Vehicles
Where to find cars, how to claim a car, getting a lift, tips and advice about various vehicle aspects.
📜 Vehicle rules
Please see the #rules on Discord.
🚗 How to find a car
1. Explore
Start by searching around as cars can be found in the world and do respawn. Note though that spawn towns get stripped often. If you have no luck you can try using Find a Ride to get a lift further afield to continue searching.
2. Claim a donated vehicle
After an hour of gameplay, you have access to a new option.
- Press the ⊞ button.
- Click Social.
- Select Find a Vehicle.
Here you may find cars other players offer for free to those with zero car claims.
3. Buy a car from players
Over time you earn cash on the server (see Economy for more info), which you can use in trading channels.
4. Buy a car from the Vehicle Shop
If you manage to save a lot of cash, you can right-click a Walkie Talkie to access the Vehicle Shop. The prices are intentionally raised to allow players to undercut for economy reasons.
🚕 How to get a lift
Find a Ride
- Press the ⊞ button.
- Click Social.
- Select Find a Ride.
- Press Ask For a Lift and click your destination.
- Choose what you will pay out of your own bags.
- Once your request is submitted, a global announcement is shown that someone is stranded for players to notice.
- Another player accepts, and your fare is held safe. Stay where you are until they pull up.
- Give them a rating once you arrive.
Join a faction offering pickup
Alternatively you can ask a faction you plan to join if any member is able to pick you up.
🔑 How to claim a vehicle
Right-click to see the option to claim.
A fresh claim protects the car once you have driven or towed it 30 tiles away from where you claimed it. Do that within one real hour or the claim lapses. After that it stays protected.
How to hot-wire
Without a car key, you'll need to hot-wire to be able to turn the engine on.
First you'll need to achieve Electrical 1 and Mechanics 2. See Skills for tips on levelling these.
While inside the car hold V to open the radial menu and select the hot-wire option. It is random chance for success, so may take multiple attempts.
Max claims
As of this writing (31/20/26 B42 Season 3):
Each player can hold 3 vehicle claims and 2 trailer claims.
Claim duration
As of this writing (21/10/26), car claims are 7 days.
A car can also have its claim revoked at staff discretion if a player reports it and an investigation considers it abandoned. Parking your car and logging out near it, or leaving it at your base prevents this.
- Press the ⊞ button.
- Click Admin Services.
- Report the vehicle.
If released it will be available for any player to claim.
Staff are happy to protect your property and vehicles for the duration of your absence.
- Protection is voided if you're found playing other games during the absence.
- Protection lasts a maximum of 3 weeks. If you haven't returned by then, the claims will be released.
Create a ticket to ask for holiday protection.
Claims list
My Vehicles lists all your claims with fuel, condition and distance, even cars far away.
You can release a claim from anywhere.
Bind it to a key under Options > Key Bindings.
🔒 Granting permissions
With Manage Access you can choose how much other players can interact with a claimed car.
- Driving
- Towing
- Riding along
- Trunk access
- Salvaging and repairing.
Give them to named players, your faction, your safehouse members or everyone.
Without access nobody can open the doors, trunk or glove box, siphon fuel, hot-wire, tow, strip parts or smash windows.
Transfer ownership hands a car over to another player.
🔓 Unclaimed cars at safehouse
Check the #rules on Discord for how many per safehouse (not per player) is currently permitted. Car hoarding will result in staff action. If you suspect a player is hoarding unclaimed vehicles you can:
- Press the ⊞ button.
- Click Admin Services.
- Report the safehouse.
Unclaimed cars for training or selling purposes are kept at your safehouse at your own risk. Anything unclaimed is still considered fair game. Staff will only intervene if the player's actions are determined to be griefing, such as damaging all of the unclaimed cars and leaving them there, or destroying your buildings to gain access to the car without repairing them before leaving. Make a ticket if you feel this is the case.
🔧 Repairing cars & engines
Hold V next to a car to bring up the radial menu and select the wrench icon to access the mechanics to do repairs. Right click on a car part to see what is required.
Engines
The engine will have two percentages, one for condition and another for quality. They can affect how often the car fails to start or stalls. When you repair the engine condition over a certain percentage you get the option to Rebuild the engine to also improve the quality.
Cars with decent engines are protected from having their engine parts taken to give players a better chance of finding working cars.
You can craft engine parts by opening Crafting on the left side menu and searching for the recipe using the word engine.
As of this writing (31/10/26) one material required is steel pieces. You can cut Steel Scrap into pieces using a hacksaw.
Player assistance
If you don't have the skills or materials to fix the car, you can seek repairs from another player running a business or request a lift.
⛽ Fuelling
Siphoning
You'll need a Rubber Hose and viable container such as a Fuel Can or bottle. Right-click a vehicle and if it has fuel to take, you'll see Siphon Gas in the context menu.
Gas Station
Powering stations
The gas station requires power either by mains or a generator.
It's a good idea to keep a lower weight blue generator on a car seat to power stations. While standing next to a door, open the V radial menu to open the door, then right-click the generator in your inventory to transfer to the seat.
You can use Knox Building Menu to craft one.
Alternatively you can ask if a local player would be able to power the station via global chat.
Fuelling from stations
Bring your car close to the fuel pump. To know which side of your car the fuel tank is located, check the fuel gauge on the dashboard for an arrow pointing left or right.
Right-click the fuel pump and there should be the option to directly fuel the car.
Alternatively you can fill a Fuel Can or other valid container directly from the fuel pump, then right-click the car to Add Gas.
Storing Fuel
Note that the server has a policy against too many placed items as it can create lag for other players and impact server performance. While some decor is permitted, it's best to store fuel in containers. Plus Build 42 added a mechanic where leaving gas cans in the sun slowly evaporates the fuel inside.
In Knox Building Menu you can build a DOTD labelled crate with a fuel icon to store fuel cans.
Alternatively you can build a Metal Drum which can hold hundreds of litres as an alternative.
Losing fuel quickly?
Repair your gas tank as a low condition not only reduces container capacity but also may leak fuel.
🔋Car battery
When the battery drops below a certain percentage the car won't start.
It gets drained every time you start the car, use lights, the car radio or other functions. A faulty engine will drain a battery quickly so repair it.
The battery has two percentage numbers, one for charge and another for condition. Lower condition batteries will hold less charge and fail to start the engine more often.
To recharge the battery, you can leave the engine running, this will however use fuel.
A better option is to find a Car Battery Charger, most commonly in garages or car repair shops. Once you have one, right-click to Place the battery charger, then right-click the charger on the floor to attach a battery from your inventory, then right-click again to turn it on. You will need to have a generator running nearby to power it.
Stranded with no battery
If you're stranded, you can:
- Buy a battery from the Survivor Shop
- Request a lift.
- Seek assistance from another player running a business.
🛞 Tires
As of Build 42:
- Tires under 20% condition can pop and vanish.
- Flat tires with 0% air pressure can fall off your vehicle.
To restore air pressure, use a Tire Pump.
To repair condition, first uninstall the tire using a Jack and Lug Wrench or Tire Iron. Obtain and open a Tire Repair Tool Kit, often found in garages or vehicle repair shops. Right-click on the Tire Repair Tool and select the tire you wish to repair.
Rubber Strips
The server has added custom recipes to make getting rubber strips for crafting vehicle tires or windows easier.
- Cut a Tire Piece into a Rubber Strip using a sharp knife.
- Cut a Rubber Hose into 2 Rubber Strip using a sharp knife.
- As before, you can dismantle vehicle tires from cars added by KI5 mods using a crowbar and cut into rubber strips with a knife.
To get Tire Pieces, right-click on any vanilla or KI5 tire and use Cut Up Tire. You need a saw or bolt cutters and Strength 4. Doing so gives you 4 pieces per tire.
🎨 Vehicle Skins
Donators, even at the lowest tier, can right-click a car and select Vehicle Modifications then Vehicle Skin Changer, and change between available car skins. After donating, make a ticket to get the option added to your menu.
Higher tier donators can request a custom car skin to be added to the car type of their choice. All players with the Vehicle Skin Changer can then opt to use it. Click to see more info on requesting a skin.
Check #donation-perks on Discord for more info.
⬇️ Dashboard too big?
Right-click on it to see available settings to make it smaller.
❓ Lost car or trailer
If you simply forget where you left it, right-click the ground and select Vehicle Manager for co-ordinates.
- Make sure you have the local channel selected.
- Open the map and right-click anywhere, select to create a map link.
- Replace the co-ordinates in the chat box with your vehicle co-ordinates.
- Hit enter and click the resultant link to see the position.
Desync or crashing while driving
In this case the coordinates in Vehicle Manager may no longer be accurate, as the server and your client are out of sync.
Retrace the road you were previously driving on. It may be many many screens back, but eventually you should come across it.
Note that in the case of a trailer, drive slowly when you approach it or try to detach it first. When the two are close they will reconnect forcibly which can result in some car damage.
❗ Car flipped
- Get in the driver's seat.
- Clear the chat box.
- Type
/unflipand hit enter.
If this doesn't fix it, you can try asking a nearby player if they can try to gently nudge it. If all else fails, make a ticket.
👥 Multiplayer Etiquette
Be sure to pull your car over to the side of the road before logging out, try not to leave it in middle of the road where other players may collide with it.
Left or Right Lane
Firstly, there is currently no consensus rule (as of this writing 21/10/26).
Many players choose to simply match the fact the game is set in Kentucky and drive on the right, or they're from a country where it is common to drive on that side.
However as the server has a lot of UK players, you'll find some players are more familiar with driving on the left.
There is also the fact players often need to swerve between lanes to avoid hitting zombies, which damages your car.
Keep an eye on the mini-map to see cars approaching. Some players choose to slow down or pull to one side and let others pass to avoid accidents.
🚲 🐎 Alternative Transport
If you struggle to obtain a car you can buy a bicycle or horse at a low cost by right-clicking on a walkie talkie and accessing the Survivor Shop. See Economy for tips on making money.
In the case of horses, you can right-click and claim it. This prevents other players from harming it.
Be careful around zombies as there is a chance you can be pulled off the horse or the bicycle can get a flat tire.