Car Dealer Simulator Steam Charts & Stats

Constant crashes led to my saves being corrupted after 13 hours. Good game, but i do not recommend buying until its fixed.

- game runs very poorly, even on the lowest settings - graphic is not that good. And the trees flicker like hell - car sounds are boring. Every car sounds same - the driving is awful. You get stuck on every corner, the cars spin like crazy. When you break it feels like nothing happens Maybe it will get better with some updates but for now I would not recommend it.

Been playing since launch day, definitely alot of fun. I really hope they add more to the game, because I'm already 80% completed, and without restarting the game to completely refresh the game to continue the grind, I can see this getting old and dying off. I think simulators like this are fantastic, but adding things like a service department for customers to fix their cars at, making up different prices for repairs, selling parts at your dealership to people as well and making profits that way, and maybe just overall more of a dealership feel. I work at a car dealership and I think this simulator could be alot more immersive and in-depth. I'd be happy to assist and provide more feedback if needed. Other than that, fantastic game guys!

[h1] Release day not recommended. Significantly worse than the demo, with multiple softlock problems, a drastic graphics downgrade, and absurd control problems. [/h1] When you buy a game blind, you're taking your chances. Maybe it'll be good, maybe it won't. You have no way to know because you haven't played it yet. But when you play a demo for a game, you like to believe you have a decent idea of what the finished product is going to be like. Or so you hope. Having played the demo, I had my reservations about the full game. But my concerns were with how the additional content would be implemented, not the core structure of the game. That's why I did something I almost never do and bought this game on release day. Wishing I hadn't. [h2]Some positives[/h2] There are some praiseworthy elements. [h3]Lots to do [/h3] Compared to the demo, there's a lot more to do in restoring and repairing cars. There are a lot more upgrades to buy. In theory, there's a lot of distance in this game. Considering I got softlocked an hour in, I can't say for sure. [h2]Lots of negatives[/h2] Okay... here we go. [h3]Terrible controls [/h3] Walking is bad, driving is a joke. Your walk speed is somewhere on the level of an Olympic speed-walker, and your sprint speed will have the Flash doing double-takes. Default mouse sensitivity is so high I'm pretty sure my character broke his neck looking around. But driving is ridiculous. I'd go so far as to say the developer may never have actually driven a car. The turning radius on your vehicles is wider than a lorry, which for a subcompact is a little crazy. Braking and cornering makes you feel like you're driving on ice, and since the game's town clearly hasn't seen any precipitation since about 1704, that doesn't track. Any attempt to brake will leave skid marks (your tires are apparently made of crayons), yet stopping doesn't seem to want to happen. [h3]Softlocks! [/h3] Yes, multiple. The first time was in trying to go get my tutorial car. The game wouldn't show me where it was. I ended up deciding it was a bug and starting over before I figured out what was wrong when it happened again: because I hitched up the tow dolly before being told to, the game was... waiting for me to hitch up the dolly before telling me where to go. Which I'd already done and the game wasn't registering the state of the resource. Okay, fine. Kind of an amateurish mistake but whatever. But when I did what I'd always done in the demo and queued up two cars to buy, I managed to break the tutorial and softlock the game. Because I couldn't progress until I'd fixed exhaust system holes - which the scanner and game agreed numbered zero. Since there were no holes, I couldn't fix any holes, the tutorial couldn't advance and... we're softlocked again. This time unrecoverable, which meant having to start over [i]again.[/i] Definitely not a good sign. [h3]Graphical bizarreness [/h3] The demo looked decent. Somewhat simplistic graphics, sort of a 2008 look, but passable. The full release game looks worse. There's [i]static[/i]. No, it's not some weird post-processing artifact; I'd turned it off. It was some kind of odd shading or ambient lighting issue that only happened during twilight. Foliage suffers from jittery shading, contrast on vehicles you're working on is inconsistent at best, and it just looks cheap even when compared to its own demo. [h3]...and the audio [/h3] There's no nice way to say this. The voice acting is atrocious. I turned the voice volume off because I couldn't stand it. I'd done the same thing with the demo, but I'd hoped the demo had placeholder audio and for the full version they'd swap it out for better. They didn't. Vehicle sounds are cartoonish and flat. Level balancing is inconsistent at best, so you will have spikes of substantially loud effects compared to the general volume. [h3]Optimization? [/h3] This also runs worse than the demo. My setup is pretty dang beefy, and even turning down the settings from the Autodetect choices, it was still lugging somewhat and spooling up the fans higher than anything short of Satisfactory and the like generally does. [h3]Timescale problems [/h3] Might as well address this, too. Time flies in this game. In the demo, a day would end, the clock would halt in late evening, and while you could keep working you couldn't buy or sell new vehicles. Well, the clock no longer stops. Not only that, but it runs [i]way[/i] too fast, meaning that the experience you got in the demo is not what you get in the game. You get a much more inconvenient, unfriendly time model to deal with. [h1]The Bottom Line[/h1] It doesn't feel finished. This feels, sounds, looks, and plays like a game that's still in EA, and the fact that there were two softlocks before the tutorial was even done isn't a good sign, either. I'd really wanted to be able to post a review that said "Hey, it was just like the demo only better!" but I can't. It's a bad sign when you'd rather have the demo than the full-release game, but that's what's going on here. It has a lot of potential, but hold off until the bugs get squashed. Not recommended.

I really like the gameplay loop in this game, but good lord is it a buggy mess. Great potential. Just needs quite a bit more attention from the devs

There’s a good game somewhere under the hood of Car Dealer Simulator—but right now, it needs a serious tune-up. It’s not a total lemon, but it’s certainly idling in neutral. Let’s start with the issues: The price suggestion bar is misleading. Buyers don’t care what the bar says—they’ll always lowball you. Selling vehicles involves way too much haggling, even when you price them fairly. Driving back and forth for parts gets old fast, especially after upgrading your property. There’s no option to order parts on-site. The part recycler feels like a half-finished idea. Even the fully upgraded building only has one, and it doesn’t scale with your dealership. You can’t see what you paid for a vehicle or how much you put into repairs before negotiating a sale. You’re expected to memorize it? Seriously? The vandal NPC is just annoying, especially with no security option to remove him even at max level. Employees are more work than they’re worth. You have to micromanage them constantly, and there’s no way to automate payroll or daily routines. The tow truck can only haul one vehicle at a time, forcing you to waste a lot of time doing pickup runs. Oh, and what exactly does the “office employee” do? Because all I saw was my money vanishing while they stood around doing absolutely nothing. Now, for the good stuff: The tool system is easy to use and satisfying when it works as expected. The junkyard adds variety early on, even if the drive out there feels like a side quest in itself. There’s a decent framework for a fun dealership sim here—upgrades, repairs, advertising, customer interactions—it just needs refinement. Final thoughts: This game is a solid concept that feels more like an early-access sandbox than a fully fleshed-out experience. With quality-of-life improvements, better systems for managing staff and parts, and more respect for the player’s time, this could really shine. But as it stands, Car Dealer Simulator feels like a project car: full of potential but stuck in the garage.

Now that I have played over 24 hours and reached Reputation 10, which feels like "the end," I wanted to write this review. I played the demo of this game about a month before release, and it made me very excited for the full version. I couldn't wait for the opportunity to expand my dealership, "Freakin' Nice Cars." This game is very addictive, but it's not actually good. This seems to be a pattern for many Simulator games these days: there is a repetitive pattern that gives you just enough dopamine that you get carried away in the cycle, but there is not actually any creativity or diversity in the gameplay. Before you know it, you're deeply immersed in the game but you're not really having any fun. I kept waiting for something to happen, it's almost like an idle game, but the payoff never comes. In fact, I don't think the barricaded sections of the map ever opened up. So you're stuck in this blighted town, buying and fixing lemons for hours and hours. Maybe there's updates planned for this game, but as it stands I would not recommend anyone follow in my footsteps.

Missing end game mechanics. Trying to stock your max level dealership with one tow truck is extremely tedious. Many of the mechanics of the game become tedious but there is automation like hiring employees. Getting new cars, that all on you. Plus you have to load every car manually. Inventory management is a nightmare. You cannot filter anything. During the end game I found myself digging through dozens of rotors trying to find the good quality ones over all the dead ones. The repair system is great but ten items every six or so minutes is not enough. Even when you get the upgrade twenty item fixer it is not enough. Every is also so manual. Even with maxed out employees you end up having to at least move every single car and move every part one piece at a time. You can't even shift click to select multiple items. Just have to click one at a time. The tow truck upgrade isn't much of an upgrade as now you have to get out to load cars but it is easier to drive loaded with better gas than the pickup. Cars missing a non critical components like a tail pipe are non driveable. All the "damage" that vehicles have is purely a numbers game, it has no impact on the driving of the vehicles. Having to use the computer for everything is a huge pain when you have to move cars and activate employees to work. The shop setup makes zero sense. Things should be in easy to drive lines not cris crossing all over a rectangle to get a car 100% ready for the lot. Everything you need to use is also as far away from each other as possible. At almost four corners you have your repair station, photo booth, computer that everything goes through, and the wash rack. The thief guy makes zero sense. You get a little sound notification when he is coming in but once you get office level 2 trying to find him is impossible when you have cars everywhere getting work done. The final upgrade makes you almost immune to him. He just makes cars dirty and steals gas. Your only counter to him is to hit a button on him and he falls over then runs off. Every. single. time... I put 23 hours in so it's not the worst game in the world by any means. The game just needs player friendly controls and more complexity to the content. You can only take off so many front shocks before you start losing your mind. I really wanted to see an impact drill at some point but nope! same crumy ratchet that you start with. Certain tools become super OP while others remain unchanged the entire game. The hand sander goes to a grinder but the ratchet stays a ratchet and the power washer never gets more power. This is more a $10 game than a $20 game.

Steam lacks neutral rating that's what this game truly earns. Its neither great neither terrible it just is a little time waster for 2 days tops! My biggest issues with this game is money is literally useless, as many have mentioned you get stupid amounts of money and barely any EXP witch is actually what you need to progress. So due to terrible game balance you just focus on selling as much cars as possible without actually doing much with them (especially before lvl 7 ) as you get exp only by selling cars. Therefore quite fast you realise that pushing all drivable cars to sale gets you much more exp than 1 half refurbished car that you can sell in same time. Big annoying flaw is there is no auto sort by highest %parts on top so you have to go through long list of half broken parts till you find your freshly bought 100% ones through mechanic employee. Stutters , freezes , random glitches are plentyfull. (EA i guess) So if your a fan of car mehanic simulator this game is 10 folds worse and is a hard pass, if you want some super simplified game about car stuff its okish.

Its fun, but game is way too easy, 0 challenge whatsoever. Allot of mechanics that are completely unnecessary, just buy any car and put it on the lot for the most you can and eventually someone will pay full sticker price for non-drivable hunk of rust. There's a rival dealer mechanic that lasted 5 days before they just added a setting that turns him off. (lazy) The driving mechanic gets boring fast, all vehicles feel the same. No suspension means a curb sends you into orbit. There's like 7 car models in a game about selling cars but its a small team so I guess its forgivable. I got about 40 hrs of enjoyment before hitting reputation 10 in which you unlock the final building/perks and there's no reason to continue the game now, it just ends with hardly a congratulations, and you, with a massive complex in some backwater town for you to continue selling the same cars you've already sold 100 times. I personally would like to see either more cars or the ability to customize more than just paint. Or a punishment system for literally anything lol make bad driving cause damage or running people over lose reputation. Have an investigator buy a car undercover to check if your doing things right or not (taping mufflers, adjusting odometer) Give me a bat to beat the rival with instead of just "press E". Let me get drunk at the bar. Add little pointless things to do in the shop for immersion. Vehicle trade-ins, customer vehicle repairs. A "Customs" body shop where customers can request customization of vehicles (like pc building sim but for cars) ...just to name a few things. Also, the photo booth backdrop image is terrible btw, a couple options to choose from would be nice. I did allot of complaining for a thumbs up but, the game IS GOOD and I just want it to become even better. {[EDIT] I just went to the store page and there is a screenshot of 3 vehicles I have never seen in game yet and I'm at max reputation, wtf? The fancy truck, the outback looking suv and the crown vic have yet to spawn or don't exist anymore...}