How It Works

A car goes from the street to its owner's hands again in four stages. What changes between yards is who does each stage, which is decided by the lot's service mode.

The four service modes

A lot's mode is picked when it is created and can be changed later in the Creator. Changing it never deletes a placed point. Points that stop applying are hidden and come back if you switch back.

A towed car's journey

1. Called in. An officer runs /requesttow or uses Request forced removal on the car, picks a yard, and gives a reason. Cars can also enter a yard in three other ways:
   • an admin runs /impound;
   • an employee books in a car they recovered themselves;
   • another resource calls the ImpoundVehicle export.
2. Collected. At an NPC-served yard, a scripted tow truck drives out, hooks the car, and drives off with it. At a staffed yard the order appears on the staff terminal's dispatch board, and an employee takes a truck out, recovers the car, and books it in. See Towing.
3. Held. The car is recorded against the yard and parked in the first free bay, in its own paint and mods. If its owner is known, it is taken out of their garage so it cannot be driven away while held.
4. Released. The owner pays the release fee and the car is brought out at the yard's handover bay, ready to drive.

Owned and unowned cars

When a car is booked in, the script looks its plate up in the framework's vehicle table: owned_vehicles on ESX, player_vehicles on QBCore and Qbox.

• Owned cars belong to a player. They stay in the yard until released, with no time limit, and only their owner can collect them.
• Unowned cars (NPC traffic, world vehicles) belong to nobody and can never be claimed. They are in the yard so the tow feels real. Each one ages out after 45 minutes by default, as if its owner had collected it, or after half that if it never got a bay. Set the time per lot with Unowned car stays for on the Creator's Yard tab.

A plate can only be in one yard at a time, so a car that is already impounded cannot be impounded again.

What happens to the garage record

On release the car is spawned at the handover bay, not put back into a garage. On ESX the script deliberately avoids the value esx_garage's own pound screen lists, so the yard is the only way to get the car back. See Compatibility for garage and keys notes.

Getting a car back at an NPC-served yard

At NPC Staffed and Auto Staffed yards the script serves the customer:

1. Talk to the receptionist and ask whether they are holding a vehicle of yours. The desk lists only your own cars, each with its fee broken down.
2. Pay in cash or Pay by card. A car with no fee shows Release it instead.
3. Collect your vehicle from the handover clerk. He lists the cars you have paid for, and the car is brought out at the handover bay.

The bay must be clear. If any vehicle is standing within 3.5 m of it, the release is refused until it is moved.

Getting a car back at a player-run yard

At Player Staffed and Auto Staffed yards an employee serves the customer at the staff terminal. The employee raises an invoice, the customer accepts it and picks cash or card, and the car is brought out at the bay. The full counter workflow is on Running a yard.

The release fee

Every screen quotes the same price, worked out on the server:

1. The base fee. Release fee ($500 by default), or the vehicle class's own price if one is set. Classes are compacts, sedans, SUVs, coupes, muscle, sports classics, sports, super, motorcycles, off-road, industrial, utility, vans, service, emergency, and commercial.
2. The late charge. Optional. After the grace period, a daily rate is added for each further full day held, up to a maximum number of days:

fee = base + perDay × min(daysHeld − freeDays, maxDays)

Example: a $500 base, $100 a day after 2 free days, capped at 14 days. A car collected after 5 full days costs $500 + 3 × $100 = $800.

The late charge is off by default ($0 a day). An admin sets the server-wide prices in the Creator. At a lot with a boss, the boss sets that lot's own prices on the boss terminal. A vehicle's class is read from the framework's vehicle catalogue, and failing that, from the car itself when it was booked in.

Where the money goes

Every release payment lands in the lot account and is written to the ledger as release: <plate>. At a player-run lot the boss can see and withdraw it. An NPC Staffed lot has no boss terminal, so its takings accumulate in its account and act as a money sink unless the lot is later switched to a staffed mode.

Opening hours

An NPC-served lot (NPC Staffed or Auto Staffed) keeps opening hours, 08:00 to 20:00 on the server's own clock by default. Outside them:

• the lot's NPCs go home;
• the entrance gate shuts;
• nobody can collect a car until the lot opens again.

Change the hours per lot on the Creator's Opening hours tab. You can switch them to the in-game clock or turn the schedule off. A Player Staffed lot has no hours, because its staff are real people who turn up when they turn up.

Deleting a lot

Deleting a lot in the Creator removes:

• the lot itself;
• its bays, its fleet, and its balance;
• every setting pinned to it;
• its framework job (anyone holding it is made unemployed).

Owned cars it was holding are not destroyed. They go back to their owners' garages, to the garage they were taken from. On ESX, a car with no saved garage goes to the garage named in Config.Compat.esxGarage, or failing that the first garage esx_garage lists.