GTA Online Auto Shop Guide: Contracts and Robberies
A full GTA Online Auto Shop guide covering the Los Santos Tuners robbery contracts, the Union Depository, client vehicle jobs, staff, and payouts.
The GTA Online Auto Shop is the headline property of the Los Santos Tuners update, released on July 20, 2021, and it remains one of the better solo money earners in the game. Bought through Maze Bank Foreclosures, the Auto Shop runs two income streams: legitimate client vehicle jobs that pay you to modify and deliver customer cars, and a set of robbery contracts handed out by your two contacts, KDJ and Sessanta. This guide breaks down both, including the lucrative Union Depository Contract.
Auto Shop locations and prices
There are five Auto Shop locations to choose from, each with the same business functionality, so pick on price or convenience. The five properties and their base prices are:
- Mission Row at $1,670,000
- Strawberry at $1,705,000
- Rancho at $1,750,000
- Burton at $1,830,000
- La Mesa at $1,920,000
Optional upgrades add up fast. A second car lift costs $650,000 and lets you hold two customer cars at once, personal living quarters run $340,000, and each of the two staff members costs $385,000 to hire. Fully kitting out an Auto Shop with every style and add-on can climb past $4 million. For a wider look at the city, the GTA Online game hub collects the rest of the property and update coverage.
How the Auto Shop business works
Once you own an Auto Shop, you meet KDJ (also known as Moodymann) and Sessanta, the two contacts who run the business and hand out its work. The legitimate side is the Repair and Mod Business: a customer car appears on your lift, you tune and respray it to the listed spec, then deliver it back to the owner. Completing the build and dropping the car off yourself pays the full amount, with net profit typically landing in the $20,000 to $30,000 range per vehicle depending on the car's tier.
These client vehicle jobs are a steady, low-risk trickle of income that you can run between bigger activities. You do not need to own the cars or buy parts out of pocket: the modification work is the job itself, and the payout is the fee for completing it correctly.
Staff assignment and deliveries
The two hireable staff members exist to save you time. After you build a customer car, you can assign staff to handle the delivery instead of driving across the map yourself. The trade-off is real: staff take longer, and there is a chance they damage the car in transit, which reduces the payout. Drive the delivery yourself for the maximum fee, or hand it to staff when you would rather chain into another job.
The staff and the second car lift pair well. With both, one car can be built and waiting while another is out for delivery, smoothing the gap between customer requests.
Auto Shop robbery contracts and payouts
The robbery contracts are where the real money is. After completing the Auto Shop setup work, KDJ and Sessanta start posting jobs on the contract board. Each robbery contract is a multi-part operation: two free-roam preparation missions followed by a finale. The board shows three contracts at a time in rotation, and once you finish one you cannot immediately repeat it until others cycle back.
There are eight Auto Shop contracts in total. KDJ and Sessanta each take a 5% cut (10% combined) from the finale payout, except on The ECU Job, which has no cut. Approximate net payouts per contract are:
- The Data Contract around $153,000
- The Bank Contract around $160,200
- The Lost Contract around $162,000
- The Agency Deal around $163,800
- The Superdollar Deal around $166,500
- The ECU Job around $172,000
- The Prison Contract around $157,500
- The Union Depository Contract, the top earner, detailed below
Solo runs are entirely viable, and the contracts are short enough to grind for 2x money events whenever Rockstar runs them on Auto Shop activities.
The Union Depository Contract
The Union Depository Contract is the headline robbery and the most lucrative of the eight. The full take runs roughly $300,000 to $375,000 depending on how much gold you clear, which leaves the leader about $270,000 to $337,500 after KDJ and Sessanta's 10% cut. It is the only Auto Shop contract whose net payout clears $200,000. The job has the same two-prep, one-finale structure: you steal a pass from a corrupt businessman, blackmail a bank manager into surrendering the vault code, then hit the Union Depository for a client tied to the FIB.
The finale is unusual. Looting the vault triggers a five-star wanted level, so you have to lose the cops and deliver the gold cleanly. The host's take can also depend on crew size, since one player cannot physically carry all the gold out alone. Run it with a partner or two when you want the largest possible haul.
Tips before you buy
The Auto Shop earns best when you treat it as a contract machine rather than a car-wash. Run customer deliveries while a contract's prep cools down, keep the board cycling so the high-value jobs stay available, and save the Union Depository for sessions where you have backup. If you are still building toward the buy-in, check the GTA Online cheats page for what is and is not available in the current version, and the GTA Online screenshots gallery for a look at the Tuners content.
