GTA 6 car theft now has tiers: some cars need a Slim Jim
Rob Nelson described to IGN, on August 27, 2026, the system that replaces the single button press of GTA V. Some parked cars in Leonida stay shut until the player picks up a Slim Jim or a key cloner.
GTA6 LIFE
Stealing a car in Grand Theft Auto VI no longer comes down to one button. Rob Nelson, co-studio head at Rockstar North, told IGN on August 27, 2026 that certain parked cars stay locked until the player gets further into the story and picks up the right tools.
We have put some layers of stratification into the vehicles. Previously, you could just press triangle to automatically hotwire and steal any vehicle that you wanted and take off. We felt like that left a lot of potential gameplay on the table in terms of progression and decision-making for players. So now, you start off the game and there are certain parked cars that are not accessible to you until you get a bit further along with the story and you acquire certain tools to get into them, but you can always carjack any driver you see.
Two transcripts of that answer are in circulation, and they do not end alike. RockstarINTEL ran its version on August 27, 2026 with a closing line IGN’s does not carry: “I think it gives all the vehicles more meaning, and you need to pay attention to what you’re doing a bit more.” IGN conducted the interview, so its wording is the reference. The extra line states the intent.
Two tools are named, and one screen tells you which of them a given car wants. WAINK, an app on the character’s phone, scans a parked vehicle before the break-in.
For example, it tells me this car is locked, it’s got an alarm, and has no tracker. It also tells me how much it’s worth if I go to take it to a Pay n’ Spray or a specialty car fence, and how much it would cost for me to register it for myself. 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.
Carjacking survives. It just costs more than it did: the driver you pull out calls the police, which starts a wanted level an empty car would have avoided.
It brings a bit of risk now to jack someone out of the car, they’re going to call the cops, I’m going to have a bunch of trouble.
The press invited to Rockstar North in July 2026 filled in what follows. IGN reported on August 27, 2026 that a car fence can hand over the access code to a police impound lot. ComicBook wrote on August 28, 2026 that a car registered in the player’s own name ends up there if police recover it after a crime. Some vehicles carry a GPS tracker, and one reported trigger is speed.
Rockstar has published no vehicle list, no count of tiers and no inventory of break-in tools. The studio has not said whether the criminal profile scores a break-in on an empty car differently from a carjacking, nor how these tiers sit alongside the ways to shed a police description.
