How to use a tune share code in Forza Horizon

This is the single most important thing to understand about tunes, and the thing that trips up new players most often. A tune is not a universal file — it is a setup built for one specific car. It contains gearing, suspension, alignment, tyre pressures, differential settings and more, all dialled in for that exact model.

That means a tune code only does something useful if you own — and are driving — the car it was built for. A tune written for one hatchback will not apply to a different one, let alone to a truck or a supercar. So before you go hunting for the tune in your menus, make sure the matching car is in your garage. If it is not, you will need to acquire it first, usually by buying it from the in-game car dealership.

Whenever we list a tune on this site, we show you the car it belongs to. Match that to a car you own before you spend time entering the code.

Tunes are downloaded from inside the car's tuning and upgrades area — the same part of the game where you would adjust a setup yourself. Sit in the correct car, then open its tuning menu and look for the option to find or search shared tunes by code.

From there you type in the share code exactly as it was given to you. Codes are just short strings, so double-check for a mistyped digit or a swapped character if the game says it cannot find anything. When the code resolves, the game pulls the matching setup from its servers and adds it to your collection of downloaded tunes. Nothing is copied by hand — the code simply points the game at the creator's upload.

Menu layouts shift a little between Forza Horizon titles, so treat the exact wording on your screen as the source of truth. The flow, however, is always the same: be in the right car, open its tuning menu, enter the code, download.

Once a tune is downloaded it does not apply itself automatically — it joins a list of setups available for that car, alongside the game's default setup and any tunes you have made or downloaded before. To actually use it, you open the car's tune selection and pick the downloaded one from that list.

If you have grabbed several tunes for the same car, they will all sit together there, so give them a moment to tell apart. Creators often name their tunes by purpose — for example a grip-focused road tune versus a loose rally build — which makes the right one easier to spot. Select the tune you want and it becomes active for that car until you switch to another.

Because the setup is tied to the car and not to a single race, the tune stays applied as you drive. You can swap back to the stock setup or to a different downloaded tune whenever you like, without re-entering the code.

It is easy to confuse the two because both are shared with codes and both attach to a specific car. But they change completely different things. A tune changes how the car drives — its handling, acceleration and grip. A livery (also called a design) changes how the car looks — the paint, vinyls and decals on the bodywork.

They are also applied in different places. You download and select a tune from the car's tuning menu, while a livery is handled through the car's paint and customisation area. A code built for one will not work in the other's menu, so if a code refuses to resolve, check that you are entering a tune code in the tuning section and not, say, a design code by mistake.

Plenty of cars end up running a downloaded tune and a downloaded livery at the same time — a fast setup under a clean paint job. They just come from two separate codes applied in two separate menus.

Someone spent real time building the tune you just downloaded, often through a lot of testing and tweaking. The sharing system rewards that work, and a quick rating after you have driven the tune helps good creators rise to the top and helps the next player find setups that actually deliver.

If you post a video, a screenshot or a build online using someone's tune, credit them by name or gamertag. And if you tweak a downloaded tune into something you like better, consider sharing it back with a note about what you changed. That cycle of using, rating and re-sharing is exactly what keeps the community's library of tunes fresh and worth searching.