We joke about cars not having tires. I get that from a game design perspective; it makes sense not to have working cars accessible and cheap. But what if instead of having no wheels, what if we just had flat/punctured tires that would take some effort to fix/replace.
I would also like to see just rims, punctured and flat, ect status for tires.
Driving on rims in an emergency situation would be a realistic thing. I guess the “nearly impossible steering” could be simulated by just adding a virtual weight (-multiplier) to the car.
Could busted tires work with the existing engines mending system (like: [fault] lost its rubber, has a leak, lost the hubcap, …)?
There have been slow and steady upgrades to vehicle systems, and there are (distant) plans to implement traction and slippage. This would very conceivably pair well with a bit of a reworking of tires and wheels.