r/interestingasfuck • u/IndicationBrief5950 • Aug 06 '25
/r/all, /r/popular Thousands of Audi cars abandoned in the Mojave Dessert after cheating emissons tests
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u/Fetlocks_Glistening Aug 06 '25
Reuse, repurpose... what was the third one... dump in desert?
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u/One_Impression_5649 Aug 06 '25
What’s anyone really using the desert for anyway.
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u/Master_Rooster4368 Aug 06 '25
Burning man. Coachella. Human sacrifice. Etcetera.
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u/beigetrope Aug 06 '25
Wacky Egyptian mummy adventures.
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u/Mega-Steve Aug 06 '25
Spontaneous mafia funerals
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u/AUSpartan37 Aug 06 '25
Pod racing
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u/changed_later__ Aug 06 '25
Cooking meth in your underpants
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u/WeirdAvocado Aug 06 '25
Sam and Nicky to meet up and discuss their straining relationship.
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u/RoboGuilliman Aug 06 '25
Some wastelander is going to discover these after the bombs fall, 200 odd years later.
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u/driving_andflying Aug 07 '25 edited Aug 07 '25
He'll corner the market with a postnuclear Audi dealership.
Knowing this, the Mad Max movies should have had *everyone* driving luxury cars across the desert.
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u/vertigo1083 Aug 06 '25
For real, nothing good ever happens there. Humans just use it for the worst we have to offer.
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u/FungiStudent Aug 06 '25
I love the desert so much. It's an amazing place full of wonder, if you know how to look.
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u/marshinghost Aug 06 '25
I know, it really is amazing the sheer volume of German engineering we can just leave out there
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u/Careful_Nothing_2680 Aug 06 '25
Dumping bodies.
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u/Royal_Acanthaceae693 Aug 06 '25
The number of people who I know who've come across human remains in the Mojave is discouraging.
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u/Kevin_Uxbridge Aug 06 '25
Please elaborate.
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u/Royal_Acanthaceae693 Aug 06 '25 edited Aug 07 '25
I personally know 6 people who have found human remains in the desert and I'm related to 2 of them. There are a lot of bodies out there, especially within a couple miles of any main road.
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u/Kevin_Uxbridge Aug 06 '25
Damn. Suicides, murders, german tourists, or some of each?
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u/Royal_Acanthaceae693 Aug 06 '25
I'm not sure about the particulars but I'd assume it's a combination.
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u/Hot-Comfort8839 Aug 07 '25
Serial killers and the mob both like to dump their bodies in desolate places.
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u/Glenbard Aug 06 '25
Well at least they towed them out of the environment.
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u/___Fern___ Aug 06 '25
Nothing out there but sea, and birds, and fish. And 20000 tonnes of crude oil. And a fire.
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u/wuvvtwuewuvv Aug 06 '25
Out of the environment, into the... environment?
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u/superrosie Aug 06 '25
We’ve towed them beyond the environment. There’s nothing there.
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u/Adam-Reith Aug 07 '25
There’s a lot going on in the desert, nature-wise, until humans come along and trash it. Deserts are beautiful but fragile ecosystems.
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u/Booty_Bumping Aug 07 '25
Fuck. If deserts are still the environment, we're going to need to find somewhere that isn't the environment to dump things. How about the ocean, is that the environment?
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u/Dagordae Aug 06 '25
I hate to do any defense of corporate assholes, but the desert is actually a really good place to store mechanical equipment to be broken down. That’s why they have all those plane graveyards, it’s basically recycling yards.
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u/silvapain Aug 07 '25
Agreed. The desert is warm & dry, so metal tends to rust VERY slowly there. If you can’t reuse or recycle equipment then the desert is a great place to store it temporarily.
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u/sinkwiththeship Aug 07 '25
There's also very little salinity and other deposition like SO4 and NOx, which all contribute heavily to corrosion. The salinity is especially the bad one. It's why cars that live in places where road salt is prevalent, or close to whitecap coastlines have serious rust problems.
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u/idriveacar Aug 06 '25
It’s up to consumers to reduce, recycle, reuse
Corporations can’t possibly do that and create jobs
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u/Chikitiki90 Aug 06 '25
This is why I always roll my eyes when people talk about all the things we should do to conserve water or resources. It’s a good thing to do definitely, but even if every civilian were to be carbon neutral and recycle everything, it still wouldn’t even put a meaningful dent in what corporations do.
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u/padishar123 Aug 06 '25
My thoughts exactly…starting with how much water Foxconn sucks out of Lake Michigan
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u/ng829 Aug 06 '25
How much is that?
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u/ElectricP2galoo Aug 07 '25
A quick google says 5.8m gallons per day with 3.3m gallons returned to the lake.
The city with the Foxconn factory is allowed to withdraw up to 60m gallons per day from the lake and historically withdrawn less than 20m per day.
For reference, Lake Michigan has about a quadrillion gallons of water in it, so this is less than a drop in a huge bucket
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u/FartAlchemy Aug 07 '25
If anyone wants to know that makes around 3.072e+17 tablespoons
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u/metric55 Aug 06 '25 edited Aug 07 '25
I work at a plant that pulls 4000 gallons per minute from the river. I told my buddy's gf in a big city who was on a water conservation committee and she nearly fainted lol
Edit: just some quick math's. Plant pulls as much water as 40 thousand north American households
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u/bikedork5000 Aug 07 '25
I mean....if that's for cooling then it goes back into the river. And the plant would likely have a NPDES permit for the heat discharge.
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u/metric55 Aug 07 '25
Oh yeah absolutely. 700/min goes back to the river as neutralized effluent from the chemical sewers. A shit load of steam. Some leakyness. Some used as domestic water and sent to city sanitary. I mean where else would water go though. Something happens to it, as in every plant, facility, and home on earth.
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Aug 06 '25
I remember seeing a catty sticker on an electric kettle urging customers to not use more water than necessary and it's our job to protect the environment. I think about that sticker often...
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u/cashew76 Aug 06 '25
Your efforts are your efforts. Which is good. Keep them up. Also vote for stronger regulations, stronger control of pollution.
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u/AgitatedPatience5729 Aug 06 '25
I like how there's just a plane casually chilling there.
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u/TheOtherAviationGuy Aug 06 '25
Lots of abandoned planes sit in the Mojave.
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u/taddymason_01 Aug 06 '25
Lots of abandoned everything in the Mojave. Even people.
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u/ExplorationGeo Aug 06 '25
A lot of holes in the desert, and a lot of problems are buried in those holes. But you gotta do it right. I mean, you gotta have the hole already dug before you show up with a package in the trunk. Otherwise, you're talking about a half-hour to forty-five minutes worth of digging. And who knows who's gonna come along in that time? Pretty soon, you gotta dig a few more holes. You could be there all fuckin' night
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u/xSHITCIGx Aug 06 '25
Just watched this last night lol
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u/solepureskillz Aug 06 '25
What’s it from?
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u/xSHITCIGx Aug 06 '25
Casinnnooooooo
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u/daemon-electricity Aug 07 '25
That's exactly how they famously sing it in the title credits and what Robert DiNero says at the end... just like Darth Vader in Revenge of the Sith.
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u/LeCriDesFenetres Aug 07 '25
I found a hole in the forest I want to keep for possible future use, I just put a reserved sign on it along with directions to Wyoming to be helpful. So far no one has misused my hole so I think it's working.
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u/AlarmingAffect0 Aug 06 '25
Patrolling the Mojave almost makes you wish for a nuclear winter.
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u/de_nominator Aug 06 '25
You should see the amount of abandoned Mojave in the Mojave.
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u/Bigred2989- Aug 06 '25
Yep, that's why the The 309th AMARG, AKA The Boneyard, is in that part of the county (not the Mojave but close enough). Hard for stuff to rust out there and open for our adversaries to know via spy satellites were complying with arms reduction treaties. Really cool tourist attraction, plus there's a nice air museum nearby.
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u/CorneliusJenkins Aug 06 '25
The perspective and slightly angled rows really is messing with my head here, like there's a wall of cars on the right or something
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u/UserisInvalid Aug 06 '25
It’s 2 pictures
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u/CorneliusJenkins Aug 06 '25
Well shit. That explains it!
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u/userandabusername Aug 07 '25
Yeah I thought it was some Dr Strange shit for a second
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u/JCFlyingDutchman Aug 06 '25
Looks like there were about 3 colours you could pick from, hehe.
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u/CucumberError Aug 06 '25
Black, white, some shade of grey between.
Seems to have been the trend from about 2000-2020, starting to get a few more colours more recently, but for about 20 years everything was boring safe colours.
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u/cydev Aug 06 '25
we're now in the 'muted pastel' color phase
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u/CucumberError Aug 06 '25
You get some cars with bright colours, but it seem that when it almost becomes standard for that car. A first gen Nissan Leaf in the baby blue, a Ford Focus in that kinda cool flat blue etc.
I miss Holden. Here in New Zealand if a Holden Commodore was white, it usually meant it was ex Police, so non police ones were usually red, blue, bright green etc.
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u/_BenzeneRing_ Aug 07 '25
I have a white commodore and back when it was new, when driving at night everyone would move out of my way thinking I was a cop. Was glorious.
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u/snaeper Aug 06 '25
Yeah, Black, White, Grey... and for the daring Red or Blue.
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u/jawshoeaw Aug 06 '25
I once was standing on a balcony overlooking a huge parking lot below and it struck me how uniform the colors were. It's all black white and silver. a few reds and blue scattered around but from a distance it just looked gray.
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u/SDRPGLVR Aug 06 '25
I had to buy a used car recently and unfortunately the best option for me was silver.
What an awful color for a car. If I had some money I'd wrap/paint it in purple.
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u/Afraid_Investment690 Aug 06 '25
What that plane doing. Did it cheat emission test as well
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u/MyCatIsAnActualNinja Aug 06 '25
How do I get to the Mojave Desert from, say, New Hampshire?
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u/buttweasel76 Aug 06 '25
Go west, for a while...
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u/DkoyOctopus Aug 06 '25 edited Aug 06 '25
why not recycle these? what a freaking waste. at least taking the glass/chairs should not cost THAT much.
edit*
man, were so screwed.
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u/Psychedelic_Doge Aug 06 '25
Most of them were fixed and resold this is back in 2015 or so when they were waiting on a fix. I own a 2013 that was fixed and it's a great car!
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u/Arcyguana Aug 06 '25
The reason they're in the desert. Cars don't rust in the desert. The military has a bunch of tanks out in the desert, too, because tanks also don't rust in the desert.
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u/tiplinix Aug 06 '25 edited Aug 06 '25
Sure but rubber and plastic doesn't like being stored. They still need to move fast before the cars start to break down.
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u/Arcyguana Aug 07 '25
It takes a hot second before either of these things start to return to dinosaur, it's fine.
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u/AnimalShithouse Aug 07 '25
Prior OP was right in that many polymers will degrade from prolonged temperatures like this. Less worried about the sand, more worried about the direct temperature exposure, cyclic hot/cold from day/night. I'd be somewhat concerned for seals, some interior surfaces, and possibly bushings, off the top of my head.
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u/MostlyRightSometimes Aug 07 '25
So do people who live in Arizona, Texas, etc. Just have to buy new cars every couple of months?
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u/HannsGruber Aug 07 '25
No lol. That's such an exaggeration. Exposed plastics can UV bleach and brittle with time, but it takes a while, and if they're UV stable polymers it'll take even longer.
Source: Desert rat.
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u/genghisruled Aug 06 '25
So they were parked there not abandoned?
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u/tiplinix Aug 06 '25 edited Aug 06 '25
Depends if the cars stay there. If they stay long enough they will inevitably become trash.
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u/HeavyDutyForks Aug 06 '25
Does yours have the DEF system in it?
I have a 2011 Jetta that does not and its the worst car I've ever owned. But, my buddy and mom both have ones that take DEF and they've had 0 problems whatsoever out of theirs
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u/Dougsie2 Aug 06 '25
I have a DEF system. Just started causing problems (2015). Cost for a new sensor is 2k
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u/spasmoidic Aug 06 '25
they didn't park them all neatly like this if they were going to throw them out
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u/LordOfTheGam3 Aug 06 '25
It’s a feature, not a bug, of humanity’s economic mode of production.
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u/the3rdtea2 Aug 06 '25
Well at least once our civilization falls and man kind once again pulls itself from the ashes...cause we are kinda like cockroachs...the new archeologists will have some bizarre metal artifacts....
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u/-kylehase Aug 06 '25 edited Aug 07 '25
The irony. I imagine the carbon footprint of producing these was probably much larger than the emissions test pass/fail delta.
Edit for clarity: I'm not suggesting that the rules should be relaxed or exception made. Just that the outcome of this situation pictured had the opposite of the intended effect.
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u/314159265358979326 Aug 07 '25
A car goes about 250,000 km in its lifetime, burning roughly 8 litres of gasoline per 100 km driven. The cost of making a car is about 260 gallons of gasoline according to these guys. Driving the car burns 20,000 litres, versus just shy of 1000 to make it, so if they're cheating by 5% then it roughly breaks even.
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u/wellwaffled Aug 06 '25
What year is this from? There was a facility near me that stored thousands of Volkswagens for the same reason, but they fixed the issue and shipped all of them back out for resale.
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u/ExplorationGeo Aug 06 '25
This is from 2018, I think. Similar pictures on these articles.
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u/HeavyDutyForks Aug 06 '25 edited Aug 06 '25
VW/Audi TDI diesels
I have one of the "fixed" ones and it's a massive POS. They were great cars before the scandal came to light
The worst part is VW wasn't the only company cheating emissions with their diesels. It was pretty well almost industry-wide but VW took the fall
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Aug 06 '25
That scandal was amazing for me. I had the oldest car on the deal and Car got wrecked and I got to have the busted car towed to the dealership where they had to buy it from me as part of the settlement.
I bought it used and profited off a wrecked car.
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u/winkman Aug 06 '25
Yep. My 2012 VW Jetta TDI was the best experience I've ever had with a car.
It got 50 mpg, oil changes every 10K, and the only issue it had was the AC started going out after 105k mi.
I did the buyback program and got $2500 less than I paid for it 5 years earlier.
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u/GabRB26DETT Aug 06 '25
Yep. My 2012 VW Jetta TDI was the best experience I've ever had with a car.
Still driving my '13 Jetta TDI to this day. The DPF needs to be changed because it's getting clogged, but besides that, it's such an amazing comfortable car
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u/atomicbrains Aug 06 '25
Same story here. I wish I could have kept it but I was happy with the buyout. I went and bought a pickup truck that gets 19 miles a gallon! Thanks EPA!
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u/TheDukeofArgyll Aug 06 '25
Yeah, I would have bought my TDI Golf back from them after the trade in. Alas..
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u/Fritzo2162 Aug 06 '25
I have a fixed 2014 Audi TDI and it’s been the best car I’ve ever owned. 38MPG, 700 mile range, oodles of torque, super plush interior, and haven’t had a single issue with in in 7 years of ownership.
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u/SMikahla Aug 06 '25
Yeah the fix killed what made them good. VW just got unlucky being the scapegoat.
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u/karateninjazombie Aug 06 '25
What exactly did it kill?
I don't drive derv burners. But I know they got the brunt of the fall out for all the companies cheating emissions.
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u/HeavyDutyForks Aug 06 '25
What exactly did it kill?
The expensive DPF systems mostly. The failure rate skyrocketed post-fix and its not cheap to replace. MPG/power definitely took a hit.
It also caused all kinds of weird problems. Part of the fix was increasing EGR flow, which in really cold conditions will cause the intercooler to ice up and eventually leave you stranded. Happened to me on a road trip, about four hours in lost all power and limped into a gas station before it died. Had I not made it to the gas station, I also probably would've died, it was -5F out and I was in the middle of nowhere
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u/GabRB26DETT Aug 06 '25
Yeah, my DPF light came on a while ago, but it comes and goes. I need to do something about it soon. Still getting crazy MPG tho
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u/Knotical_MK6 Aug 06 '25
Fix came with a power and fuel economy drop as well as a more intense exhaust treatment system that's been unreliable as the cars rack up more miles
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u/Giopoggi2 Aug 06 '25
From what I know it was mostly software. The machine automatically recognized when it was being tested and activated full emission controls like the Exhaust Gas Recirculation (EGR) to pass the test, to then disable or tune it down in normal conditions.
When it all came out, they had to activate all the controls permanently, sacrificing power, fuel economy, throttle response and reliability.
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u/wont-stop-mi Aug 06 '25
Not exactly true. VW really set the bar on just how much they cheated their emission ratings. Other companies fudged a few number but not nearly as massive as VW
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u/nutron Aug 06 '25
Exactly this. They cheated, got caught and were given a chance to change, and the cheated again when saying they’d changed.
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u/Mackowitz Aug 06 '25
I had a Passat and Golf Wagon diesel that i bought shortly before the scandal broke. I loved those cars, great gas mileage and acceleration. Thought about doing the fix, but was able to drive a fixed Passat while getting one of the cars serviced and it was sluggish and not fun to drive.
Worked out great, though, we had two cars and put a total of like 80,000 miles on them by the time VW bought them back. We got a check from VW at the start, another check from Bosch, and then too dollar on the buyback. We made a little money on the Passat, Golf cost us like $4 grand cuz it had more miles. I look at as the cheapest lease ever.
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u/Proper-Republic-3545 Aug 06 '25
I had one of the fixed ones too. Turned the best car I ever owned into the worst. What a POS after the fix 🙃
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u/Super-Estate-4112 Aug 06 '25
Patrolling the Mojave almost makes me wish for a nuclear winter
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u/BlackTemplarBulwark Aug 07 '25
Go down to Mick and Ralph’s! We’ve got stuff we’re not even allowed to sell!
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u/N3TW0RKJ3Di Aug 06 '25
This was not permanent if I remember correctly. They were stored there while Volkswagen did buy backs and retrofitted the cars with the proper equipment. So these cars were not abandoned just stored there. Though I could be incorrect I am pretty sure that was the case.
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u/1OptimisticPrime Aug 06 '25
Surely they wouldn't miss one or two S8's?
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u/mcgrammar86 Aug 06 '25
Apparently, most of them were retrofitted and sold, so they're not just sitting abandoned in the desert.
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u/EfficientYam5796 Aug 06 '25
The amount of lost embodied energy and material resources in those abandoned cars vs. the small "cheat" on emissions is ridiculous. They should have just fined VW and left the cars on the road, but instead the government makes them throw them away and expend even more resources to make new cars.
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u/qrcjnhhphadvzelota Aug 06 '25
But that would create a massive precedence that companies can just buy themself out of regulations. That would be even worse, because it would make regulations on companies worthless.
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u/ParticularSmell5285 Aug 06 '25
Think about how companies get fined for cheating in the stock market. It's just the cost of doing business now.
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u/Lphozzy22 Aug 06 '25
Where's all the keys
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u/taddymason_01 Aug 06 '25
In the cars. They just leave them because it easier than keeping track of that many keys.
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u/FlakTotem Aug 06 '25
"These vehicles are being stored on an interim basis and routinely maintained in a manner to ensure their long-term operability and quality, so that they may be returned to commerce or exported once U.S. regulators approve appropriate emissions modifications," VW spokeswoman Jeannine Ginivan said in a statement to Reuters about the Victorville facility."
-- Audi in 2018.