Random Thoughts – Randocity!

You might be asking, “Is the Salvage Yard worth the money?” in GTA Online. The Salvage Yard is a new property you can own in GTA Online. Some gamers may be asking if this property is worth the money. Let’s explore.

Is the Salvage Yard Worth the Money?

Yusuf is a recurring character in the GTA series. He actually introduces you to one of his kin, Jamal. Jamal is the person who you will interact with if you decide to buy the Salvage Yard. Who actually runs this property is inconsequential, to be honest. It could have been anyone and the outcome of this would be the same.

In answer to the question, let’s explore the kinds of missions you can expect to play from the Salvage Yard.

The primary mission type, which incidentally requires you to become a CEO or VIP (which also costs money to set up separately), requires you access a computer in the Salvage Area. Keep in mind that this is a chop shop. There is no fixing or repairing here. The only thing that happens to cars you bring here is that they get chopped up and/or sold.

When using the computer, you get a choice of 3 car recovery missions. With each of these missions, the ultimate goal is to bring the cars back to the Salvage Yard. Getting that to happen is where these missions are a literal pain in the ass… and I don’t mean just the combat. If it were just combat, I could deal with it.

Mission Board Activities

The computer is how to access the main mission board. These are, like the Auto Shop, structured missions. However, the problem I have with these missions is that they are overkill. You’d think you were preparing for a heist. Instead, you’re literally just jacking a car and driving it back.

For example, one of the missions required 3 separate primary setup objectives, 5 optional objectives and possibly one or two others. The 3 primary objectives of one was 1) scope out the site, 2) recover some vehicle that might or might not be useful during the heist and 3) gather and hide weapons. The 3 primaries on another were 1) scope out the site, 2) destroy gas masks and 3) obtain a large truck.

Optional objectives include obtaining masks, obtaining clothing to wear or obtaining key cards for access.

These mission board activities are, bluntly, useless and pointless. For example, you had to go obtain an 18 wheeler truck, drag it all over Los Santos and then hand it over to Jamal… all for what? To drive it a total of 5 feet, get out of and then enter the Arena? Another objective was to recover a police helicopter. Oh, but instead of being able to grab the police helicopter I’m standing next to on the roof right where I am… nooooo, I have to drive halfway across Los Santos to pick up the exact same model of helicopter, but in a very specific location. *eye roll* All for what? To simply use the helicopter for only a handful of minutes solely to arrive at the site. These fetch quests are highly useless, annoying and exceedingly time consuming.

Intro Missions

The Salvage Yard tricks you into thinking the missions will be free to launch. Nope! Once you’ve completed the intro missions, you’ll find that it costs GTA$20,000 to set up each new mission. Who really knows if Rockstar won’t cause this setup cost to become some random amount between $20k and $100k depending on the rarity of the car in the future. This cost in addition to all of the convoluted prep? It’s stupid.

Tow Truck Missions

Separately from the computer mission board, if you have opted to buy a tow truck (rusty or new), having this vehicle unlocks a second way to make money with the Salvage Yard property. This activity is also what drives how much income shows up in your Salvage Yard safe. Doing more tow truck missions increases the daily take.

You can make two tow truck missions about every 30-48 minutes (I haven’t timed it). Once the two salvage bays are occupied, you must wait until the chop shop finishes chopping up the two cars into parts. You have no control over the speed at which this happens.

The average payout of a single car being chopped up is around GTA$30k plus or minus a little. If you wish to partake in this activity, you must visit the Salvage Yard, hop into the tow truck and start the tow mission. You will exit and then be given a car type and location. You must drive over there, latch onto the car with the tow truck and drag it back to the Salvage Yard. Once you do this, the chop shop activity begins on that car until it finally pays out many IRL minutes later.

Questions and Answers

Can I Keep the Cars I Recover?

No. The long answer is, kinda… but, you can’t do anything with the cars. Once you recover a mission board car, it gets parked in a space in the Salvage Yard. The only interaction you are given with that car is to sell it or scrap it out. You can’t call the Mechanic to drive the car as the Salvage Yard isn’t considered a Garage. There’s no way to use the “prized” cars you’ve spent a lot of time and money retrieving. So, what’s the point here?

Does the Salvage Yard have Garage Space?

No. Even though the Salvage Yard is about obtaining cars, that’s where its usefulness as a garage ends. It has no car storage spaces at all. You can bring one personal car into the Salvage Yard just for kicks, but the car will soon be ejected back outside. Unlike a garage that marks that your car is now living in that location, the Salvage Yard space doesn’t do this.

The Salvage Yard is not an official garage at all and does not show up under the Mechanic properties. Thus, any cars you retrieve for Yusuf and/or Jamal at the Salvage Yard are only good for selling.

If you were hoping for more garage storage spaces, this is not the property to buy. There is zero garage space at the Salvage Yard for personal use.

Are the Salvage Yard Missions Easy?

No. Like Heists and their associated heist excessive prep, this is exactly how the car theft missions are structured. These missions have not only major overkill setup, but most of the required mission objectives don’t serve any purpose in the final carjacking. For example, you might be required to steal an 18 wheeler truck, but the truck won’t be used in the carjacking. Meaning, you’d think you’d load the car onto the truck to drive it back, but no. Instead, you leave that 18 wheeler behind and never see it again. Instead, you’re tasked with driving the actual car back to the Salvage Yard.

More than this, there are many, many stupid and overkill additions to these missions. For example, I was tasked with obtaining an Arena car. When I got into the Arena, not only did I have to kill a major number of combatants, I then had to locate the car with a telescope, sit down and use a drone to disable the car with an EMP, then head down to the arena floor to a whole new set of combatants. Then, go over to the car, jack it and then drive it out of ONLY ONE single very specific exit that was marked.

After that, we come to find that the car is rigged with a bomb setting up a 2 minute timer. Not only is there a huge crew trying to knock you off the road, you have to make it to a quick stop garage to diffuse the bomb (signified by a completely black screen and a bunch of tool sounds dropping on the floor), which then exit back to a driving segment with the combatants back again… only to drop it off at the Salvage Yard.

Convoluted. It’s a friggin’ car.

Rockstar has lost their minds. If GTA had started off with these complex jacking mechanics, that’s one thing. Trying to introduce them now is insane!

Are the Tow Truck missions easy?

Depends. Some might require a light bit of combat, but most don’t. The difficulty is simply dragging the car back to the shop. The tow truck cable is unwieldy and stupid. If the car begins wagging too badly, it will detach and you’ll have to go hook it up again.

It’s not like some of us haven’t already bought the Slamvan flatbed truck which would be ideal for tow truck missions. Nope. They have to give us a crappy chain lift tow truck type for the shop.

Overall

Considering the cost to buy into a Salvage Yard (~GTA$2 million) + about GTA$2 million for the tow truck and other rather useless additions, that totals around GTA$4 million for this property. All for what? To recover a “mission based” car worth about GTA$300k or recover junker chop shop cars that will part out for about GTA$30k.

This is definitely not a property I’d recommend first if you’re wanting quick cash. If you’ve already invested in most other properties like the Nightclub, Arcade, Executive Office, Auto Shop (which is incidentally broken in this update), Facility, Bunker, Casino and various Motorcycle Club businesses, then the Salvage Yard might be worth it. If you’re just starting out in GTA Online, this is not the business to start with first.

Rating: 1.5 out of 5 (Rockstar overthinks everything)

↩︎