Car Mechanic Simulator 2021

1. Summary

Players treat Car Mechanic Simulator 2021 as a calm, absorbing puzzle: take a car apart, find the worn parts, rebuild it, and start on the next one. People who knew nothing about cars say they learned how one fits together, and a few say it gave them enough to tackle brakes or an alternator on their own car. Restoring wrecks from junkyards, barn finds and auctions is the part several call their favourite, or the point where the game opens up. Many describe the rhythm of bolts and parts, often with music or a podcast playing, as relaxing and hard to put down, and mods and Steam Workshop cars keep it going after the story jobs run out.

The loop gets repetitive, especially once money stops mattering. DLC divides people: some call the licensed brand packs worth buying on sale, others resent how many real cars, and the engines that Workshop mods depend on, sit behind paid add-ons. Crashes and freezes appear in 11% of the negative reviews, and reviewers say the game autosaves only at certain points, so a crash can take a long stretch of engine work with it. Newcomers who quit early describe a thin tutorial and fiddly radial menus. Working mechanics split: some find it close enough to be fun, others write long lists of missing hoses, wiring and gaskets.

2. What keeps coming up

What players praise

Learning how a car fits togetherHigh

"Went from knowing literally nothing about cars to having a basic grasp on what goes on under the hood," one player writes, and learning comes up in 24% of the longer reviews (356). Players describe coming away able to name parts, recognise what sits under their own hood, and follow what a mechanic tells them. A few credit the game with real work on their own cars, mostly brakes: "This game gave me the confidence to change my own alternator." Students and apprentices mention using it alongside automotive classes. Some of the same reviewers add a limit: it teaches part names, locations and the order things come apart, not what each part does or how to diagnose a real fault (see the realism split).

Restoring wrecks from junkyards, barns and auctionsHigh

Players describe buying a rusted shell, stripping it to the frame, repairing or replacing every part, repainting it, and either keeping it or selling it for a large profit. Junkyards, barn finds, auctions or restoring and flipping cars come up in 18% of the longer reviews (268), and several call this the point where the game opens up. "There's a specific kind of satisfaction in taking a car that looks like it lost a fight with a scrapyard and handing it back looking showroom fresh." The gripes here are smaller: auction bots that keep bidding past the estimate, junkyard and barn spawns that lean on base-game cars so DLC cars rarely turn up, and the observation that once flipping pays, customer jobs stop mattering.

A relaxing, "one more car" loopHigh

"This is the power washing simulator for car people." Words like relaxing, chill, therapeutic or addictive turn up in 19% of the longer reviews (275). Players describe putting on a podcast, music or a show and working through a car with no timers and no pressure, and several describe losing track of time or missing dinner. Several working mechanics say they play it after their shift, and a few parents describe playing it with young children. The same calm reads as boredom to others (see the repetition split).

Mods and the Steam WorkshopMedium

In the 14% of longer reviews (198) that bring up mods or the Workshop, players add community cars of real models, mods that restore real brand names, the Quality of Life mod from Nexus, and tracks to drive on, and the built-in car editor lets them set up engine swaps the base game does not offer. For some it is the deciding factor: "The only reason I'm recommending this game is because of mods." The catches are mods that break after updates, Workshop cars that only work with certain paid DLC engines installed, and a few players who say the Workshop offers less than it did for the 2018 game.

Detailed cars and enginesMedium

Reviewers praise the modelling of parts and engines, from inline-fours to V12s and a rotary, along with sharper graphics and lighting than the 2018 game and DLC cars that look close to the real thing. Players who like engines single out rebuilding one on the stand and dropping it back into the car.

Sandbox mode and difficulty settingsLow

Some players skip the career entirely and spend their time in sandbox mode with unlimited money, building whatever they like. Others recommend starting on easy, where parts are highlighted, then moving to expert, which hides the hints.

Runs on modest hardware and Steam DeckLow

A number of players on older laptops and integrated graphics say it runs fine on low settings, and Steam Deck owners report it plays well on the handheld. Other players had the opposite experience (see comfort and performance).

Where players are split

Repetition: part of the appeal or the catchHigh

Some players treat repetition as the nature of the job: "There's only so many times you can pull apart a car before it gets boring. And to be honest? That's fine." Others hit a wall: "Fun for a few hours, but becomes a repetitive slog very quickly." The game is called repetitive, tedious or grindy in 16% of the longer reviews (232), and repetition shows up in 11% of the negative reviews (52 of 460). The specific gripes are early jobs that are mostly brakes, fluids and filters, slow unscrewing before skills are upgraded, cars that share the same suspension, brake and fluid parts across makes, and a long XP grind to level 50 for achievement hunters. Several players say the late game runs out of purpose: once restorations pay well, money piles up with little left to spend it on.

DLC: more real cars, or too much behind a paywallHigh

DLC comes up in 21% of the longer reviews (307) and in 16% of the negative ones (74 of 460). One camp says the brand packs (Ford, Dodge, Porsche, BMW, Nissan, Pagani and others) and the Drag Racing DLC add variety and a reason to tune cars, and advises buying bundles on sale: "The DLC is worth the price but is not required for enjoyable gameplay." The other camp objects to the sheer number of small packs with two or three cars each, packs remastered from the 2018 game that owners had to buy again, drag racing and carburettor and ECU tuning being paid extras, and a game "where a good 50% to 80% of the game is locked behind DLC's". Workshop players add that "70% of mods require one of the DLCs." Among negative reviews from players past 20 hours, DLC comes up more often than repetition or crashes.

How realistic is it?Medium

Self-described mechanics land on both sides of this one. Among the longer reviews, 7% (105) call the game realistic, accurate or detailed, and 8% (118) call it simplified, arcade-like or missing whole systems. Some accept the trade-off: "I think the devs found a way to make a game that is real enough yet still fun." Critics list what is absent: wiring harnesses, hoses, gaskets, torque specs and brake bleeding, oil and coolant topped up until they overflow, rust as the only sign of wear, WD-40 freeing every seized bolt, the same parts across very different makes, and a worn bushing that somehow stops an engine from starting. The bluntest version: "It's not a mechanic simulator, it's baby's jigsaw puzzle but with cars." Several from both camps ask for the missing depth as an optional hardcore mode.

Is it more than CMS 2018?Low

Reviews that compare the two games split between calling this one a clear improvement and calling it a near copy of 2018. The upgrade camp cites the shopping list that jumps straight to a part in the store, fluids, fuses, the car wash and brake lathe, an open outdoor garage, timing minigames replacing random repair rolls, and auctions that let you inspect cars and choose their condition. The other camp points to reused assets and engines, two lifts instead of three, the loss of the walk-around parking garage, and DLC they had to buy again: "Basically a giant CMS18 DLC." 6% of the negative reviews (29) call it a rehash. Players new to the series rarely raise the comparison.

What frustrates players

Crashes, freezes and no timed autosaveMedium

Crashes, freezes and lost progress appear in 11% of the negative reviews (51 of 460) and in about 100 reviews overall. Reports include freezes with the Unity player "not responding", hard crashes after an hour or two of play, black screens or a load that hangs at 80%, and saves that corrupted or disappeared. The damage comes from how saving works: reviewers say the game autosaves only at certain moments, such as finishing a job, selling a car or changing location, so long rebuilds are exposed. "There is nothing more frustrating than spending 20 minutes pulling an engine apart just for the game to crash before you can save." A couple also lost work to a load-checkpoint button with no confirmation.

A thin tutorial and fiddly menusMedium

New players describe finishing the tutorial without knowing how to move a car into the garage, where a fuel pump lives, or what an upgrade like the welder actually does: "The tutorial is really lacking and suffers from being directive rather than explanatory." Complaints about the tutorial, menus or controls appear in 6% of the longer reviews (84) and in roughly a third of the negative reviews written within the first two hours. The interface draws its own list: radial menus with separate modes for removing, draining and filling, holding the mouse button for nearly every action (a few mention hand pain), parts split across several shops, tyre sizes that do not carry over from the shopping list, no "buy all" button, and no search in the paint or salvage menus. Even a fan sums up the controller layout as "To replace the part I'm looking at, I need to press: MENU, X, A, START, Y, A, A, A, B." The Quality of Life mod is the common recommendation.

Hunting the last part, and the exact-slot ruleLow

"Part not discovered" can mean stripping half the car to find one worn rubber bushing or clip. And when several identical parts come off (pistons, piston rings, spark plugs, bushings), a part that meets the job's minimum condition still fails if it goes back in a different slot from the one it came out of, which can mean taking a rebuilt engine apart again: "The game gives you the parts in descending order of quality and doesn't warn you - you just have to find out the hard way..." Players also note that highlighting faulty parts does not work once the engine is on the stand.

Running out of money mid-jobLow

Some players soft-locked their career by spending on upgrades too early, then accepting a story job they could not afford to finish. Story jobs do not show the cost or the tools needed up front, jobs cannot be cancelled, and there is no loan: "Add loan system or at least give me a game over." Others work around it by stripping and selling parts from another customer's car, a tactic several describe with some glee.

Driving physics and engine soundsLow

The test track and drag strip are where players finally drive their builds, and some come away disappointed. They describe cars that spin out or slide as if on ice, keyboard steering that makes powerful cars hard to control, no wheel support, and engine notes that sound generic: "only for your minty $300,000 car to sound like a leaf blower". Some also want somewhere to drive beyond the tracks.

Nowhere to show off finished carsLow

Collectors miss the 2018 game's walkable parking garage. In this one, stored cars sit in separate units and come out one at a time, with only a few spaces in front of the garage. "The parking garage was the one, tiny little sanctuary that made the creative mode fun."

No multiplayerLow

4% of the longer reviews (52) ask for co-op or online play, most often to work in the same garage with friends or race each other's builds: one player has been "waiting for multiplayer to come since 2015". Several say they expect the 2026 sequel to add it.

Repair and scrap minigamesLow

The timing minigames for repairing, salvaging and balancing parts split players. Some prefer them to the 2018 game's random repair rolls. Others find them a chore once a junkyard run leaves dozens of parts to process, especially the scrap grind needed to upgrade parts: "Mini games are annoying, but they can be removed via mods."

Comfort and performance problemsLow

A small group could not play comfortably. They report head-bob and frame-rate-tied mouse movement causing motion sickness ("This game has intense 'head bobbing' and due to severe motion sickness I am sadly no longer able to play it."), glare off engine parts with no brightness slider, and a field-of-view option that one player says arrived only after a long wait. Others report the GPU running flat out without a frame cap and stutter on low-end machines.

3. The player conversation

The tone is warm and full of in-jokes. The one-liners keep returning to a few running gags: the lost 10mm socket, the rubber bushing that turns out to be the last broken part, "car go vroom", and a meme in which reviewers give their gender as "mechanic". Under the jokes sit some personal stories: students and apprentices who use it alongside their training, mechanics who unwind with it after work, and parents and children who play it together.

Negative reviews written in the first two hours often come from players who felt lost: no idea how to get a car on the lift, menus they could not decode, or a game about car parts when they had hoped to drive. Players with more time in it complain about DLC, repetition and crashes, and returning players from the 2018 game argue about whether this one is a true sequel. Professional and hobby mechanics show up on both sides, praising the detail and listing the missing systems in the same breath.

The positive rate held steady by year, at 96.4% for reviews written in 2023, 95.7% in 2024, 94.9% in 2025 and 95.1% in 2026; the 2021 and 2022 samples are too small to read much into. In 2026, reviews began to mention the upcoming Car Mechanic Simulator 2026 (82 of the 91 reviews that name it were written that year), usually to say they will buy it, to hope it fixes this game's gaps, or to suggest buying this one on sale in the meantime.

4. What the developers could do

1. Add a timed autosave and harden stability. Crashes and freezes appear in 11% of the negative reviews, and players lose most when a crash lands in the middle of a long engine rebuild between autosave points.
2. Rebuild the onboarding. Roughly a third of the early negative reviews describe being lost, so the tutorial should cover moving cars, buying parts, the diagnostic tools and what each upgrade does, with optional tips on what a part is for.
3. Cut the clicks in shopping and the inventory. Players ask for a buy-all button on the shopping list, adding parts straight from the job sheet, tyre sizes that carry over, stacked parts, search in the paint and salvage menus, and an option to reduce hold-to-unscrew for players with sore hands.
4. Rethink how DLC is packaged. DLC appears in 21% of the longer reviews, and the complaints centre on many small packs, remastered packs sold again, features like drag racing and tuning sold separately, and Workshop mods that need paid DLC engines to work.
5. Make job rules fairer. Credit any part that meets the job's condition regardless of slot, let examination find parts without a full teardown, show a story job's cost and required tools before accepting it, and allow cancelling jobs or a small loan so careers cannot soft-lock.
6. Give finished cars a purpose. Better handling, distinct engine sounds, a walkable showroom like the 2018 game's, and more events to race in would answer the players who build a dream car and find nothing to do with it.
7. Offer an optional hardcore mode. Players who work on cars ask for wiring, hoses, gaskets, torque values and real diagnosis as a setting, so the accessible default can stay as it is.
8. Add comfort options. A head-bob toggle, a brightness slider, mouse input independent of frame rate, a frame cap on by default, and fuller controller support on PC would help the players who could not play comfortably at all.