Selling Nitrogen In Tires - Is It All A Lot Of Hot Air?

Amazing how few people actually -read- posts, isn't it? Most appear to just "skim".

But to "answer" your original post question, it's a lot of -dry- air. Excluding O2 does nothing. I've never seen the -inside- of a tire oxidize. The outside, yes, and that takes assistance of UV from the sun.

However, now that N2 is the "hot setup", marketers are leaping on the bandwagon selling devices that compress air and reduce the O2 in the tank. They just don't get it. Reduce the H2O in the tank! THAT'S the "hot setup".

It's the water vapour in the tires that causes the pressure to change more rapidly than you'd like, not the O2.

No, I wouldn't pay for N2. I might be convinced to pay a small fee to ensure my air is dry! Maybe $0.25 per use.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Swanny1172 @ Jun 2 2007, 09:25 AM) [snapback]453855[/snapback]</div>

Ok... I just have to ask... what the heck is this COSTCO that I keep hearing so much about? Everywhere I turn I keep hearing how you can buy your insurance at costco or your clothes, tires, furniture, food, etc... is this place some sort of ultra-wal-mart-esque type of store??? What is so great about this costco that keeps everyone raving about it?

 

You have to join a club to shop at their store??? Thats a bit bizzare... And paying an extra $50 seems a bit steep for a 'membership'... mabye for those of you living in fancy, high-dollar areas of the country thats small change but where im at, i live in a downtown one-bedroom apartment for $350.00 a month... so yeah... $50.00 is like half of my monthy food budget... I suspect that is why these types of stores dont exist anywhere near here... People here would be told to fork up $50.00 and they would drop everything and walk right back out the door...

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(bgdrewsif @ Jun 3 2007, 12:43 PM) [snapback]454411[/snapback]</div>

It sounds like your yearly salary is not very high and that's OK. But I am curious how you can afford a new car such as a Prius (and all the ins., gas, maint, etc. that goes with owning a car)? If I lived in a $350/month apartment (which I believe is half of most section 8 rents, and is very, very cheap for even a one bedroom apartment) and my monthly food budget was $100/month, I think owning any automobile under 20 years old would be the furthest thing from my budget.

Rick
#4 2006

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(bgdrewsif @ Jun 3 2007, 11:43 AM) [snapback]454411[/snapback]</div>

I belong to Sam's Club and pay a membership every year. I find and purchase items there at a substantial savings over other retailers. If I lived closer than 120 miles from a Costco, I would probably join it as well. I enjoy "warehouse savings" and feel that the membership is well worth it. I purchased a high res Samsung 26" LCD there last fall for $450 when I had priced the same model at other stores and on the internet for $950 to $1100. That is just one example of substantial savings in the last few years.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(viking31 @ Jun 3 2007, 01:37 PM) [snapback]454447[/snapback]</div>

Well for starters, the cost of living is very low here compared to the rest of the country. , < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_Green%2C_Ohio > When I used to live in my hometown of Findlay (a city of about 40,000 that is 20 minutes south of here) < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Findlay%2C_Ohio > I had a brand new 2 bedroom 1 1/2 bath apartment for $440/mo. Where I live now is desirable housing (I had to wait over a year to find an opening for a downtown apartment) and is definitely not section 8 housing... To be honest im not sure if we even have section 8 housing here... Realistically I probally spend about $125-150 a month on food. I shop at kroger, not the dairy mart, and I gave up fast food/eating out 2 years ago when I began dieting... If you really must know I have about $24,000 in expenses annualy and set aside close to $4,000 in savings last year... Prior to my prius I drove a used 2002 VW beetle and before that my grandmothers 1984 Oldsmobile Cutlass until it died and went to car hevean...


But no, there are no sam's clubs or costcos around here... just the typical Meijer, Target, wal-Mart places I am sad to say...
Anything else y'all want to know about my life???

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(FloridaWen @ Jun 2 2007, 05:57 AM) [snapback]453848[/snapback]</div>

To directly address the claims:

1. Three times nearly zero is still nearly zero. I've never had tires that leaked significant amounts of air in a normal service interval. I've had outright leaks due to nails, etc., but N2 won't help with that.
2. Perhaps, but most of the damage is due to the external environment which is considerably harsher than environment inside the tire even when filled with straight air.
3. It's not enough to be cooler, it has to be significantly cooler. A couple degrees isn't going to matter squat.
4. The requirements of a jet landing and braking from 160mph are worlds apart from a Prius going 65.

The use of vague terms like "cooler" or "more gradual loss of pressure" are what's misleading here, even if technically true. The improvement has to be enough to significantly affect the life of the tire, at least enough to pay for the costs of N2. I'm not convinced that it is.

 

The claim that nitrogen keeps your tire pressure more consistent is actually correct. But, it has nothing to do with diffusion of air through the rubber. The reason nitrogen pressure stays more consistent than air pressure is because compressed air contains water vapor, and so it expands less predictably than nitrogen. There's a different percentage of water vapor in the air on any given day (humidity), so you never know exactly how much tire expansion you'll get from the water vapor.

Does this really matter on your daily driver? Not really.

The reason race car drivers use nitrogen in their tires is for consistency. They even "stagger" the tire pressure on those cars, making the outside tires a little fuller than the inside tires to keep the car turning inward. And speeds of 200 MPH, an eighth of an inch in tire height can make a huge difference.

Even if you do run nitrogen in your tires, you still need to check the pressure regularly. There are several other possible sources of leaks (tire/rim interface, valve, valve/rim interface and the wheel), and using nitrogen won't eliminate any of them.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Swanny1172 @ Jun 4 2007, 02:50 PM) [snapback]455063[/snapback]</div>

Another point about water vapor: filling your tires with dry nitrogen will do little to help if you don't remove the existing water. If you mount a tire with a liquid lubricant, especially water based lubricant, then you need to run several purge cycles with dry nitrogen to remove the lubricant and it's associated vapor. Most tire shops aren't going to do that, even if they sell you "nitrogen" (usually just air with a somewhat reduced oxygen content).

Tom

 

I've never had any issues with premature tire wear or sidewall degradation (67,000 miles on the seven-year old Bridgestones on my '96 RAV4, and counting, for example)...the proponents of spending money to fill my tires with nitrogen are first going to have to convince me that there's really anything wrong with plain old air.

I'll bet that the action of a suspension with less than optimal geometry scrubs off lots more tire than a bit of nitrogen is ever going to save by "making tire pressures more consistent."

Beyond that, well, the original steel rims on my '73 Pinto aren't rusting on the inside from the 'corrosive nature' of oxygen...nearly 35 years with no problems seems like a good run to me.

Sure, if I've got an airplane and I want to do everything I can to prevent a tire fire, then nitrogen is a good idea. For our cars, it's I think a non-issue/marketing ploy.

 

If nitrogen is so great, why aren't the tire makers recommending its use? I did a little research and found this:

Source: http://www.sptimes.com/2005/09/28/Tampabay...your_tire.shtml

I am taking a weekend golf trip with some buddies, one of which is a tire engineer from Goodyear. I will get his opinion on the subject and let you know what he thinks.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(bgdrewsif @ Jun 3 2007, 09:21 AM) [snapback]454402[/snapback]</div>

They provide more EV charging stations than any other business in California. Six at my local one.

Here we are with the Ranger EV a couple of years back.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(darelldd @ Jun 4 2007, 07:45 PM) [snapback]455417[/snapback]</div>

Really. I've never noticed any at our CostCo (either of them), but then this isn't California.

Dave M.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(FloridaWen @ Jun 2 2007, 05:57 AM) [snapback]453848[/snapback]</div>

This was a very informative article unfortunately you missed the biggest reason for using nitrogen to fill ones tires. Nitrogen does not change pressure under temperature changes so that same tire will measure 40 PSI in the dead of winter as it will after 400 miles in the Arizona summer.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Keithnteri @ Jun 5 2007, 01:12 PM) [snapback]455777[/snapback]</div>

Nitrogen does change pressure under temperature changes. It's a gas, and behaves exactly like any other gas (Charles's law, Boyle's law, and Gay-Lussac's law: PV=nRT - called the combined gas law). Furthermore, air is already mostly nitrogen. The real culprit is water vapor which exists naturally in air. Water vapor is a less ideal gas than air or pure nitrogen at normal tire temperatures and pressures, so it's conversion to or from liquid water produces a larger change in pressure than predicted by combined gas law. Get rid of the water and air behaves exactly like nitrogen for all practical purposes in regard to tire pressure changes.

Tom