Motors are a rare, recyclable item in Arc Raiders that you’ll most often need when pushing your Refiner upgrade from level 2 to level 3. They’re also bulky enough to be annoying to farm casually, with a weight of 3.0 and a small stack size.
Why Motors feel scarce
Motors are categorized as an Industrial material, which means they can appear anywhere on the map marked with a factory icon. In practice, they behave like “vehicle loot” more than “factory loot.” If you’re sweeping industrial interiors but ignoring parking lots, buses, and breachable wrecks, your runs can easily go dry.
Where Motors spawn most often: Vehicle engine compartments
The most consistent pattern is simple: search vehicles. Motors commonly come out of car, truck, and bus engine compartments, and buses are specifically worth prioritizing because they’re large, searchable, and frequently clustered around extracts and transit-heavy points of interest.
That also makes any spot with lots of breachable vehicles a high-upside route, even if it isn’t flagged as an Industrial location.
Buried City: Parking Garage and the highway
Parking Garage (Buried City): This is one of the densest vehicle looting areas. The loop is straightforward: breach and loot as many vehicles as you can across multiple floors (including basement and rooftop areas) and then rotate out.
Highway through Buried City: Another reliable path if you want vehicle density without being as “boxed in” as the garage. The highway has a steady supply of searchable cars and tends to be easier to move through quickly.
Blue Gate: Warehouse complex underground tunnels, plus Checkpoint
Underground tunnel near the warehouse complex (Blue Gate): The tunnels are packed with cars, which is exactly what you want when you’re treating Motors as vehicle loot. If your run goal is Motors and not general scavenging, this is a strong “go straight there” choice.
Checkpoint (Blue Gate): It’s exposed, but it’s loaded with searchable vehicles spread across the point of interest. The tradeoff is risk: you’re in open sightlines and ARC patrols can cut through the area.
Dam Battlegrounds: Water Treatment, Power Generation, and bus clusters
Water Treatment and Power Generation Complex (Dam Battlegrounds): These industrial points of interest fit the item’s material type and are commonly searched for Motors.
North Complex Elevator area near Generator Hall: This is a practical stop because buses appear close to the extract elevator. If you’re trying to keep a run short and survivable, looting a small cluster of buses and extracting can be more consistent than gambling on a long, deep route.
Primary Facility containers (Dam Battlegrounds): If you’re tired of opening vehicle after vehicle, there’s an alternative pattern here: searchable compartments and shelves on the sides of red and blue containers can yield Motors (and Rusted Gear).
Spaceport: Vehicle Maintenance
Vehicle Maintenance (Spaceport): If you want to stay “on-theme” and still focus vehicles, this is the obvious pick. The location aligns with the way Motors tend to appear in engines, and it’s one of the cleaner mental models in the game: go where broken vehicles get handled, search everything that looks like it once moved.
How to run Motors efficiently without overcomplicating it
Step 1: Pick one vehicle-dense route and commit for a few raids (Parking Garage in Buried City, the Blue Gate underground tunnel, or Checkpoint).
Step 2: Treat every searchable car and bus as “the node,” not the building around it. If you see a breach prompt, take it.
Step 3: If you hit a Motor, extract sooner than you normally would. Motors are a workstation bottleneck item, and banking them matters more than squeezing in one more loot room.
Night Raids and risk management
Night Raids can increase your chances of higher-tier materials, and that can be worth it if you’re confident in your combat and escape routes. The flip side is that the best Motor locations are often vehicle-heavy and exposed, which is exactly where things go sideways when visibility drops and patrols intersect your route.
When you’re stuck on the Refiner level 3 upgrade, the fastest mindset shift is to stop thinking “factory” and start thinking “engines.” Buried City’s Parking Garage, Blue Gate’s vehicle-packed underground routes, Dam Battlegrounds’ buses and container compartments, and Spaceport’s Vehicle Maintenance all support that approach, and they’re usually more reliable than wandering through mechanical-themed interiors hoping a Motor happens to be on a shelf.
