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I want to have 'decorative' parking lots on my community lots without having to buy it and run the business. Are there any hacks/mod or car statues (besides petreaks) available?

BTW I have all expansions.

A number of different ways to do this.

One is to seek out "ownable cars"  or "decorative cars" on sites - some of those will show up in the community lot catalog as well as the residential lot catalog.  For example:

http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=11731

Another is to get a 'Use residential items in community lots' hack.

Easiest is probably just to temporarily change the lot zoning, as follows:

Enter the community lot as you would for regular building/buying (be sure first that none of your Sims happen to be visitng that lot at the time).

Open the cheat box:

Control-Shift-C

Type this:

changeLotZoning residential

into the cheat box and press your Enter key.

Exit the lot.

Ten enter the lot again and the cars you already have in your catalog should be available for purchase and placement on the lot. You may have to use the moveObjects on cheat to place them where you want them.

When finished, change the lot zoning back again by opening the cheat box and putting in:

changeLotZoning community

and press your Enter key.

Then exit the lot.

It is now back to being a community lot for gameplay purposes.

Well Im not opposed of using decorative cars, but I dont want Petreaks a I mentioned originally because there are known issues with them and very limited selection. Was hoping more for a hack/mod so I could use all the cars already in the game for decoration.

The method mentioned of converting a residence with cars to community lot, as well as using a community collection file of residential objects does not work (at least not when you have all expansions, it might have worked early on in the game). You can decorate the lot with the cars and they will show up in neighborhood view and in build mode, however when a Sim visits the lot the cars will simply not be visible. I have tried this many times and the only way I know is to own the community lot and have the cars for sale. I want to avoid owning and setting up lots of businesses.

Whether the chaneLotZoning works or not may well be dependent on whether or not certain later EPs are installed.

Works fine in my game (have cars, trucks, even usable helicopters on community lots just through using changeLotZoning), but then again I do not have or use any EPs more recent than OFB.

That being said, wintermute at Simslice has some vehicles "Enabled for use at-home and on all away-from-home lots" at:

http://www.simslice.com/thesims2/guests/wintermuteai1-pg1.htm

They're scattered throughout wintermute's pages there.

Many of those are also listed at the booty:

http://paysites.mustbedestroyed.org/booty/simslice/wintermuteail-guest_artist/

One other thing you might consider is plucking just the files you want from the 'Residential items on Community lots' collection here:

http://forums.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=30854&c=1

When I've wanted to set up something that is normally possible with an owned business, but not with a unowned community lot, I'd make a new sim whose sole purpose would be to own those lots.  This is one of the few times I'd use motherlode, and I'd do so as often as needed to establish the lots I wanted him to "own".  Then after hiring any needed staff, I'd basically let that sim sit idle during my house rotation.

The lot's owned, and has employees to make it look like a business, but never played by the owner.

For the parking lot, don't place a cash register or ticket machine.  Any visitors on the lot will behave just as if they went to a non-owned lot.

Unfortunately those ideas wont work with OFB or later. I have done lots of trials with this and nothing allows cars to be decorative on a lot unless a Sim is owning it as a business. Im quite shocked that petreak is the only one that has done some car statues, however his have lots of complications with the game and are not purely decorative statues.

Adding cars in residential mode and then converting it to community will still allow you to see the cars in neighborhood view and in build mode, but they will be absent when you have a Sim visit the lot.

Using a residential collection file in community lot build mode will allow you to place the cars on the lot, but will again have the same result.

{In fact the res to com collection you mention http://forums.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=30854&c=1 by loverat doesnt even have cars listed - I think it was made before Nightlife anyway === This one by morten8035 http://nene.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=165611 is exactly a car collection for use on community lots; not that it will help anyway}

Also, using the cheat "dormspecifictoolsdisabled..." will obviously unlock buy mode objects on a community lot, however collection files are not available, so that still wont work.

Again, Im a little suprised at a lack of hacks or objects for this issue. I guess nobody wants parking lots!

ancienthighway, I just saw your post after I made the previous one....

Yes I have done exactly that in the past...buy the lot, have the Sim set it up, hire people, then leave and not actually play that lot but just visit it with other Sims. However, I noticed a few things... If you visit the lot for an extended period of time, the 'working' Sims get tired/hungry, leave their registers and cause a lot of trouble...they also start to 'smell' lol. If you visit a store/business that isnt run by anyone the cashiers seem to be mindless zombies and just do their duty. I also find it time consuming to set up businesses and dont want to do it for every single store or community lot.

I was just looking for a way to make an accent to my business lots with a parking area and quite surprised that this issue hasnt been addressed.

here's a large set of buyable deco cars (http://www.thesimsresource.com/artists/Cyclonesue/downloads/sims2/sets/objects/404342/) - you can get it at the booty (which seems to be down right now, for some reason)

better do it the easy way, and not mess up the game by trying to do something that is meant to be "impossible".

Thanks theraven! I am perfectly happy with some deco car statues for a parking lot. I never visit TSR so I didnt know they had some. Im still surprised that more car statues havent been made.