mode. Haven't made the transition yet.

Consider this:
- Auctions take a while to win. Customer repairs take seconds to get into the shop.
- The auction mechanism isn't fun (I'm comparing to eBay) and it takes up your time. It almost guarantees that you will pay more for the vehicle than you could immediately sell it for. The customer acquisition mechanism isn't fun either, but it doesn't take up any time, so it doesn't detract.
- Auction cars you will probably need to fully disassemble if you want to address all red parts (or whatever threshold you set for fixing it up). Customer repairs (excluding V8 engines) involve taking apart much less, so you can finish a few of those in the time it takes to do one auction car.
- Auction cars won't tell you what's wrong until you buy them, and most include extensive engine repair (time consuming). Customer repairs you can choose based on the problems that you know will be most profitable and take the least time.
- I've made around $12,000 profit on average per auction car I fix up (I tend toward muscle cars). I've seen as low as $4,500 (Mioveni Urs that I overpaid for), and as high as $27,000. For a high XP level, quick repair jobs (excluding the engine) can net as much as $14,000 each.
- For auction restorations, it's not clear (unless you painstakingly check the car value before and after each individual part repair) how much money you make for each part you restore, so it's hard to know whether it's worth it to pick 50%, 75%, 85%, etc. as your repair/replace threshold. For repair jobs, it is always worth it to repair/replace 100% of items below the provided % threshold.

Caveat: I've done all my auction vehicle restoration with 90% part repair rate. Blowing up parts when you try to repair them actually destroys the value you originally bought, on top of making you buy a brand new part.

With that said, I'm going to go buy a car.

[Demosthenes]

So, there are *three* restoration bonuses. One if you get the Body to 100%, one if you get the Parts to 100%, and an add-on bonus if you get both.

For the Delray Imperator, those bonuses are:
Restoration Bonus (Body): $12,481
Restoration Bonus (Parts): $12,449
Restoration Bonus (Both): $3,202

Buying every Frame part brand new is $4,449 (which includes repairing the frame for $1,799), so that restoration bonus is easy money there, even if you don't touch the parts. It's not particularly fun, but maybe that's the most efficient way to mine money from auctions?

My total profit was $37k, and $28k of it was restoration bonuses. It may be different with a much cheaper car (assume proportionally smaller restoration bonus), but with the Imperator, I am hard-pressed to think of a situation where you would make more money by *not* fixing everything.

You'd have to buy a 5-star car, try to repair everything and destroy at least 10% of the parts, then buy every other sub-100% part (even to replace 99% condition), and even then I'm not sure.

[sesse22]

Okay, thanks guys. Maths are the reason why I asked bcuz I knew some people had made the calculations already.

[Mehrunes Dagon]

I've been using the Sakura GT20 as my "money maker". I've restored 6 so far and sold 5 of them. You can pick them up from the auction in 2 star condition for about 10-15k. Fully restored they sell for around 104k. I can strip one completely down to a bare shell, fix or replace all parts, and have it to 100% condition in about 20-25mins.

The biggest time savers I have found are holding down the shift button while you click through repairing all of the parts, having stock on hand of the parts you know you can't repair, and being quick buying new parts.

I have yet to experiment with it, but I plan to try buying 5 or 6 of the GT20's, strip them all down for parts, repair as much as I can and build cars from there using more repaired parts than purchased parts. With the profit you get from 1 car, you can afford to sell the stripped body of a couple.

[Zem]

Originally posted by John Marston:

I've been using the Sakura GT20 as my "money maker".

This guy gets it.

A full restoration with performance parts on the right models is far more profitable than repairs in terms of profit per hour. It is not even a close race.

The Bentley T-Series and GT20 (among others) will each give you 50k+ in NET profit for a full restoration with performance parts. That means you pocket 50k in profit even after buying the car, tearing it completely down, restoring, buying performance parts, and reassembling. I usually buy two of them and do them together, side by side. You can fully tear down and restore both of them in well under and hour, and that gets me over 100k in profit.

One tip: Ignore the Rex. It has a high resale value, but it isn't even in the top ten of cars in terms of profitability for a restoration. Neither is the Salem Spectre, the Bentley Continental, the FMW Panther, or a lot of other high-dollar cars. Resale value does not indicate a good profit; Total cost of purchase and restoration is paramount.

[DurinDuranbah]

sorry for Necropost

So if I get that right: while repairing a car just buy the new part (you'll get refund on that)
then restore all you can and sell after the job is done for added bonus cash?
I mean a restored motorblock is a really nice extra ...

[Haildodger]

You make more if you spend less cash. Just like real life. I don't know how much simpler one can explain it.

You get paid by the job. There are no refunds from the customer on new parts.