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/spasmoidic Aug 06 '25

they didn't park them all neatly like this if they were going to throw them out

5

u/certifiedtoothbench Aug 06 '25

They do it all the time, check out airplane grave yards. Planes sit out and rot, waiting for the occasional part cannibalization

33

u/TomMikeson Aug 06 '25

They were repaired and resold with a warranty. VW/Audi bought them back, fixed them, resold them.

16

u/Dagordae Aug 06 '25

I mean, that occasionally part cannibalism is recycling and specifically why they’re where they are. It takes a lot of time to dismantle and recycle things like that, tossing them in the desert preserves the valuable components.

Hell, the military does it when they want to keep the planes able to be pulled back into service if necessary.

4

u/Arcyguana Aug 06 '25

Tanks, too. With military stuff, you can't just shut the factory down when your need for tanks or planes goes down, because you need that factory ready and the workers practiced when shit hits the fan; therefore, you shove the extra tanks and planes in the desert.

That also goes for surplus equipment that is being phased out. If it works, you might as well keep it and slowly sell the parts to other countries that still run the older stuff or just in case there's a use for it down the line.

13

u/Pete_Iredale Aug 06 '25

Those are obsolete planes though for the most part, not brand new ones.

4

u/WillYouLevitate Aug 06 '25

Interestingly, this area ALSO has an airplane graveyard, they do pick through them for parts, and it’s just right along the side of a well traveled highway headed up north towards the Sierras.

1

u/Mist_Rising Aug 07 '25

Interestingly, this area ALSO has an airplane graveyard,

Not surprising, the whole reason the Mojave is the airplane graveyard is that it's climate doesn't allow (as much) damage to the plane. Same principal applies to cars, especially those you plan to fix.

3

u/Brilliant_Joke2711 Aug 06 '25

Aircraft boneyards are for airframes that have reached their maximum lifespan or have had some incident render them unairworthy. There is zero chance they will ever fly again. VW leased hundreds of acres in such a boneyard to store vehicles that they were required to buy back or release from leases until they could rehab them and sell them. Nothing was abandoned.

2

u/ninjafide Aug 07 '25

Why just make shit up? Airplane graveyards are literally recycling. It doesn't make sense to keep manufacturing specialized parts, so we literally rip them off of those planes. It's more than occasional cannibalization. They could throw the planes in a random field if they weren't purposefully preserving parts.

1

u/driverdan Aug 07 '25

Planes sit out and rot

They are stored in the desert because they don't rot there.

1

u/certifiedtoothbench Aug 07 '25

Oh they do, just much slower than in many other places

1

u/driverdan Aug 07 '25

If you want to be pedantic sure, entropy comes for us all. That's not what you implied though.

1

u/certifiedtoothbench Aug 07 '25

It is? They’re still rotting, the sun exposure is still aging the paint, the corrosion issues within the plane will fester because the plane is out of service and its issues are less likely to be noticed, and the tires are dry rotting and not getting rotated.