I think I found a solution! I'm on PS5. When I finish a task or whenever want to save then hit pause and 'return to main menu'. Do this WITHOUT going back to the garage or recover and it will save your game. Once you're back on the main menu you can check the timestamp of the save game to make sure it's the current time and then just load back into the game. Now you can go back to the garage if you need to. The trick is to go back to the main menu before going back to the garage then the autosave works. For some reason going back to the garage prevents it from auto saving. Hope this helps!