GTA 6: how to steal cars, and which ones stay locked
Rockstar Games replaced the one-button hotwire of GTA V with tiers of tools and a phone scan. Every line that scan returns, from the lock to the tracker, decides how a parked car opens.
GTA6 LIFE
Stealing a locked car in GTA 6 takes the tool that model wants: a Slim Jim on older cars, a key cloner on recent ones. The WAINK phone app, described by Rob Nelson to IGN on August 27, 2026, scans a parked vehicle and reports the lock, the alarm, the tracker, its resale value and the cost of registering it. Carjacking needs no tool at all.
The phone tells you what you are dealing with before you touch the door. WAINK, an app on the character’s phone in Grand Theft Auto VI, scans a parked car and reports what protects it: the lock, the alarm, the tracker, what it is worth resold and what it would cost to register. Rob Nelson, co-studio head at Rockstar North, walked IGN through it on August 27, 2026.
| Line on the scan | What it decides |
|---|---|
| Locked | Which tool you need, Slim Jim or key cloner |
| Alarm | The theft reports itself to the police |
| Tracker | The car stays findable once you drive off |
| Value at a Pay n’ Spray or a car fence | What reselling it pays |
| Registration cost | What keeping it in your name costs |
A Slim Jim opens the old ones, not the new ones
Two tools are named, and the scan says which one a given car wants.
So, for example, this car needs a key cloner. This other car will just need a Slim Jim. So we’ve added a lot of fun little tools you need or mechanics you need to perform these formerly binary actions.
A Slim Jim is the flat metal strip you slide between the glass and the door of an older car. TheGamer, writing up the Extended Look on August 27, 2026, notes that theft no longer runs through a smashed window every time: the tool is shown working a door. Recent models want the cloner, which copies an electronic key.
Which tier a car sits in is not only about the model, it is about how far you are. In the same interview Rob Nelson says certain parked cars stay shut early on because you own nothing that opens them, and that they open once the story moves along. That is where the published record stops: no list of tiers, no list of which cars need what, and no word on where a Slim Jim or a cloner is picked up. What came with the tier announcement is that the tools arrive through play.
The alarm line decides who sees you
A crime does not raise stars on its own: a passerby has to witness it, or an alarm or a camera has to report it. Rob Nelson set that rule out in the same August 27, 2026 interview, and it is what gives the second line of the scan its weight. A locked car with no alarm, opened on an empty street, raises nothing.
One star is easy to lose, he says in that same interview. Getting away before the first patrols arrive is usually enough, according to the preview roundup ComicBook published on August 28, 2026. What makes the police harder to shake after that comes down to the clothes you are wearing and the vehicle you are in, and riding as a pair rather than alone adds a line to the description. Our guide to the police system has the rest.
The tracker rides along
Some vehicles carry a GPS tracker that alerts the police. IGN, in its list of 69 details from August 27, 2026, and ComicBook the next day both name driving speed among the things that set it off. Nobody has written whether a tracker can be removed, or how.
Carjacking never needs a tool. It works on any driver you pass, from the first hour to the last, and it is the only way in while you own nothing that opens a door. It costs something else: the driver you drag out calls the police, as Rob Nelson told Dexerto on August 28, 2026. Taking an empty car avoids that call.
Once you are driving
The same scan quotes the registration fee, and registering is how you keep the car. ActuGaming noted on August 28, 2026 that a stolen vehicle only becomes a personal one once it is registered, and that the paperwork is paid for. The other two branches start from the same spot: a Pay n’ Spray, or a specialty car fence to resell, with customization waiting behind that.
Two things you would rather not find out mid-chase. The tank of a stolen car can be close to empty, ComicBook reported on August 28, 2026. And the trunk doubles as a wardrobe and a weapon locker, per Vice the same day: a change of clothes lives in there, which matters when the police remember the outfit rather than the face.
