Nitrogen in the Tires

tire pressure has always gone up about 5 lbs. on hot roads. hasn't damaged a tire yet. for an $18.00 savings. I don't mind checking my tires once a month or so. (needs to be done anyway)

sounds to me like an over priced poser product :-)

my2¢

Pressure change of about 1 PSI can be expected with a 10° temperature change using normal compressed air. Mostly because of the moisture in the compressed air. I've never seen more than a 3° change in a day of travel on roads of any temperature. Might be because I use my own compressed air with a drier on it for painting. For just the fact that you don't have moisture in a tire inflated with nitrogen to check corrosion of the aluminum rims makes it a plus. I would also like the consistency of them filled with nitrogen but it's way to inconvenient to go get it done, maybe some day.

Never head of the sidewalls leaking and seldom have air loss when my cars sit for an extended period of time, just on the '64 knockoff rims. That has stopped since I junked the 10 year old tires and cleaned up the corrosion on the rim beads.

It's the ride, handling & corrosion - not tire damage. I'm surprised you are concerned about $18 on a $60,000 car.

Thanks for the posting. I did not know that! Never really understood why the new Wall Mart here says we use Nitrogen. I failed to read the fine print if it was at extra cost or free like air

I've see advertisments around that tout "Save $200 a Year" from "Increased Mileage"

On or about Wed, 04 Jun 2008 12:49:57 GMT, "Bob Drake" wrote or did cause to be written:

For $18 I've got some magnets you could put on your gas line and get

200mpg. Or you could make a down payment on a hydrogen generator that will turn 1/2 a cup of water into an extra 25mpg per tank. Nitrogen is just another version of these same scams.

Water is the culprit, not the other 22% oxygen and misc. gasses. Water expands 1100 times going from liquid to vapor. If you just compress normal air in the summer you are going to get some liquid droplets. Put those into a tire and as the tire warms some of that liquid turns to vapor and the pressure rises. But nitrogen expands exactly the same as dry air. Neither nitrogen nor dry air leaks any significant amount through a well maintained tire. By the time you have a leak it doesn't really matter what the gas leaking is, the hole is large enough for anything to leak.

I fill my tires in the winter when the air is dry. When summer comes I let a little out to maintain the recommended cold pressure. If I ever do need to add air to a tire I make sure I blow some air through the hose first to remove the easy to remove moisture. My pressure varies a couple of pounds from cold to warm the same way yours does but I have $18 dollars in my pocket who's extra weight slows me down so all other things being equal, you probably have the faster car.

I don't think clearing the line is good enough. I have a filter on my air compressor, but that too isn't good enough. I still get 5-6 lbs increased pressure on my Michelin ZPs - Goodyears were less - not bad enough to do anything about. An air dryer on my compressor would probably work as well as nitrogen I suppose.

Don't worry about it Bob, some will think everything is a scam, in this case it does what it is supposed to. Keeps the tires at a more uniform running condition with less fuel usage than if they were running at a low pressure. Not a lot of savings but it is a savings and with a few more tweaks it can be noticeable. Take a look at how they have made the cars as slippery as they can, aerodynamic outside mirrors, flush mounted windshields, door handles are now flush with the exterior, lower profiles, radial tires for less roll resistance, and even the lowly wiper arm is out of the wind stream.

If you get anything that is noticeable with the change please let us know.

agree thats what you said but what I said was: gaining an extra 5 lbs. on hot roads hasn't damaged a tire yet. least not on my car.... I also havent kept tires long enough for "corrosion" to be a problem...

I don't have a $60K car but if I did? I would still think nirtogen is "an over priced poser product :-)"

thats just my2¢

Feedback on Nitrogen in C5 Michelin Runflats.

I just finished a 1,000 mile trip to New England and back. It was 95 degrees on the highway coming back. The tires are 32 psig cold and went up to 36 psig at 70 mph. Only one lb difference with nitrogen over air. Mileage was the same at 70 mph cruising - 6 speed convertible.: 33.1 by the DIC and 32.1 by odometer miles divided by gallons in tank.

I think I will replenish the tires, if they go low, with air in the future.

Bob Drake

Dry nitrogen is for braked airplane tires that see wide temperature variations and it's good stuff to pre-charge hydraulic accumulators (to avoid rust).

We can bottom out an accumulator before we charge it with dry nitrogen.

How does the average tire dealer evacuate *all* the air and moisture from the tire casing before charging it with Nitrogen?

On the surface it sounds like "feel-good" snake oil.

-- pj

Worked in a Martin Oil station in the 60's. We were selling it then for ten cents a tire:)

Al

And gas was 20 cents a gallon. How time flies!

I remember 16.9 in St. Louis around 1964 and about two years later in Florida. Lowest I remember. Can very vividly remember the first time I put $5.00 worth of gas in a car. And it was a Pontiac with a 20+ gallon tank.

Hung around a gas station in St. Louis at Fyler and Kingshighway named Culp Oil. If you filled up, they gave you a case of Pepsi free. Gas was around 17 or 18 cents a gallon. And the Pepsi was in bottles in a wood case. Guess that just makes me old.

Speaking of prices, anyone remember when you could buy two White Castle hamburgers for 15 cents?

Al

Tks for the memory jog -- I'd forgotten the "free" soda pop. Signal Oil stations in SoCal did the same. IIRC it was Royal Crown Cola and NeHi Orange. Traded in the empties -- wooden case was stenciled with the station's name. Kept the customer coming back!

Not much margin to work with. Station operators usually got 3 cents for pumping (plus a small quarterly bonus when they topped their target.)

SoCal gas price was same as yours. min. wage was 95 cents and I was making the "big-bucks" at $1.15 per hour (hour's work = 6 gal of gas.) But, it took over a week's work to make a car payment. No White Castle sliders out here but we had the first Mikey-D at 12 cents a burger (bun, patty, three pickle slices and a squirt of ketchup and mustard--maybe some grated onion).

Lowest gas price I every paid: 4.8 cents a gallon, Midland, Texas Dec. 1961. Real 'vertical integration' -- oil wells, refinery & gas station all within a one-mile circle.

Was out in the boondocks last week. Non-electronic pump in a small gas station was physically limited to 2.99 per gallon. They had it set for $2.179 per gallon and had a large sign on the pump that said, "the price you pay will be double that shown on the pump."

I guess that when gas rises to six bucks they'll have to change their sign to "...three times..."

Works for me!

-- pj

I live 20 miles from Midland, TX in Slowdetha (Odessa, TX)

No, but we used to get a drink and a bag of 10 White Castle for a dollar in Toledo in 1959. By the time you slid the last one down it was time to change the oil in the bag. Then came McDonalds and the rest is diarrhea..........

Heck Yeah!!!

That drink at White Castle was Birch Beer!!!

Dad wrote:

Costco will fill your tires for free. They use nitrogen.