The Impound Garage (also known as the Impound Lot) is an underground parking garage near police stations that stash cars that have been towed (creating an excuse for the disappearing vehicle glitch). Entering the impound will result in police officers pointing pistols at the player and if the player doesn't leave they will get a three-star wanted level.
Purpose
The Impound Garage lets the player get back his vehicle if he lost it during a cutscene before a mission. Impound Garages are underground parking garages. The first few floors of the garages have Police cars that spawn in the parking spaces; The very bottom floor of the Impoud Garage stashes cars that have been lost by the player. The impound garage is like a save garage. However, the mechanics behind the Impound Garage are rather random, and usually aren't very predictable.
Some missions have "Clear Area" commands, which remove any parked vehicle within a certain radius from the mission's marker. These vehicles are then placed inside an impound garage, and the player can then enter one of these garages and recover his lost vehicle.
However, random vehicles that the player never drove or even abandoned may still spawn in the garage. Also, due to a glitch, vehicles may sometimes spawn stuck inside of each other, or they may spawn stuck halfway inside the ground. Also, strange occurences may happen in impound garages if the player is playing certain side missions like Vigilante or Export missions; Vehicles will spawn stacked on top of each other or laying on their sides. Aircraft, like Dodos or even Hydras may spawn unlocked. Impound Garages exhibit strange behaviors like these very commonly.
Since the Impound Garage is never mentioned in any instructional guides for the game (not even in the booklet that comes with the game), it can be assumed that this game feature could have been a work in progress during development, but was never perfected or implemented properly.
Locations
- Commerce, Los Santos - Just north of Pershing Square and west the Los Santos Police Headquarters.
- Downtown, San Fierro - At the back of the San Fierro Police Headquarters.
- Roca Escalante, Las Venturas - Around back of the Las Venturas Police Headquarters.