Fraud - yeah, I agree. I think they can get out of it, by providing their pseudo-science explanations and claiming that they honestly believe their own claims. I just wanted to squash the notion that "if this was a scam, then they wouldn't be in business, it would be on the news, and they would get taken down.. so they must be telling the truth. etc, etc."

Ripoff - yeah, I agree, it's a ripoff.

 

ugh geez here we go again......

 

Yeah I know! Now all we need is for all the naysayers that chimed in the last time to start spewing their poison again! I thought this thread would have died the last time the site crashed! Although I did get to see the inside of the rims and the wheels had zero corrosion on them right out to the very edge of the bead seats when I changed the tires after 3 years of time! They looked new after 42,000 miles! Must be the advantage of it being a moisture free gas. When they put the tires back on, they re-filled them with nitrogen for free!

 

rust? with aluminum wheels?? umm no

 

moisture free is the key. Not the nitrogen. All you need is moisture filter on the air compressor and the results will be the same.

 

Darn naysayers and their book-learnin', scientific method, and critical thought. No place for that here! They belong in camaro5!


BTW, I have a set of stock wheels with 25k miles on them. I'm about to have my summer tires mounted next week.. I'll ask my friend who is mounting them to take a picture of the rim interior. I think that should help dispell some myths.

 

Ah...memories
My original spare from my 1976 Oldsmobile comes to mind.
When I replaced it in 1993 after 17 years, no rust anywhere.
WOW, must be magic. They didn't have nitro back then.

 

True! I'm not argueing that point because you're right. Moisture is the critical issue. I find it interesting some manufacturers may be opting for its use.

 

Wouldn't having nitrogen really only help the air exantion due to heat build up from higher speeds ? Where as I was told that nitrogen wouldn't expand, so on a race track it would be good but every day to day driving you wouldn't really benifit from it's use in tires.

 

Lack of moisture helps reduce expansion due to heat build up.

 

That's what she said!

 

This, the caveat being all gases expand at the same rate.

 

So the larger increase in pressure in humid air would be due to the water changing phase as the temperature increases?

 

Not sure what this means.. Phase change? Do you mean that water is turning into steam or ice in the tire?

 

I wonder what the Delorean used in "Back To The Future" now there were some serious wheels that must have generated some heat.

 

I mean changing between liquid<->vapour(gas).

 

double post.

 

That'd be it, scrub all the moisture out of the gas filling the tire and its pretty much the same no matter what you use.

Y'know, that makes me wonder if folks in the mid west and points dryer get better life out of thier tires since humidity isn't a big problem (heat aside).

In my AO a few steps have to be taken to get reasonably dry air. The intake for the compressor has to be mounted away from the compressor box since the enclosed area tends to be humid, the tank needs to bo continuously drained, and (as Red Pony mentioned some time back) a refrigirated dryer also needs to be employed along with air water seperators and an intelligently designed pipe network (so that the heavier water falls out of suspension and collects into the seperators or drains).

How bad is it in SE Va?, I've ssen an 80 gallon compressor almost completely fill with water in about six or seven months when it was operated daily (on an 8 hour day it probalby ran continously for 4 or 5 of those hours when dry and more often obviously as it filled with water).

Also when the tire is mounted, it needs to be purged or there may be enough moisture in the tire to negate the effects of the filed dry gas.

 

Nitrogen's benefit in tires is minimal. Air is already 78% nitrogen.

Look at the consumer reports 1 year test...The Nitrogen actually DID lose less pressure...so that is a very small benefit. Unfortunately for Nitrogen, it is the ONLY benefit on a car...because as stated before in a tire filled with air vs. a tire filled with nitrogen, the ride quality, handling, and wear will be IDENTICAL and pressure change with temperature increase and decrease will be ALMOST identical, with a very slight advantage in stability to Nitrogen.

I fly jets for a living...and yes, my tires are filled with Nitrogen on the jets, but it is also -40
degrees at cruise altitude (C or F...they are the same at -40)...but that is because moisture and cold temps are a bad combo...we want the air dry and thus nitrogen is used.

But in a car...it is REAL close to being snake oil. IS there an advantage? Yes...but it is VERY slight. The ONLY two "advantages" would be a slightly slower pressure loss over time vs. air...and a virtually negligible decrease in pressure swing with a change in temperature.

Worth $50-$75? To the car dealer or tire salesman, oh yeah baby...all that and more! But to the consumer? Not in my opinion...but if you have unlimited funds, sure, go for it. Consumer reports says it is not worth it, and so do my engineer buddies.

CR's nitrogen vs. air test in 31 different tires for one year...click on the green chart:

http://blogs.consumerreports.org/car...nitrogen-.html

CR's summary:

The results show nitrogen does reduce pressure loss over time, but the reduction is only a 1.3 psi difference from air-filled tires. The average loss of air-filled tires was just 3.5 psi from the initial 30 pressure setting. Nitrogen-filled tires lost an average of 2.2 psi from the initial 30 psi setting. More important, all tires lost air pressure regardless of the inflation medium, so consumers should check their tires' air pressure routinely. No evaluation was done to assess the aging claim.

Bottom line: Overall, consumers can use nitrogen and might enjoy the slight improvement in air retention provided, but it's not a substitute for regular inflation checks.

 

Y'know I wonder what effect nitrogen might have multiplied across the entire US fleet? Individually its probably like using 5W20 weight oil, but when your talking tens of thousands of vehicles there might be appreciable gains made?

IMO a nitrogen generator is a better way to go, its just a coalescing filter with a coupla oil and water prefilters. They aren't to expensive and other than routine replacement of the prefilters the operating cost boil down to air compressor operation. No need to buy bottled nitrogen and no reason to charge for it.

If changing over the entire US fleet to nitrogen could produce a 2 or 3% improvment fuel consumption, I'd say it would be worth it. The caveat being either no charge or charging the same as using regular air - unfortantely its a profitable venture and there is no greater truism in America than americans are only motivated to do the right thing if there is profit involved.

Then again I could see the **** storm now if the feds mandated nitrogen instead of air, folks ***** to high heaven already about TPMS sensors on vehicles, mandated nitrogen would probably send them into open revolt.