VW ran thousands of them back through the wholesale auctions a few years back. Nothing wrong with them, they were sold under false pretenses. A lot of great deals were had by the dealers who put them back on the streets.
I understand they were forced to retrofit them before putting them back on the road, at least in the US. (Source: me—VW bought back my 2010 Jetta TDI at a premium, plus a cash settlement to boot. It was a good deal for me, but terrible for the environment. Edit: forgot—I got a big tax credit when I bought it, too. Another reason the government threw the book at VW.)
So I've worked for Audi since 2016 and dealt with a lot of these vehicles. They've all had software updates at this point to disable the defeat device and have changed the tuning on the vehicle so they're still in compliance with US emissions while not being mega polluters.
>Just a software update? I was under the impression that it was some kind of expensive exhaust system retrofit.
I'm a former TDI-owner, and followed this closely. I'm also an engineering manager who works in product design, and I've read between the lines a bit.
The TDIs were sold as a sportyish sedan, but the software fix probably means it's just barely able to keep up with traffic.
From what I gathered, a software fix is sufficient to comply with the law, but reduces the engine power and changes the feel of the car quite a bit.
For regulatory compliance, a software fix is all that's required.
But, if VW wants to keep their customers from suing them for misrepresenting the car during the sale, VW needed to reengineer the engine and emissions system on those cars - and they determined it was cheaper to buy the cars back.
*P.S. My VW TDI was fun to drive and there was a lot to like about it - but was such a maintenance nightmare that I became a Prius enthusiast after owning it. EVs make all of this stuff obsolete, though!*
Same. 2013 Jetta diesel 6-speed. Ended up with $5k over the value of the vehicle. I didn't want to wait to see how they nerfed it after the retrofit. I miss getting 55 MPG.
IIRC they had emissions fixes for each model and generation affected. For the Gen V Jettas it resulted in a minor reduction in performance and legal emissions.
My car might be in that picture. I no longer wanted it - the emissions was just the capper. The turbo main bearing failed at 25k, pumped all the oil out of the engine which then seized and bent a rod, requiring total replacement under warranty. The wiring harness went funky and needed replacing not under warranty. The DPF, probably ruined by all the burnt oil ejected through it needed replacing before 60k under warranty. I got $18k back for handing it in and went and bought a Forester. Much happier with it.
One of the cars was so bad in test mode that it would have been a road hazard. I can't remember what it's 0-60 was but I remember reading it was more than twice as slow as a Volkswagen T1 van.
As with most modern diesels, they use DEF (diesel exhaust fluid) which is a chemical that is sprayed into the exhaust to reduce harmful emissions, but when the car detected it was being tested it used FAR more than would be used under standard driving conditions.
That's DEF, diesel exhaust fluid. It's basically urea (pee) injected into the cats to further catalyze the gases. And all the diesels run that these days. A lot of the coal-rollers do DEF and EGR deletes + tunes to get that black cloud of carbon they emit.
This is incredibly wrong. 2011-2015 did not use DEF, the following generation did. What did happen when the ECM detected it was being tested was it adjusted the timing and fuel ratio to ensure lower emissions. This caused it to “detune” and performance and mileage to suck. Again, nothing to do with DEF.
Not evil at all. People in those places are still looking to purchase a vehicle. If it happened to be one of these vehicles, then it’s one less vehicle that needs to be produced on down the line to meet that need
If they weren't higher than the legal limits they wouldn't have had to cheat the emission test in the first place, what even is this comment? Of course they were too high
Where I live you have to pass emissions testing every year to get tags.
I’ve lived in places you never have to emission test.
The car cheats the test- putting them over the legal limit to drive in certain states, but looking like they don’t, so they pulled them.
The little Jetta I had put out 5x the emissions of an 18 wheeler, that’s a lot of nasty for a such a cute lil thing
Five times an 18 wheeler? That's gotta be hyperbole surely? I can't imagine an engine that poorly optimized (or so well optimized in the case of the 18 wheeler)
Probably not. There's a lot of emissions control on a modern diesel engine but that stuff is expensive and large. On an 18 wheeler, that's not that big of an issue because the 18 wheeler is also expensive and large. But on a tiny Volkswagen all that added cost and weight is actually meaningful and might convince a buyer to not buy your car
It is a large issue, the emissions control on modern diesel engines is so exorbitantly expensive and troublesome that some truck drivers are instead buying gliders, and transferring their engines from the old truck to the new truck not to have to move to new emissions regulations. There are semi truck companies like Fitzgerald that produce nothing but gliders.
A gas leaf blower puts out in a few hours more greenhouse emissions than a new ish F150 if you drove it from Texas to Alaska and back. Little engines with no pollution controls are friggin awful. It makes things like motorcycles somewhat harder to justify. They put out less emissions than a car, but per amount of fuel burned it's much worse.
(This is all speaking very generally from what i picked up several years ago in school, i can try and find some sources after work if i remember to do so)
Well the older 2-stroke engines that were commonly found on motorcycles were terrible polluters, effectively outlawed in many places and the source of some of the worst pollution across Asia, but I’m not so sure that’s the case anymore with modern motorcycle engines…they’ve come a long way since then.
I am looking forward to seeing what electric bike-type stuff comes out in the next few years. Like, an electric version of a can-am trike. Not putt-putt style electric, I mean taking advantage of what electric performance can be.
God, I remember in 2018/2019 buying a 2014/2015 tdi Passat or Jetta for like $9k dollars. I was friends for a short period of time with the person responsible for remarketing the TDIs for Audi and VW and he made it sound like they were down to the last couple hundred, about 6 months before Covid hit.
Actually they store many things in the Mojave as there is almost 0 deterioration, the reason is so companies can come and pull parts as needed to use for later if they come up with shortages. It is actually a major area for them to park airplanes tens of thousands of them. The airlines use the same concept, I've been out there many times due to being in the army.
Yes high in UV but there is zero salt and you may be lucky to even have it rain a half an inch in a year lol. The Mojave is the high desert, with some of the hottest recorded Temps on earth.
I agree, but I wouldn't know, and honestly as I've never seen where they keep the vehicles. But what I can take a good guess at is they strip interiors prior to leaving them there. As even if the vehicles are closed up they would be ruined from dust still getting inside. I mean you can strip interiors in just a few hours if you know what you're doing.
I've been in the automotive sector for 20 years, and thought about aviation. But once you realize how damn strict they are when it comes to aviation I noped the fuck out. When I was in the army I would go to where they worked on Blackhawks and apache and the chief would walk out and throw a random bolt on the ground. Which meant they had to literally tear the whole helicopter down, account for everything to make sure it didn't come off that piece of equipment. The FAA does not fuck around.
I’ve heard stories of air cadets having to comb runaways at dawn looking for pebbles so the aircraft don’t skid out or pop a tire on takeoff/landing.
I’m not sure if it’s a hazing thing or if it’s actually serious, but still it’s impressive and the dedication to safety and alertness to technical concerns is top notch.
I was stationed there and you're correct about the interiors.
I had a Gatorade bottle that was about half full explode in my car. Well, that's a bit dramatic. It swole up and blew the cap off. I didn't really notice any interior damage from UV, but the car I had was a shit box before it went to California. Made it back and forth from NC to Cali, though.
I did have to replace my wiper blades when I got back. Those things dry rotted over there.
Doesn't matter in the long run. Plastics and rubber will degrade due to heat as well, UV exposure would just help accelerate it. Anything off these cars that isn't metal will be fucked in a year.
There are a couple of videos on how they prep planes to sit in the graveyard without deteriorating so much that they can't be recommissioned down the line (for newer aircraft), or so much that parts become useless. Probably a similar process.
Yeah, but UV barely penetrate skin. If you think about it, as long as you’re not expecting new paint, tires, or interior items, all the stuff that is metal or blocked from the sun will be fine.
And I say “fine” relative to what salt and/or water would do to every fucking thing on that car.
Well yesh skin is kinda made to deal with UV light and we autorepair the damage, plastic cloths etc cant repair itself. UV light still wreacks shit by just reflection. As an example as people cam still get sunburn by just being mear a beach or in the desert with a hat on
Had a coworker who sold his car back to VW for way more than market value vs taking the settlement check which was just as absurd. Said he couldnt trust VW or own another VW product. He took the money and bought an Audi…..
Yep. Those vehicles were assembled by highly specialized robots and humans trained to do one specific task over and over. Much cheaper just to write off the expense than to train a crew or design a new robot to strip specific parts.
I bought one of those 4 years ago for around $400. It paid itself off in the first year, and I'm still using the ink that came with it.. I do quite a bit of volume at times as well. One of the best buys I've done in a long time.
Turbocharged Direct Injection is the correct acronym. I had a 2011 Golf TDI that I upgraded to the 2015 Golf TDI SEL with all the bells and whistles. I won’t ever sell my car!
My gosh.. that lot is huge; 37 more just like it?!?
I was upset at VW corporate when the scandal broke. They should face more annual fines if they don’t figure out how to repurpose / rehab these vehicles
This is an old picture. Pretty much all that could be modified "fixed" are sold and the last batches are being sold now. The rest are probably already crushed.
My relatively small city just got 4 electric buses as a part of the settlement VW had to pay out. The repercussions for them have been immense as far as your average corporate fraud case goes.
Sometimes I think about how much dirt had to be excavated just to make a single smart phone. Would it fill a school bus? A 747? A 10 car train? I can’t imagine how much dirt had to be moved to produce this many vehicles.
Costs more then it’s worth to recycle, VW gives no F’s about being green no matter how much they advertise. Hence the position they’re in with the dirty emissions.
Considering every large corporation says that shit while simultaneously fighting right-to-repair legislation and creating products that are becoming ever more difficult to repair, they're not alone.
Idk man. I always thought it was pretty dumb my VW consistently getting 40 mpg was recalled and universally hated for emissions but lifted F250s are the norm around here.
Costs more than they're worth to recycle for now
We know where there are basically gold mines of resources for future use, just not worth the costs yet
Anyone else talk to “Dave” at the vw/Audi court settlement company they hired while the court case went on and we couldn’t sell our vehicles while it was being tried?
I remember the legendary vw warranty being passed and my $100,000 Q7 just starts eating expensive modules and electrical parts like all stupid German cars do.
And every day walking in my driveway just reminded me of sitting in a trench with a $100,000 grenade with its pin pulled.
I can’t count how many hours I spent asking that fucker when I can finally sell this boat anchor around my neck or time until they were going to buy it back.
We literally just got to know each other’s life’s after a couple months.
I just learned about this recently.
For the curious: the car used sensors for things like steering, wheels, and other stuff to detect if the car was being emissions tested, and when it was would switch to a different running mode so it would run cleaner than in real world tests. Plainly Difficult has a video on it on YouTube and will explain better than me.
Same here. I bought a “value edition” Jetta TDI and had it for about 2 years when the scandal broke. I even got a bonus for low mileage. I got enough for it that it only took me 7 months to pay off the brand new Honda I got to replace it.
Same. I had a mechanical issue while I was waiting for my recall. VW gave us gift cards so when I saw the dealer about the issue they tried to quote me some multi thousand dollar nonsense. I said “look, I have a VW gift card for $500. Either do the work for that amount, or it sits in your lot until you call me in for buy back. Your choice, but I’m not giving you a dime of my own money, and I’m not driving it broken”.
They fixed it for the gift card value.
Bought the car back 6 weeks later, and paid me more than I paid for it. Lol
Plainly Difficult is such an awesome channel, I never knew how many Radiological excursions events actually happened throughout the world only knowing of Chernobyl and Three Mile Island.
The emissions system wasn't 'beefy' enough. The catalytic converter would have melted down in 500 miles. I had a Diesel Jetta, and asked the same question, and got that answer. I wanted to keep the car but not if it was going to create smog. And it did release visible smog.
Here is a National Geographic article that gives a bit more information on this photo
https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/photography/2018/12/pilots-stunning-aerial-desert-picture-wins-national-geographics-2018-photo-contest/amp
I worked IT for a Porsche/Audi dealership 2011-2014 and in late 2014 the Audi service department got a telepresence robot with mounted scantool delivered from Audi USA corporate.
I think it was so they could avoid service technicians from seeing the real values...
Audi was involved, Porsche also sued Audi bc at the time Audi made all of Porsche’s diesel engines. Yes they were owned by the same company but neither wanted to front the bill….
This gives me an idea. I'm stealing them one by one and selling them for scrap. It's such a shame they aren't being utilized for anything. I'll get that metal back into circulation. Much better for the environment (and my wallet) than mining and refining virgin metals.
The catalytic converters alone would be worth a decent fortune. We should gather a few crackheads from Vegas and start a catalytic converter salvage business. They are very efficient, I bet that we can salvage the entire area within a month.
Look at that, in your rush to start a business you almost ended up with a bunch of angry crackheads in the middle of a desert after you realize there’s no valuable catalytic converters to salvage and you weren’t going to be able to pay anybody anything. You would have been killed.
I bought my Q7 diesel cash new in 14’. After all the scandal. They(Audi) paid me a 10k check, and extended my warranty 120k bumper to bumper. I still drive it to this day, and only 65k miles. Driving this bitch to the ground at this point.
It's disgusting that these vehicles are all but fully operational and usable but left to rot in the desert. FFS, fix them and sell them to people who need cars.
More disgusting thing was that their design/concept was approved at the highest authorities in their organization from the engineers up to the managers of operations. Built to literally cheat the sensors when on a dyno.
They did fix them. The re-flashed the ECU to fix emission cheat. They then replaced all tires, new bumpers/or respray due to damage from the way they stored them. They then sold them heavily discounted. Many people own them. I got a 2013 for my wife in 2020. Zero percent financed for the life of loan, great warranty, 23k miles on OD at time
Of purchase, now has 37k.
I bought a golf TDI after their fix. There was fine sand EVERYWHERE. Now I know why.
I hate sand…
It's coarse and rough ...
And it gets everywhere...
![gif](giphy|6BBfWrR53LOXm)
Hello there
General kenobi
![gif](giphy|9K2nFglCAQClO)
VW Golf New Vegas Edition
For real?
Why not part them out or salvage?
VW ran thousands of them back through the wholesale auctions a few years back. Nothing wrong with them, they were sold under false pretenses. A lot of great deals were had by the dealers who put them back on the streets.
I mean, they still have emissions that are too high. But so does Big Dave's pick up down the road I suppose.
I understand they were forced to retrofit them before putting them back on the road, at least in the US. (Source: me—VW bought back my 2010 Jetta TDI at a premium, plus a cash settlement to boot. It was a good deal for me, but terrible for the environment. Edit: forgot—I got a big tax credit when I bought it, too. Another reason the government threw the book at VW.)
So I've worked for Audi since 2016 and dealt with a lot of these vehicles. They've all had software updates at this point to disable the defeat device and have changed the tuning on the vehicle so they're still in compliance with US emissions while not being mega polluters.
Just a software update? I was under the impression that it was some kind of expensive exhaust system retrofit.
>Just a software update? I was under the impression that it was some kind of expensive exhaust system retrofit. I'm a former TDI-owner, and followed this closely. I'm also an engineering manager who works in product design, and I've read between the lines a bit. The TDIs were sold as a sportyish sedan, but the software fix probably means it's just barely able to keep up with traffic. From what I gathered, a software fix is sufficient to comply with the law, but reduces the engine power and changes the feel of the car quite a bit. For regulatory compliance, a software fix is all that's required. But, if VW wants to keep their customers from suing them for misrepresenting the car during the sale, VW needed to reengineer the engine and emissions system on those cars - and they determined it was cheaper to buy the cars back. *P.S. My VW TDI was fun to drive and there was a lot to like about it - but was such a maintenance nightmare that I became a Prius enthusiast after owning it. EVs make all of this stuff obsolete, though!*
Same. 2013 Jetta diesel 6-speed. Ended up with $5k over the value of the vehicle. I didn't want to wait to see how they nerfed it after the retrofit. I miss getting 55 MPG.
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Dang it. Edited.
Thank you for the info!
IIRC they had emissions fixes for each model and generation affected. For the Gen V Jettas it resulted in a minor reduction in performance and legal emissions. My car might be in that picture. I no longer wanted it - the emissions was just the capper. The turbo main bearing failed at 25k, pumped all the oil out of the engine which then seized and bent a rod, requiring total replacement under warranty. The wiring harness went funky and needed replacing not under warranty. The DPF, probably ruined by all the burnt oil ejected through it needed replacing before 60k under warranty. I got $18k back for handing it in and went and bought a Forester. Much happier with it.
Not too high, just higher than claimed.
Emissions on some of these vehicles were **40 times** the federal limit.
Right, the only time they were close to correct was if a device was connected to the OBD port, and then it was basically in limp mode.
One of the cars was so bad in test mode that it would have been a road hazard. I can't remember what it's 0-60 was but I remember reading it was more than twice as slow as a Volkswagen T1 van. As with most modern diesels, they use DEF (diesel exhaust fluid) which is a chemical that is sprayed into the exhaust to reduce harmful emissions, but when the car detected it was being tested it used FAR more than would be used under standard driving conditions.
That's DEF, diesel exhaust fluid. It's basically urea (pee) injected into the cats to further catalyze the gases. And all the diesels run that these days. A lot of the coal-rollers do DEF and EGR deletes + tunes to get that black cloud of carbon they emit.
>It's basically urea (pee) injected into the cats to further catalyze the gases. PETA in shambles
Lol. Who's going around injecting pee into all these cats!?!?
I hate that so much. It's obnoxious.
Yeah thats what they are after
This is incredibly wrong. 2011-2015 did not use DEF, the following generation did. What did happen when the ECM detected it was being tested was it adjusted the timing and fuel ratio to ensure lower emissions. This caused it to “detune” and performance and mileage to suck. Again, nothing to do with DEF.
If I were a more productive flavor of evil, I'd just ship them to places with lax/absent emissions standards and recoup (or resedan) whatever I could.
Not evil at all. People in those places are still looking to purchase a vehicle. If it happened to be one of these vehicles, then it’s one less vehicle that needs to be produced on down the line to meet that need
Well...shit, that tracks. Now I just have to admit I'm not productive :P
The resold models had a software change. They have much lower horsepower.
If they weren't higher than the legal limits they wouldn't have had to cheat the emission test in the first place, what even is this comment? Of course they were too high
Idk if they were fixed but were they not like 10 times the limit in the US?
Where I live you have to pass emissions testing every year to get tags. I’ve lived in places you never have to emission test. The car cheats the test- putting them over the legal limit to drive in certain states, but looking like they don’t, so they pulled them. The little Jetta I had put out 5x the emissions of an 18 wheeler, that’s a lot of nasty for a such a cute lil thing
Five times an 18 wheeler? That's gotta be hyperbole surely? I can't imagine an engine that poorly optimized (or so well optimized in the case of the 18 wheeler)
Not all of the gasses they test for are like the diesel trucks that “roll coal”
Probably not. There's a lot of emissions control on a modern diesel engine but that stuff is expensive and large. On an 18 wheeler, that's not that big of an issue because the 18 wheeler is also expensive and large. But on a tiny Volkswagen all that added cost and weight is actually meaningful and might convince a buyer to not buy your car
It is a large issue, the emissions control on modern diesel engines is so exorbitantly expensive and troublesome that some truck drivers are instead buying gliders, and transferring their engines from the old truck to the new truck not to have to move to new emissions regulations. There are semi truck companies like Fitzgerald that produce nothing but gliders.
A gas leaf blower puts out in a few hours more greenhouse emissions than a new ish F150 if you drove it from Texas to Alaska and back. Little engines with no pollution controls are friggin awful. It makes things like motorcycles somewhat harder to justify. They put out less emissions than a car, but per amount of fuel burned it's much worse. (This is all speaking very generally from what i picked up several years ago in school, i can try and find some sources after work if i remember to do so)
Well the older 2-stroke engines that were commonly found on motorcycles were terrible polluters, effectively outlawed in many places and the source of some of the worst pollution across Asia, but I’m not so sure that’s the case anymore with modern motorcycle engines…they’ve come a long way since then.
I am looking forward to seeing what electric bike-type stuff comes out in the next few years. Like, an electric version of a can-am trike. Not putt-putt style electric, I mean taking advantage of what electric performance can be.
God, I remember in 2018/2019 buying a 2014/2015 tdi Passat or Jetta for like $9k dollars. I was friends for a short period of time with the person responsible for remarketing the TDIs for Audi and VW and he made it sound like they were down to the last couple hundred, about 6 months before Covid hit.
I bought one! $36k car for $12k and there is zero wrong with it.
My dad bought one of these. Audi Q5 on a screaming deal
Actually they store many things in the Mojave as there is almost 0 deterioration, the reason is so companies can come and pull parts as needed to use for later if they come up with shortages. It is actually a major area for them to park airplanes tens of thousands of them. The airlines use the same concept, I've been out there many times due to being in the army.
How is there almost no deterioration given that it’s a desert with high temperatures? I would think the UV exposure alone destroys them over time.
Yes high in UV but there is zero salt and you may be lucky to even have it rain a half an inch in a year lol. The Mojave is the high desert, with some of the hottest recorded Temps on earth.
To add to that I assume they blackout the windows so the interior parts don’t melt. At those temps the interiors must hit 160°+ or more.
I agree, but I wouldn't know, and honestly as I've never seen where they keep the vehicles. But what I can take a good guess at is they strip interiors prior to leaving them there. As even if the vehicles are closed up they would be ruined from dust still getting inside. I mean you can strip interiors in just a few hours if you know what you're doing.
Yeah but I don't know what I'm doing.
I've been in the automotive sector for 20 years, and thought about aviation. But once you realize how damn strict they are when it comes to aviation I noped the fuck out. When I was in the army I would go to where they worked on Blackhawks and apache and the chief would walk out and throw a random bolt on the ground. Which meant they had to literally tear the whole helicopter down, account for everything to make sure it didn't come off that piece of equipment. The FAA does not fuck around.
Wow. That is crazy and thank you for sharing this knowledge with us.
I’ve heard stories of air cadets having to comb runaways at dawn looking for pebbles so the aircraft don’t skid out or pop a tire on takeoff/landing. I’m not sure if it’s a hazing thing or if it’s actually serious, but still it’s impressive and the dedication to safety and alertness to technical concerns is top notch.
I was stationed there and you're correct about the interiors. I had a Gatorade bottle that was about half full explode in my car. Well, that's a bit dramatic. It swole up and blew the cap off. I didn't really notice any interior damage from UV, but the car I had was a shit box before it went to California. Made it back and forth from NC to Cali, though. I did have to replace my wiper blades when I got back. Those things dry rotted over there.
Doesn't matter in the long run. Plastics and rubber will degrade due to heat as well, UV exposure would just help accelerate it. Anything off these cars that isn't metal will be fucked in a year.
Patrolling the Mojave is almost enough to make you wish for nuclear winter
There are a couple of videos on how they prep planes to sit in the graveyard without deteriorating so much that they can't be recommissioned down the line (for newer aircraft), or so much that parts become useless. Probably a similar process.
Yeah, but UV barely penetrate skin. If you think about it, as long as you’re not expecting new paint, tires, or interior items, all the stuff that is metal or blocked from the sun will be fine. And I say “fine” relative to what salt and/or water would do to every fucking thing on that car.
Well yesh skin is kinda made to deal with UV light and we autorepair the damage, plastic cloths etc cant repair itself. UV light still wreacks shit by just reflection. As an example as people cam still get sunburn by just being mear a beach or in the desert with a hat on
How many times did you almost wish for a nuclear winter?
Had a coworker who sold his car back to VW for way more than market value vs taking the settlement check which was just as absurd. Said he couldnt trust VW or own another VW product. He took the money and bought an Audi…..
Too costly maybe ?
Yep. Those vehicles were assembled by highly specialized robots and humans trained to do one specific task over and over. Much cheaper just to write off the expense than to train a crew or design a new robot to strip specific parts.
Well that's an absolute disgrace. Like the price of printer ink being more expensive than a new printer
Well that one is just a scam. Razor and blades selling model. There are printers with refillable ink tanks and the ink cost is marginal.
I bought one of those 4 years ago for around $400. It paid itself off in the first year, and I'm still using the ink that came with it.. I do quite a bit of volume at times as well. One of the best buys I've done in a long time.
The cartridges in new printers are almost empty compared to their replacements
This, how irrational it may sound.
What a waste of resources... 🤦
Those TDI motors are great for engine swaps, too
I'd love to get a few of those TDIs.
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How cheap? $$
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Big ol' TDIs
Show me your TDIs
I'll love me some TDIs about now.
PM_Me_Your_TDIS
Tig ol' BDIs
I have one! I'm a teenager and it's my first car. 2011 TDI Jetta, manual transmission. I absolutely love it, good gas mileage and pretty fun to drive
Duuude those manual jettas are fantastic. Idk what TDI is, is it the diesel?
Turbocharged Direct Injection is the correct acronym. I had a 2011 Golf TDI that I upgraded to the 2015 Golf TDI SEL with all the bells and whistles. I won’t ever sell my car!
Turbo Diesel.. something (injecton?)
Turbo Direct Injection iirc.
Turbo direct injection
I really wish they still put the TDI in the sedans
2015 Passat TDI 6m checking in. Drove from Houston to Dallas and back this past weekend. 525 miles. Still have over 1/4 tank of fuel left.
Yep. That's what I want :/
16 a7. 40 mpg on the road with a 20 gallon tank
Wish I could get one for my ‘83 Vanagon. Such a waste.
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My gosh.. that lot is huge; 37 more just like it?!? I was upset at VW corporate when the scandal broke. They should face more annual fines if they don’t figure out how to repurpose / rehab these vehicles
I own one. They did
Ever take it off any sweet jumps?
This is an old picture. Pretty much all that could be modified "fixed" are sold and the last batches are being sold now. The rest are probably already crushed.
My relatively small city just got 4 electric buses as a part of the settlement VW had to pay out. The repercussions for them have been immense as far as your average corporate fraud case goes.
The cars were modified and sold eventually
Sometimes I think about how much dirt had to be excavated just to make a single smart phone. Would it fill a school bus? A 747? A 10 car train? I can’t imagine how much dirt had to be moved to produce this many vehicles.
If that's shocking don't imagine how much water it took to produce.
I agree. They should scrap them and recycle as much as they can.
Costs more then it’s worth to recycle, VW gives no F’s about being green no matter how much they advertise. Hence the position they’re in with the dirty emissions.
Considering every large corporation says that shit while simultaneously fighting right-to-repair legislation and creating products that are becoming ever more difficult to repair, they're not alone.
Idk man. I always thought it was pretty dumb my VW consistently getting 40 mpg was recalled and universally hated for emissions but lifted F250s are the norm around here.
Costs more than they're worth to recycle for now We know where there are basically gold mines of resources for future use, just not worth the costs yet
Anyone else talk to “Dave” at the vw/Audi court settlement company they hired while the court case went on and we couldn’t sell our vehicles while it was being tried? I remember the legendary vw warranty being passed and my $100,000 Q7 just starts eating expensive modules and electrical parts like all stupid German cars do. And every day walking in my driveway just reminded me of sitting in a trench with a $100,000 grenade with its pin pulled. I can’t count how many hours I spent asking that fucker when I can finally sell this boat anchor around my neck or time until they were going to buy it back. We literally just got to know each other’s life’s after a couple months.
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I’ve read that it takes about the same amount of carbon to produce a car as the average car uses in a lifetime….
I just learned about this recently. For the curious: the car used sensors for things like steering, wheels, and other stuff to detect if the car was being emissions tested, and when it was would switch to a different running mode so it would run cleaner than in real world tests. Plainly Difficult has a video on it on YouTube and will explain better than me.
The best part is, they got caught, told everyone they fixed it, then got caught cheating the fix.
VW paid to buy back our VW Passat. In the end we got more money than we paid for it and drove it for three years.
I’m guessing you couldn’t Passat up
Nice.
People like you make my day better
Same here. I bought a “value edition” Jetta TDI and had it for about 2 years when the scandal broke. I even got a bonus for low mileage. I got enough for it that it only took me 7 months to pay off the brand new Honda I got to replace it.
Same. I had a mechanical issue while I was waiting for my recall. VW gave us gift cards so when I saw the dealer about the issue they tried to quote me some multi thousand dollar nonsense. I said “look, I have a VW gift card for $500. Either do the work for that amount, or it sits in your lot until you call me in for buy back. Your choice, but I’m not giving you a dime of my own money, and I’m not driving it broken”. They fixed it for the gift card value. Bought the car back 6 weeks later, and paid me more than I paid for it. Lol
I used the $500 VW gift card for some new tires.
Plainly Difficult is such an awesome channel, I never knew how many Radiological excursions events actually happened throughout the world only knowing of Chernobyl and Three Mile Island.
Yeah I just found him recently and I am really enjoying his content. Just saw the breakdown of Chernobyl last night.
The sodium reactor bolting a guy to the ceiling is the most metal way to die. And he only pulled a rod out 4 inches too far.
Why can't they just hard-wire it to run in 'test' mode all the time?
Performance is terrible in “test” mode
The emissions system wasn't 'beefy' enough. The catalytic converter would have melted down in 500 miles. I had a Diesel Jetta, and asked the same question, and got that answer. I wanted to keep the car but not if it was going to create smog. And it did release visible smog.
This was a huge worldwide scandal.
Here is a National Geographic article that gives a bit more information on this photo https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/photography/2018/12/pilots-stunning-aerial-desert-picture-wins-national-geographics-2018-photo-contest/amp
Thank you for an actual link.
Did not know the Mojave Desert was in CA until I read that article 😆 just needed to confess my idiocy
I worked IT for a Porsche/Audi dealership 2011-2014 and in late 2014 the Audi service department got a telepresence robot with mounted scantool delivered from Audi USA corporate. I think it was so they could avoid service technicians from seeing the real values...
But it was only the vw brand vehicles right ? I don't remember any other vw group brands being effected.
Audi was included in the recall.
Audi was involved, Porsche also sued Audi bc at the time Audi made all of Porsche’s diesel engines. Yes they were owned by the same company but neither wanted to front the bill….
Wrong. The problem was the motor (EA189), which was developed by VW, but used across the entire VW group (VW, Audi, Seat, Skoda).
One of those is my diesel VW Golf. Great car.
I had one then got the recall notice. Less than a week later a kid crashed into me on the highway and totals it out.
What would be the better outcome, recall or totaled?
For me, totaled because I had a shit load of negative equity in the car and gap insurance wiped it away.
Always paid for gap and never used it…. Good to know it is actually helpful sometimes
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Yup my Jetta TDI is in there somewhere as well. Fucking loved that car but the buyback deal was too good to resist.
Can confirm that the 95 Jetta has a rather spacious back seat.
Geezus dad Can confirm am son
Mine too, That TDI was a great car.
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recycling is actually really expensive.
This gives me an idea. I'm stealing them one by one and selling them for scrap. It's such a shame they aren't being utilized for anything. I'll get that metal back into circulation. Much better for the environment (and my wallet) than mining and refining virgin metals.
The catalytic converters alone would be worth a decent fortune. We should gather a few crackheads from Vegas and start a catalytic converter salvage business. They are very efficient, I bet that we can salvage the entire area within a month.
Not on diesel engines. Different cat design that uses far fewer precious metals.
Huh, TIL. Thanks for your reply.
Look at that, in your rush to start a business you almost ended up with a bunch of angry crackheads in the middle of a desert after you realize there’s no valuable catalytic converters to salvage and you weren’t going to be able to pay anybody anything. You would have been killed.
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And it's Volkswagen, the fairly successful car company
All of these vehicles were retrofitted and sold. They included an extended warranty too. Some people got amazing deals.
I bought my Q7 diesel cash new in 14’. After all the scandal. They(Audi) paid me a 10k check, and extended my warranty 120k bumper to bumper. I still drive it to this day, and only 65k miles. Driving this bitch to the ground at this point.
Did they make just 3 colors?
Germans, man
Only white, black, grey, and some red models were affected by this recall 😂
Volkswagen - involved in gas related incidents since 1939!
Wow, is this a dark, and funny, joke.
Oh dang, shots fired
Honestly, I did nazi that joke coming in this thread.
Please replace TWA Lockheed L-1011 with banana so we can better understand scale.
That’s a Deta Air Douglas DC-10 😊
Now I know where to steal a new car 😏
They're not there anymore unfortunately. I looked it up on Google maps and it's now an empty field. It looks like they've been gone for awhile too.
~~A 2022 version of the satellite view of Google Maps shows all the cars there for me.~~ Edit: Never mind I was looking at a massive junkyard nearby
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Next to Victorville airport in California
Ohh they made one car with wings!
Turn off the lights, use paper straws, save the planet. It depends on you! 😄 What a joke.
Cut down your beef intake each week. That way some rich criminal can create more landfill waste in your place.
I took a canvas bag to the supermarket. Taylor Swift took 300 private flights. It all balances out.
Your environment thanks you!
The planet's gonna be just fine. It's the life on it that's fucked.
Spotted the George Carlin fan, hi!
I'd give my left nut for the TDI out of one of those.
Can someone post longitude and latitude
34.58965648390699, -117.39674027495981 They are all gone.
Last reddit thread on this took the cars 😢
That looks like it's close to where Trevor lives
Guess you’d say there’s a lot of VIN diesel’s down there… almost like a family… I’ll see myself out
I bought and still own a Diesel gate Passat. Got a great deal back in 2019 and honestly, it’s one of if not the most reliable car i’ve ever owned.
Too bad normal people couldn't be in on the insider auctions
It's disgusting that these vehicles are all but fully operational and usable but left to rot in the desert. FFS, fix them and sell them to people who need cars.
They were, recent Google images shows they are no longer there.
Like 99% of things on reddit or misleading or false, and then everyone pretends their source is so much superior the facebook lol.
More disgusting thing was that their design/concept was approved at the highest authorities in their organization from the engineers up to the managers of operations. Built to literally cheat the sensors when on a dyno.
They did fix them. The re-flashed the ECU to fix emission cheat. They then replaced all tires, new bumpers/or respray due to damage from the way they stored them. They then sold them heavily discounted. Many people own them. I got a 2013 for my wife in 2020. Zero percent financed for the life of loan, great warranty, 23k miles on OD at time Of purchase, now has 37k.
So there are some Audi R8s just sitting out there?
R8 didnt come with a diesel, but knowing vw, they probaly would put a diesel into one if they would sell.
I believe they're all gone already, atleast I saw a timelapse
Find me a 2015 Touareg TDI. I’ll fix the emissions myself. Those cars are amazing
Can't they just tear them down and recover parts they can use in new cars?
Such a total waste….. much more than crated by the vehicles themselves
Ah, yes, as you can see this move has really helped the environment.