Optimal car restoration strategy

Have you asked yourself about car parts condition?
Should you repair up to 100% or 50% or 30%?
Should you use all new bought parts or repair?
How to get the most profit and spend less?
Hope this investigation brings some light.

Intro

I'm going to repair every possible part to minimize expenses and maximize profit.

I have all skills unlocked except part examining tree.
Because I'm still working on getting the parts examine achievement.

Initial car condition

Ordinary Bolt Chapman F-Mill from the barn.

It was selected because it has nearly 100% interior and body condition.
To let us focus only on parts.

Car price: $17,336
Spent on restoration: $0
Restoration bonus: $0
Profit: $0

Repair with 30% (orange) minimum parts quality

Car price: $23,550
Spent on restoration: $3,862
Restoration bonus: $0
Profit: $23,550 - $17,336 - $3,862 = $2,352

Not bad, though ;)
But we want to maximize profit!

Repair with 50% (yellow) minimum parts quality

Car price: $26,887
Spent on restoration: $6,600
Restoration bonus: $1,008
Profit: $26,887 - $17,336 - $6,600 + $1,008 = $3,959

It brings 68% more profit than 30% minimum parts quality restoration!

Repair with 85% (green) minimum parts quality

Car price: $30,600
Spent on restoration: $8,303
Restoration bonus: $2,295
Profit: $30,600 - $17,336 - $8,303 + $2,295 = $7,256

It brings 208% more than 30% minimum parts quality restoration
It brings 83% more than 50% minimum parts quality restoration

Cool!
Let's see if 100% restoration worth it!

Repair with 100% (green) minimum parts quality. And sell broken items

Car price: $31,381
Spent on restoration: $8,661
Restoration bonus: $2,353
Profit: $31,381 - $17,336 - $8,661 + $2,353 = $7,737

It brings 229% more than 30% minimum parts quality restoration
It brings 95% more than 50% minimum parts quality restoration
It brings 7% more than 85% minimum parts quality restoration

Selling all broken parts brought additional $959

Profit in total: $7,737 + $959 = $8,696

Finally!

Fixing body parts up to 100%

Car price: $31,896
Spent on restoration: $240
Restoration bonus: $2,392

($31,381 and $2,353) - are revenues for fixing parts (excluding body) up to 100%.
Profit: $31,896 - $31,381 - $240 - $2,353 + $2,295 = $217 (for fixing body parts only)


Buying body parts to replace those yellow durability body parts that can't be fixed.

Car price: $32,065
Spent on restoration: $382
Restoration bonus: $2,404

Profit: $32,065 - $31,896 - $382 - $2,392 + $2,404 = -$201 :( (for buying body parts to replace YELLOW body parts only)

Fixing interior parts up to 100%

There is no way fixing them, only buying new ones.

Car price: $32,376
Spent on restoration: $765
Restoration bonus: $2,428

Profit: $32,376 - $32,065 - $765 - $2,404 + $2,428 = -$430 (for buying interior parts to replace YELLOW interior parts only)

Conclusions

1. Do not buy new items to replace parts with more than 85% durability (green). It's not cost effective.
2. Fix everything at the workbench. Just spam buttons. Don't try to hit range between 85% and 100%. It's a time wasting.
3. Do not buy body parts to replace YELLOW durability. Maybe orange or red makes sense. Leave a comment if you've tried it.
4. Fixing interior parts (buying new ones) is not worth it. Unless to get a feeling of 100% done car.

Bonus:
1. Cleaning interior makes sense. As it costs only $100. In 90% cases it is imeediately payed back by increased car price and restoration bonus. The rest 10% can be ignore. So clean up interior every time.
2. Welding frame may make sense only when frame durability is Yellow, Orange or Red. Leave a comment if you know exactly :).
3. I've got level up during this guide preparation.
4. Thanks to God it wasn't V8 engine.

Do new parts increase car price more that 100% repaired parts?

No.
100% repaired parts add the same number of money to the car price as bought parts.
But you spend less when buying broken part and fixing it.

The complexity here is how to achieve the best balance between stocking fixed items and using them for repairings.
Share in comments how do you handle it.

Does adding oil increase car price?

No

Does painting increase car price?

No, it's poinless wasting of $1000.
It doesn't affect price at all.

But makes your car look pretty ;)

[comeanother]

Re

how much does this play into Orders? do you not get the bonuses if they didn't ask for it?

Personally, I haven't tried to apply "optimal car restoration strategy" to Orders.
It doesn't make sense to me, because the car disappears fast.
We're not even allowed to put cars from orders to the Parking.
How I am using Orders?
I select the easiest: fix ehaust, gearbox, or brakes, or body parts (if you have 35+ level and unlocked skill for fixing body parts using bench).
Why? Every successully finished order gives 100-150XP with guarantee!
It's perfect to farm XP early on.

But I prefer repairing severely damaged cars from the scrapeyard.
And my goal is to gel whole collection of every possible car in my Parking, ordered alphabetically.

PS: comment allows you to have only 1000 characters, so I had to split my answer into two comments

[comeanother]

Hi dynastystar,

Re

question on the topic of parts that can't be repaired, is there a theshold to buy new parts or just use the old one as they're "good enough"?

You get bigger restoration bonus (money) when you use parts with the most perfect condition. Even if you find old part from the barn or scrapeyard and restore it to 100% condition, it will add the same restoration bonus as the newly bought part.

In any case, if you find like 70% part from the barn and put it into a vehicle, it will pay-off, but eventual restoration bonus will be lower.

In my opinion, you get more outcome when you don't spend time on searching parts in barns or scrapeyards.
I prefer the following strategy: try to restore it, if it can't be restored - buy a new part.

But the other day, I'm trying to "role play" the game and recover vehicle without using store at all :P

[dynastystar]

also(I wish Steam let you edit comments), how much does this play into Orders? do you not get the bonuses if they didn't ask for it?

[dynastystar]

question on the topic of parts that can't be repaired, is there a theshold to buy new parts or just use the old one as they're "good enough"?

[Saso ʕꖘﻌꖘʔ]

That makes perfect sense. I had not considered the mileage at all. From the link you posted it has a pretty significant impact which seems right. Overall I really liked your guide, was just confused about the pricing.

[comeanother]

Thanks Saso ˁ(⦿ᴥ⦿)ˀ,
possible cause in my case might be mileage 240k+.

Here is an information about how milage affects car price
https://steamcommunity.com/app/645630/discussions/0/3223871682629480903/#c1495615865206852864

Also onld cars like Bolt Chapman cost less that new cars like Sakura Moon, Sceo LX550 or Mayen M8.

You may not get exact answer now about how much money you will get, but you may notice how much efforts a player might need to do to get an optimal car price with less time spent on restoration.

Hope that helps :)

Looking forward to getting reply from you.

[Saso ʕꖘﻌꖘʔ]

Seems like a weirdly low value, 32k for a fully restored car? I bought a Sakura Moon off the junkyard for 14k, and sold it for 131k. I spent about 40k on new parts and built a new engine from scratch. That's like 80k profit, no body work done.

[comeanother]

Thank you, Ratch!

[Ratch]

FYI, the welding makes modded cars dumb. since the way a modded car has value, it's in the body. More the welded body, but good replacement body panels can get those restoration bonuses. I'm actually going to start a new play through but remove modded cars. when you can buy junkyard super cars, weld the frame and clean the interior and sell it for 2-3 times what you paid, money becomes easy once you get to a certain point.

I also have a mod, don't remember what it is called or how to set it up, that gives me more repair freedom. I don't agree with some of the repairs I can do, but it's better than the excessive limits you have.

[comeanother]

SwimDuckling110, please try it and share with us results.