I have restarted three times just because I enjoy it so much and I see there are no general guides yet. On the theory that others will create something if someone else does one first...

- do the tutorial in order, don't jump to another car, problems may ensue if you get ahead of yourself
- when doing wash or body work, hit X and Z to turn on bright gold highlight of areas you missed
- when washing, remember the roof, do that last with soap and first with water
- you can sell your starting truck second for extra money, but it'll come in handy later for non-drive-able cars and it's not worth a lot
- do the $5000 bank loan instead, you need to get it paid off anyway to get bigger loans
- if someone lowballs you on price, reject them, they usually don't improve enough to make it worthwhile to bargain
- if you price your cars at the top of the green you will get a full price offer before the sun sets on the second day
- that said, you get good XPfor decent sales, too, above market and well above what you paid even if it's well below your list price
- fastest way to advance is buy a car, drop it into a slot, take photos and advertise it, then buy the next one, especially if it's clean
- this works even with non-drive-able cars, but it kind of ruins the fun of fixing cars
- think of this as Schedule One: Cars Edition in terms of timing and travel - go on foot at night because days are too short and nights last a long long time
- if cars are drive-able, anything in town is easier to run to, buy it and drive back than to drive your truck and load it on the trailer
- favorite all your target cars while you wait for customer offers, go buy them after hours
- the only convenient listing which includes whether a car is drive-able (atm) is in your favorites list
- the key upgrade is body work so you can hire Paul, after that, a fully upgraded carwash, parts/mechanic is nice but I do work myself
- once the repair shop lets you refurbish, anything but tape can go from 0% to 100%, the start button is to the right of the opening
- buying a junk $1500 car and refurbishing all the parts would be a winning strategy, but it happens too late. Strip the parts, use them on other cars, tow the empty junker to a sales slot and sell it! You lose 10 XP but gain mucho dinero

Finally, explore the map. Certain vee-hicles in certain colors must be jumped because it was about that time the Duke boys....