What is "Nitrogen Inflation?"

Don't forget my favorite scam among paint sealants:

Teflon.

I just love that one.

------------------------------------------------ The DNC - Building a bridge to the 20th Century.

Not exactly, while is is true that it does tend to leak less for reasons that I am not completely sure of, the reason, it is used is because it does not expand much when heated and Nitrogen cannot hold any humidity in it which also make it more stabile as tempature increases too because there is no water vapor to heat and expand too.

It is also used in the tires of most jet fighters and in the space shuttle tires as well because of its tempature stabilty.

Here is a comment to muddy the waters on this further. Tires are design for a cold inflation pressure because they know the pressure can increase 10 to 15% or more when hot. As a tire rolls it flexs and builds heat, as it heats up the pressure rises and the the flexing decreases some and so does rolling resitance because tires are a bit harder. With pure nitrogen, they make run hotter because they will not get as hard as they warm up. I worked around aircraft for many years and there was 2 reason they used it in fighters and such. One it that smallteres on a fighter can have 200 to 300psi or more in them and they want to limit expandsion and the other is that when you get a hot brake on a fighter (and it does happen as I have seen the whole brake assembly glow red) you do not want a burst of oxygen it tire ruptures with leaking hot brake fluid that can fan a fire. I have seen them pull fighters over blowout boards (basically panels with spikes in them) to rupture tires in a controlled manor before they burst when brakes are cooked. It used to be failrly common with F4?s and F16?s had some issues too early on in developement.

The Auto Club tested Nitrogen and found no advantage for normal street use.

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SnoMan wrote: snip

Also large aircraft...not for pressure stability but for fire safety...can you imagine a brake fire on takeoff where the wheels are tucked up into the wheel-well and the doors closed then a tire (or two or four) bursting from the heat of a brake fire?...game over...bigtime...

(as one emergency instruction in our 'dash one' said (about a wing fire) "Clasp hands and land immediately"... :)

I had that done to my 1980 Corolla SR-5 coupe. Did it work? How the hell do I know? I waxed the damn thing every three months for 6 years!!!

Back then it was $199, a lot for 1980. Now it is $399. Can you possibly gues who is the main 'installer' of this miracle paint treatment at my place of employment?

I just did my 1985 Celica. Just to see how long it lasts. It is advertised for 5 years. But I don't think the Celica will last that long!!

AH! I was wondering why I saw a car today with bright green valve caps!

Yeah! I think I'll try Helium! Just think of the savings in unsprung weight!!!