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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
Posted - 05/16/2008 : 14:03:53 [Permalink]
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Coat Of Arms:
A scam is always a dishonest attempt to convince a person into parting with money. This usually involves fraudulent and deceptive tactics. |
If you are interested in where I am coming from on this, please see Miracle Thaw - The Bogus Miracle, an essay I wrote several years ago, the gist of it being that while the device may have lived up to some of the sellers claims, it was really no more than a gimmick and most people could get nearly or the same result without buying one of the trays.
As for the rest of your response, I am only talking about passenger vehicles. And we all seem to agree that checking your air pressure regularly and keeping your tires filled properly is of more value than filling them up with nitrogen. Unless I am mistaken, that was CU's verdict too.
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 05/16/2008 : 15:54:25 [Permalink]
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Just to throw a little shit in the game, there's this: While carbon dioxide has been getting lots of publicity in climate change, reactive forms of nitrogen are also building up in the environment, scientists warn.
"The public does not yet know much about nitrogen, but in many ways it is as big an issue as carbon, and due to the interactions of nitrogen and carbon, makes the challenge of providing food and energy to the world's peoples without harming the global environment a tremendous challenge," University of Virginia environmental sciences professor James Galloway said in a statement.
"We are accumulating reactive nitrogen in the environment at alarming rates, and this may prove to be as serious as putting carbon dioxide in the atmosphere," said Galloway, author of a paper and co-author of a second on the topic in Friday's issue of the journal Science.
While nitrogen alone is inert and harmless, reactive nitrogen compounds — such as ammonia — have been released by its use in nitrogen-based fertilizers and the large-scale burning of fossil fuels.
Various forms of nitrogen contribute to greenhouse warming, smog, haze, acid rain dead zones with little or no life along the coasts, and depletion of the ozone layer in the stratosphere, the researchers concluded.
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interesting, no?
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Coat Of Arms
Skeptic Friend
USA
58 Posts |
 Posted - 05/16/2008 : 17:08:02 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Kil
Coat Of Arms:
A scam is always a dishonest attempt to convince a person into parting with money. This usually involves fraudulent and deceptive tactics. |
If you are interested in where I am coming from on this, please see Miracle Thaw - The Bogus Miracle, an essay I wrote several years ago, the gist of it being that while the device may have lived up to some of the sellers claims, it was really no more than a gimmick and most people could get nearly or the same result without buying one of the trays.
As for the rest of your response, I am only talking about passenger vehicles. And we all seem to agree that checking your air pressure regularly and keeping your tires filled properly is of more value than filling them up with nitrogen. Unless I am mistaken, that was CU's verdict too. |
Kil, I read the article back in 2004. As a matter of fact I have read every article that has been written on SFN up to this date. The articles were a major factor in my decision to register to the forum. The articles are always written to conform with a consistent pattern to inform and educate people the importance of critical thinking and alternative explanations.I commend everyone who takes the time to write and explain extraordinary and questionable claims.
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Paul C. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 05/16/2008 : 17:38:16 [Permalink]
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filthy, the nitrogen they would be using in tire fills is probably inert nitrogen gas... 78% of the atmosphere. The greenhouse effect of nitrogenous byproducts comes mainly from N2O. Good old N2 is harmless unless you are breathing it under pressure.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 05/17/2008 : 02:34:53 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dude
filthy, the nitrogen they would be using in tire fills is probably inert nitrogen gas... 78% of the atmosphere. The greenhouse effect of nitrogenous byproducts comes mainly from N2O. Good old N2 is harmless unless you are breathing it under pressure.
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I know. I just thought I'd toss it out and see if it led anywhere. Evidently not.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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vikingne
New Member
3 Posts |
Posted - 08/10/2009 : 19:38:25 [Permalink]
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Guys,
I'm a new member but an older hand at the tire business. Here are a couple of points in favor of Nitrogen.
Tire pressure is REALLY IMPORTANT!!!
1. Tire pressure is the only maintenance recommended MONTHLY by EVERY tire manufacturer and EVERY car manufacturer. Note, more often than oil changes that are 3,000- 10,000 miles.
2. The Federal Government has mandated that every 2010 model car be equipped with an electronic tire pressure monitor system (TPMS).
3. If you were to own a tire shop, (I did for years) you would know that the number one reason for tire failure, by far, is under inflation. Under-inflation costs car owners tons of money. Before you worry about $30-50 for nitrogen, think about tires at over $100 a piece. How many car owners get anything close to the 50,000-70,000 miles they should get from their tires? Not many. Of course I would agree that you can probably maintain your tire pressure yourself by checking it regularly and topping it off when necessary, but realistically, who checks their tire pressure monthly?
4. Under inflation causes safety problems (think about the Ford Explorer), it reduces gas mileage (President Obama cited that we could save more oil by properly inflating tires than we could gain by drilling offshore), and as I stated earlier, it is the number one cause of premature tire wear.
5. Bridgestone, Firestone, Goodyear, Dunlop, Kelly, Michelin, BF Goodrich, Uniroyal and other tire companies all support the use of Nitrogen in their tires. All cite Nitrogen's better ability to maintain tire pressure. None of them to my knowledge has any stake in the Nitrogen business.
Nitrogen isn't about what is in your tires (as someone else stated, regular air is 78% Nitrogen). Its about what is NOT in your tires, most importantly, Water and Oxygen.
a. Water exists in the air in the form of humidity. When air is run through an air compressor, the water is concentrated in the air. Because compressing the air also makes it hot, it holds most of this moisture in vapor form. When you fill your tires with this heated compressed air, you also fill your tires with the water vapor. As the air cools inside your tires, the water condenses. Water as a vapor takes up a lot more space than water as a liquid. As the water turns from a vapor to a liquid the tire pressure then drops. When you drive on hot roads and your under inflated tires create extra friction, they heat up, turning the water back to vapor, your tire pressure goes up. A change in temperature of 10 degrees will usually create a change in tire pressure of approx 2%. It is not uncommon to see temperature changes in excess of 50 degrees creating over 10% variances in tire pressure.
b. While you may be pretty sure that your tires are going to wear out before they oxidize inside, that is often not the case. Again, my experience as a tire shop owner showed me internally oxidized tires are a common occurrence. The rubber gets hard and is no longer pliable. They have a powdery white film. I don't know how much is bad, but I can tell you, they sure aren't "like new". Without oxygen, there is no oxidation. Pretty simple.
I'm as skeptical as the next guy, I'm just a believer in this one. I'm drinking the kool-aid.
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 08/10/2009 : 22:46:45 [Permalink]
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I remember reading Robert Heinlein's juvenile novel, Have Spacesuit, Will Travel when I was a kid. A youngster had bought a surplus spacesuit, and was renovating it. In Heinlein's fictional future, spacesuits were filled with an oxygen-helium mixture. Much was made of how hard it is to contain helium, and of the difficulty the kid had in making sure the seals and joints of the spacesuit kept the gas inside.
It turns out that helium has the smallest molecules of any normal gas (gaseous hydrogen is normally in a H2 molecular state). The tiny (monatomic) helium molecules would escape through the tiniest crevices, and even blow right through some "solid" materials because of those materials' looser molecular structures. (Just think of how quickly helium-filled balloons deflate. The helium escapes right through the latex itself.) Not that anyone's suggesting the use of helium filled tires, but I like diversions sometimes. Sorry.
Both oxygen and nitrogen gas are normally two-atom (O2 and N2) molecules. Fairly big molecules, that won't leak as crazy-fast as helium. Both are cheap an plentiful, but oxygen is, well, an oxidizer. To me, it does make sense to use nitrogen to inflate tires. But, unless one is an aircraft pilot or a race driver, only if it's really cheap to do so.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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vikingne
New Member
3 Posts |
Posted - 08/11/2009 : 05:15:12 [Permalink]
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Getting the Nitrogen into the tire is accomplished by some variation on the following procedure.
1. Let the air out of the tire.
2. refill tire with nitrogen.
3. let air/nitrogen mix out of tire again.
4. refill with nitrogen again.
5. Check purity with test instrument. Nitrogen concentration should be 95-98%.
6. Repeat proceedure until purity reaches 95-98%. Sometimes a third purge and refill is required.
One reason for a charge for Nitrogen is the cost of equipment for seperating the Nitrogen out of the air. The equipment generally costs $7,000-10,000. Depending on how fast and how much Nitrogen you need to produce.
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9687 Posts |
Posted - 08/11/2009 : 06:58:44 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by vikingne
1. Tire pressure is the only maintenance recommended MONTHLY by EVERY tire manufacturer and EVERY car manufacturer. Note, more often than oil changes that are 3,000- 10,000 miles. |
That's not an argument for pure nitrogen in the tyres. It's an argument for frequent checks and maintenance.
2. The Federal Government has mandated that every 2010 model car be equipped with an electronic tire pressure monitor system (TPMS). |
That's not an argument for pure nitrogen in the tyres, unless you can also prove that this equipment does not work with ordinary air in the tyre.
3. If you were to own a tire shop, (I did for years) you would know that the number one reason for tire failure, by far, is under inflation. <snip> Of course I would agree that you can probably maintain your tire pressure yourself by checking it regularly and topping it off when necessary, but realistically, who checks their tire pressure monthly? |
That's not an argument for pure nitrogen in the tyres, unless you can also prove that pure nitrogen keeps the tyre inflated longer than ordinary air.
5. Bridgestone, Firestone, Goodyear, Dunlop, Kelly, Michelin, BF Goodrich, Uniroyal and other tire companies all support the use of Nitrogen in their tires. All cite Nitrogen's better ability to maintain tire pressure. None of them to my knowledge has any stake in the Nitrogen business. |
Until I can read properly conducted studies that support this, I will remain skeptical to this assertion. How does a tyre lose it's oxygen content? It's not simply leaking out, because if oxygen does, then so does nitrogen.
a. Water exists in the air in the form of humidity. When air is run through an air compressor, the water is concentrated in the air. |
That does not ring true with my knowledge of physics. Would you care to explain to me in detail how the water concentration in an air-mix increase if you do not separate the air from the water?
If you have 1 gram of water in 1kg of air, you still have 1g of water after you've compressed the air to 10Bar pressure.
Because compressing the air also makes it hot, it holds most of this moisture in vapor form. |
All compressed air I've ever seen which have been used to fill tyres comes from pressurised tanks that have cooled down to ambient temperature. Including the fill-ups I've done myself.
| When you fill your tires with this heated compressed air, you also fill your tires with the water vapor. As the air cools inside your tires, the water condenses. |
That mass of air you initially compressed held water according to the humidity at time immediately before compressing it. When the compressed air cools down to ambient temperature inside the tyre, water will not condense if the absolute humidity is below the dew point, which it most probably wasn't unless the compressor was operated in heavy fog or rain-fall, or unless the tyre becomes significantly cooler than the air was before being compressed in the first place. Humidity and water vapour in air (compressed or not) is dependent on the air's mass, not it's volume.
| Water as a vapor takes up a lot more space than water as a liquid. As the water turns from a vapor to a liquid the tire pressure then drops. When you drive on hot roads and your under inflated tires create extra friction, they heat up, turning the water back to vapor, your tire pressure goes up. |
As the tyre-pressure builds up, the extra friction is reduced since the tyre is no longer under-inflated. It reaches an equilibrium, where the tyre is slightly warmer than a properly filled tyre. An argument can be made that this increased temperature has a negative impact on the tyre's life expectancy.
| A change in temperature of 10 degrees will usually create a change in tire pressure of approx 2%. It is not uncommon to see temperature changes in excess of 50 degrees creating over 10% variances in tire pressure. |
With a temperature change of 50K you'll have a pressure change over 15%. Though I'm skeptical you'll have such high temperature differences while driving, unless we're talking about Formula 1 or road-racing. It'd be interesting to know for sure though.
b. While you may be pretty sure that your tires are going to wear out before they oxidize inside, that is often not the case. Again, my experience as a tire shop owner showed me internally oxidized tires are a common occurrence. The rubber gets hard and is no longer pliable. They have a powdery white film. I don't know how much is bad, but I can tell you, they sure aren't "like new". Without oxygen, there is no oxidation. Pretty simple. |
I'm not in a position to dispute you regarding the origin of the white powdery film, or its composition, I'm still skeptical that the powder signifies more than that some oxidisation has taken place. The tyre is built out of many layers of rubber, plastic and steel mesh, and I can't see how a tyre would be compromised by some oxidisation that the tyre would/should have been designed to withstand in the first place.
The partial oxygen pressure inside a pressurised tyre will of course speed up the oxidisation process, up to probably three times that of the outside of the tyre. But we're talking about many years now. The cracks in the rubber on the outside of old tyres are not because of oxidisation, but because solvants, oil-products, in the rubber evaporates and makes the rubber dry out.
I'm as skeptical as the next guy, I'm just a believer in this one. I'm drinking the kool-aid.
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Being a believer intimately suggests disregard of contrary evidence or facts. I, myself prefer to be open to a change of opinion, should someone show evidence that I'm wrong. Therefore I try to not hold a grudge against anyone who proves me wrong. Instead i welcome the opportunity to learn more.
Edited to correct spelling. |
Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
| Edited by - Dr. Mabuse on 08/11/2009 10:53:16 |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 08/11/2009 : 08:50:47 [Permalink]
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I don't know about you guys, but I see a future for this amazing stuff. I'm going to hoard nitrogen. From here on, I'm keeping my apartment filled to the ceiling mostly with nitrogen.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 08/11/2009 : 09:42:33 [Permalink]
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Here is Consumer Union's take:
Consumer Reports wanted to find out if nitrogen is worth the price, so we purchased a Nitrogen Inflation System and checked out how well the inflation held up over a one year period. We evaluated pairs of 31 tire models of H- and V-speed rated, all-season tires used in our tread wear test from 2006. We filled one tire per model with air and the other with nitrogen. The test was quite simple: fill and set the inflation pressure at room temperature to 30 psi (pounds per square inch); set the tire outdoors for one year; and then recheck the inflation pressure at room temperature after a one year period.
The tires were filled and deflated three times with nitrogen to purge the air out of the tire cavity. We also used an oxygen analyzer to be sure we had 95-percent nitrogen purity in the tire--the claimed purity limit of our nitrogen system, which generates nitrogen gas from ambient air.
The test started on September 20, 2006 and the final measurements were taken on September 20, 2007. 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.
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astropin
SFN Regular
USA
970 Posts |
Posted - 08/11/2009 : 10:48:36 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by HalfMooner
I don't know about you guys, but I see a future for this amazing stuff. I'm going to hoard nitrogen. From here on, I'm keeping my apartment filled to the ceiling mostly with nitrogen.
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You're funny. |
I would rather face a cold reality than delude myself with comforting fantasies.
You are free to believe what you want to believe and I am free to ridicule you for it.
Atheism:
The result of an unbiased and rational search for the truth.
Infinitus est numerus stultorum |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9687 Posts |
Posted - 08/11/2009 : 10:51:02 [Permalink]
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Oh, yeah, I just realised I missed one:
Originally posted by vikingne
4. Under inflation causes safety problems (think about the Ford Explorer), it reduces gas mileage (President Obama cited that we could save more oil by properly inflating tires than we could gain by drilling offshore), and as I stated earlier, it is the number one cause of premature tire wear.
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That's not an argument for pure nitrogen in the tyres, it's an argument against neglecting to check the tyre-pressure every once in a while.
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Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
| Edited by - Dr. Mabuse on 08/11/2009 10:58:11 |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 08/11/2009 : 13:46:27 [Permalink]
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Cecil Adams wrote this up in 2007:Does nitrogen make any practical difference? You couldn't prove it by me. I found no scientific tests showing that nitrogen-filled tires stayed inflated longer than average under normal conditions. A car-buff buddy was sure it worked but conceded he had only anecdotal evidence that it did.
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Overall, filling up with nitrogen won't hurt and may provide some minimal benefit. Is it worth it? If you go to some place like Costco that does it for free with new tires, sure, why not? Elsewhere, though, I've seen prices quoted as high as $10 per tire, which is way more than I'd pay. Rather than shell out for nitrogen, you'd be better off just checking and adjusting your tire pressure regularly, something the NHTSA says less than 60 percent of U.S. motorists actually do. And Tom and Ray took it on in 1997(!)Seriously, you can keep your tire pressure constant enough for street and highway driving by simply checking it periodically. Oh, wait, I think I see where the real scam is here...Originally posted by vikingne
The equipment generally costs $7,000-10,000. |
A gallon of high-purity liquid Nitrogen was running about $2.75 in 1998, so call it $5 in today's economy. Since Nitrogen expands by a factor of 645 going from liquid to gas, a single gallon of liquid Nitrogen could be used to fill about 16 tires doing three fills (and two purges). So at four cars per gallon, one would have to change the tires on 5,600 to 8,000 cars before reaching the break-even point between the investment of on-site Nitrogen production and buying the liquified gas in bulk from a welding supply company. From what I've seen at my local tire shops, they might do 20 cars on a good day, so it'd take 280-400 work days (47-67 calendar weeks) for the costs to be equal, a significant investment that depends on every customer wanting and paying for Nitrofill.
Of course, if they're gouging the customers at $10 per tire for the Nitrogen (32 times what it costs, and just shameful if Costco does it free), they could break even much faster. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Nitrofill your car tires
