A developer over at Rockstar Games appears to have typed in the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas cheat, "WHEELSONLYPLEASE", by mistake and applied it to GTA Online because fans are livid after finding out that their priced vehicles in the game have vanished — seemingly forever.
Following the most recent San Andreas Mercenaries update, which came out last June 13, the bug appears to target cars at random, losing cars for good regardless of whether the vehicle has an insurance policy or not.
As a result, they get destroyed and thrown off to the junkyard of digital oblivion permanently.
Under ordinary circumstances in GTA Online, players who purchase their rides from Los Santos Customs can purchase insurance policies for a small amount of in-game cash. Vehicles purchased from the in-game internet are automatically draped with a protective insurance layer. However, this recent bug shows no respect for the insured status of your cars, ruthlessly removing the policies and leaving the vehicles defenseless.
Many dismayed players have reported heart-wrenching losses of their prized cars, such as the MK2 Oppressor, which comes with an GTA$8 million price tag. This is a notable amount, considering that a Shark Card, which gifts a GTA Online player GTA$10 million in-game dollars, costs a cool $99.99 (£59.99) in real-world money. Other reports of vehicular disappearances include the Kreiger supercar and the Ruiner sports car.
The San Andreas Mercenaries update has another trick up its sleeve too; it removes 195 cars from the regular in-game stores, although a majority of them are still available through other channels.
There were also reports of another glitch causing vehicles stored in the purchasable Mobile Operations Center to go missing, a problem that Rockstar has addressed with a background update.
Rockstar Games is aware of the former glitch and has released a solution, but we're not in the clear just yet.
According to Tez2, the fix only applies "for the first personal vehicle slot."
GTA Online, having seen numerous DLC updates since its inception, recently went through one of its most significant updates. The San Andreas Mercenaries update added a massive amount of fresh content, attracting many players. However, updates always carry risks, and this time it's an insurance bug causing headaches.
The implications of this bug are somewhat troubling considering GTA Online's monetization model, which allows players to convert real-world money into in-game money through Shark Cards. Consequently, players could spend significant real-world money on in-game vehicles, only to lose them forever due to the glitch.
