Car Shop DW Solo Stealth (with pictures!)

A lot of people seem to have trouble with this heist. I don't. I'm making this because I am sick of typing the same thing over and over, and would rather just link to this in the forums. Learn to do it by yourself and make all your friends jealous.

Introduction

I see a lot of people on the forums having difficulty with the Car Shop heist. I understand. I once thought it was nigh impossible on DW difficulty, but I do not any more. I enjoyed driving the cars so much that I would do the heist over and over solo, and I learned what I think to be the best way to beat this.

This is a guide to help you if you are having trouble.

While this is a solo guide, it only gets easier the more players are in game, so I will mention that periodically.

Some people have been wondering why I bring ECMs and not body bags. Let me go ahead and tell you why. When you start the hack, two guards will automatically path to the hack. I have realised that 9 times out of 10, I have enough time to kill one of the guards, and by the time the second guard has arrived, the hack has less than 30 seconds left, so that you can just rush your own way out. If you bring body bags, not only is it time consuming to kill and bag all those civs (I normally do it only having bagged one or two people anyways), you can NOT kill more than one travelling guard, or else the hack will fail. Additionally, if both the guards come at the hack at the same time, there is no way you are getting out without an alarm going off. This means that, due to the guard pathing to the hack, the alarm goes off before you place the c4, and that means that you don't have time to beat the heist. If you have a buddy with you, you can have one of you bring body bags, but I would still recommend both of you bringing ECMs, so that you can start the ECM chain almost as soon as you have started the hack.

Ultmately, body bags are time consuming, no more effective than ECMs, and in a lot of ways more dangerous, especially since it is quite easy to avoid the vast majority of the civilians. Why kill something when you can just as easily not kill them, all while saving space for an extra minute of alarm delay?

What you need, and why

Here is the minimum build[pd2skills.com] required to beat the heist. I am going to go through and tell you why each choice was made. Use any perk deck you want, I just use burglar for obvious reasons.

Endurance: After planting the C4, you don't want to chance running out of stamina. Sometimes one or two seconds is all it takes.

Sprinter: Movement speed is king on your way to the car

Cleaner: Body bags. Need I say more?

ECM Specialist: ECM is what you are bringing, and they are crucial to finishing the heist

ECM Overdrive: See above

Lockpicking Expert: To help you get by one specific camera that sometimes spawns

Camera Loop: Same reason

Sixth Sense: Best skill in the game for stealth. Basic is all that is needed though

Run and Gun: See Sprinter

Winston Wolfe: That extra body bag can save your heist

Judge: Any shotgun works. What matters is that it is silenced. This is necessary to complete the heist

Everything else is just there as a filler skill to get points for the next tier

Method Part 1

Here come a million screenshots. And I am assuming you are the host.

So, the first thing you will want to do is buy the body bag case asset. It is not always needed, but sometimes is really nice to have.

Begin the heist, but do NOT exit casing mode. Find out where the asset is by looking around. If it is on the right side of the store, great. If it is on the left, we will talk about that in a second. Move to the right side of the store and find this box. Mask up (only you if you are playing with other people) and use the box. This will open up the way to the back.

Now, if the body bags were on the left side (remember how I said I would bring this up again?), you are going to have to sneak around back to get to the asset. This is pretty easy, because the hedge on the outside edge of the map blocks their view, so as long as you are careful, you should never have an issue.

Anyways, back to the actual heist. What you are looking for is the one way upstairs that is not guarded. It is this door. Sometimes a guard stands next to it for a few seconds, but they always move. If it is locked, it is safe to pick open even when guards are walking by, because the hedge blocks their view.

Once inside, there CAN be a camera looking at a locked door like this. This happens if the door on the outside is unlocked. This is also why we have camera loop and lockpicking. Loop the camera and pick the door, and you are inside the store.

Now, the objective tells you to find the storage room, but we are going to ignore that. We want to find the manager and kill the guard. More on that in a second, but first you are going to want to go upstairs one floor (not to the roof), and pick the glass door open there. This is the way we will be entering. If you are playing with a friend, now is a good idea to ask one of them to follow you up, but stay in casing mode. They can run around the top floor pretty easily and spot guards and civs for you.

What we have to do up here is deal with this guard. He stands right outside the manager's office and never moves, causing headaches for everybody. This is the reason most people fail this heist on Deathwish. What we want to do is shoot this plant right behind him. He won't hear it, and it will allow you more space to move around. Now, get behind him. I recommend standing up while you shoot him for a better angle, but if you line up behind him, you can easily shoot him right into the kitchen. This is why we need a shotgun, and only the host can actually do it. Now, if you miss slightly, don't worry right away. Enemies spot bodies by looking for their head, so if his head is in the kitchen and the rest of his body is in the hall, you should be safe. Answer the pager, bag him, and remove him to the staircase.

Now we need to find the manager

Sometimes, this can happen, which is normally a game over for most people, but shouldn't be an issue if you know what you are doing. This is the one time you will deal with the manager before the previous step. When you have run into this issue, you can quickly move from the door to right behind the chair the woman is sitting in, right here. Neither of them will see you, and when the coast is clear you can use your shotgun to launch them into the corner, where you can bag and remove the bodies. The nice thing about this happening is that you will already have the keycard before even dealing with the guard.


The manager can also be in one of these other places.



You want to hope he is not in the front office, as this is the most difficult spot to get in and out of. But sometimes, he will be in there talking to a civilian. My favourite spot is when he is in the copy room, because you can use your shotgun to launch him into the corner behind the copier where nobody will ever see him. Don't try to tie him and move him there, because civilians can't path there, and will just get seen through the glass doors. Sometimes he is in the meeting room with two other civs. If you put all three of them perfectly in the corner by the blinds, they won't ever get fully seen, but this is difficult to pull off successfully. I recommend just removing them. And lastly, sometimes he is in the top computer room talking to another employee. Kill, bag and remove. There is one more spot the manager can be - in the front of the store, talking to two civilians. You are most likely going to fail trying to deal with him up here, so I decided not to take a screenshot of it, but you CAN shoot all three of them quickly (with a silenced not-shotgun), bag them, and move them. This is extremely risky, and I recommend to people without a spotter to just restart if he spawns there (you can see if he is there from the beginning of the map)

Now that you have the keycard, you can enter his office. Wait until the hallway is clear (sixth sense is your friend), and enter the office. Look for the whiteboard. This whiteboard will tell you the name of the employee whose desk you want to look for. Now, you want to hope that the employee's desk is in one of the two computer rooms. If it is in the front office, you are most likely going to fail. That office is just super dangerous. Just look for the nametags next to the computers and hack the one with the matching name. This is another time it can help to have a friend in casing mode, as they can check downstairs while you check upstairs, and if they find the name, they can mask up and hack it.

Method Part 2

Now we wait. This is the part of the map that requires a little bit of luck. The hack is a magnet to guards, so you will have to protect it. Save one ECM for after the hack is done (more on that in a bit), and use the rest if the hack is found but you can't fully protect it. If you are by yourself, you CAN NOT use your first ECM unless the hack is at 30 seconds left or less. If you have one more friend, that goes up to 90 seconds, and with more friends, you should really just be ECM rushing it. Anyways, once it inevitably goes south, hopefully you will have enough time to lay your first ECM and just sprint out the front door to the van. Guards take a couple seconds to shoot at you, so if you just run right by them, it won't be an issue. Keep your ECM chain going, and grab the C-4 when the hack finishes.

Grab the C-4 and start planting it. The reason I told you to save one ECM is that it takes about 30 seconds to plant the C-4 and get the car keys, so you will have to use an ECM to cover your C-4 planting. Since you only have 90 seconds to escape, every second counts.

Once the C-4 is planted, SPRINT to the security room. It's the one with the keypad next to it. Open it, open the case inside, and grab the keys. Now, the keys only spawn one at a time, so if more people are with you and want to drive also, everybody will have to wait their turn to grab keys. Once you have the keys, SPRINT to the cars. If the room was on the top floor, jump off the balcony rather than trying to go down the stairs.

The cars have an "unlock" and a "get in" that happens right next to the driver's side door handle (if you're not American, then remember, American cars have the driver on the left), so you will have to hold "F" two times to get in. Once you are in the car, you drive. Just keep following the path until you find the end. Drive the car into one of these shipping containers. I recommend accellerating and smashing it into the back of the inside of container. It will bounce back, but then you just push forward one more time and it will be all the way in. This way also prevents you from having to move slowly to park them, which could be dangerous, depending on how well you drove. Once you do this, PRESS "F" TO GET OUT OF THE CAR, and run to the van. Then you get treated to one of these beautiful screens, that I am also using to prove that I can do it solo stealth on DW.

General driving and stealth tips

The driving in this game is a little odd. The cars feel heavy, they are automatics (what type of sports car is an automatic?), and they turn better while accelerating than while braking (this is just a fact of how physics works in real life though. We have just gotten used to video game driving which makes no sense). There are basically two schools of thought on driving.

1. You can flutter "W" and keep a moderate speed the entire time

2. You can hold "W" for lots of speed, and then at corners, use "S" to brake

They are both valid methods, use whichever is easiest to you. If you are having a lot of trouble driving, practise it on the lower difficulties a bunch. Just remember that holding "A" or "D" will get you in trouble. The cars WILL spin out easily, and you don't want to hit the sides. Some people have figured out drifting, but I find it difficult in this game, so I don't have pointers for you if you want to do that (other than the obvious "countersteer").

I also recommend finding a single path and sticking to it. I like to stay along the left side the entire time, which makes it easy when I play with others, because they can stay on the right side (almost) the entire time. Mostly this is so that you have familiarity with the track you are racing. One mistake can be all that it takes to make you lose this heist, and you would hate to end up losing by like three seconds. If you have trouble with the driving, play the heist a few times on lower difficulties, to get used to it. Or if you really need more work, contact me and I will show you.

Onto stealth.

- Be extremely patient. Don't do objectives until you know the coast is clear (especially killing the stationary guard.
- Use sixth sense before going around corners.
- Don't shoot the glass.
- Don't stand still near glass when guards see you.
- The windows with blinds are walls.
- Don't be afraid to sprint for a second to get away from someone coming around a corner.
- Make sure where you store body bags is a safe location.
- When you start the hack, two guards will be called to the area, so you can NOT leave it alone. More people might come too, or an avalanche of detection might happen, but the code specifically states this will happen.
- If you can see their face, they can see yours. Since detection is done by heads, use furniture to your advantage in this way
- Don't be afraid to mess up. We all do sometimes. I didn't go into avoiding the civs here because I expect you to have passing stealth knowledge, but don't be afraid to come to me and ask for some more pointers on stealth

I recommend not shooting any guards other than the stationary guy and anybody who will interrupt your hack, as stopping to shoot them takes up precious time, and one of you could hit the glass before the C-4 has blown it up. Sprinting by them works just fine.

Conclusion

I hope I helped you guys learn one of my favourite heists. Remember, it takes some skill and a little bit of luck, but it is doable, and the reward of driving a car is worth it. Please leave a rating, and if you have any comments, questions, saw that I left something out, or even noticed a typo, feel free to let me know. Happy heisting.

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This guide was made by ninja crouton
Please contact me before reproducing this guide elsewhere

[TradesmanBOB]

Hey, um yes its 2022 ending, but uh I'm having a hard time understand what skills you have since its hard to see what skills are on that website... do you mind also placing the skills on the following one? https://pd2builder.netlify.app

[Aurelizian]

this guide may be outdated. with the stationary guard and all. But it still helped me a lot. I did the heist on max difficulty and one down with a single try. Thank you very much!

[buddmah]

Yes, time changed as well as the stationary guard, not present anymore. What I must say tho is that I managed to secure the car 20 seconds before the end of the heist without braking and always pressing "W", by just releasing "W" in turns. Releasing "W" is enough to turn, even if you've been pressing it that much to achieve maximum speed it's not necessary to brake...

[Myziam]

I did it first try after reading this guide (first DW try). Bottom office, corner computer, first guard walked right past me, then the second walked into the corner and I killed him without the other guard seeing, bagged them both, dumped them in the dumpsters and planted c4/grabed keys without the alarm going off.

[Undefined]

Trying to do this heist now, and it keeps getting blown because the guards spot the hacked pc from 3-5m away and when they alert, they alert other civies or fire off shots. Unbelievable. Any advice on how to deal with this?

[Gabe]

no he is exclusive

[Sephorol]

May I add you as a friend Ninja Crouton??

[ninja crouton]

Use the brake pedal then. It works nicely

[Hassat Hunter]

That's what people on the wiki said, also escape timer apparently from 90s is now 100s (still not enough for my terrible driving probably)

[ninja crouton]

@Hassat Hunter ORLY? I've been on hiatus for a while. I'll have to check it out later