Road trip coming up.

[Xist]

I guess that I had better purchase all of my tires at Costco, I do not know where else uses nitrogen.

Thank you for sharing that. Can you please explain the purging part? Thanks!

[sbestca]

Purging is "washing" the tire of oxygen with a fill and re-empty of nitrogen before putting the main charge in, to try to wash that 21% oxygen out of the initial air in the tire. I forget the exact numbers but nitrogen filling without purging puts the oxygen percentage down to about 5% and still significantly reduced the oxidation of the rubber in tires. In their testing they felt purging was good practice, but not essential.

Topping up the tires with air introduced significantly more oxygen (than not purging), although the study warned that voicing this fact could have customers inclined to drive on partially deflated tires rather than get them filled immediately with air. The actual material cost of nitrogen fill is so low that tires could be purged and re-filled for pennies at the next opportunity. The study had a brief mention of the costs of a dedicated air compressor vs a nitrogen tank and regulator, with the costs being very close.

The study did a comparison of tires used in the Phoenix AZ area with tires baked and pressurized in an oven to compare test methods. The main effects of oxidation is hardening and cracking of the rubber, increased leakage, reduced load capacity, reduced traction and increased incidence of catastrophic failure.

Sorry for getting off topic here, just an mind spill...

[Sven7]

Originally Posted by sbestca

Thinking about dry rotted tires, I work for Michelin and just read a study on nitrogen gas fills and its advantage to tire life. The gist of it was if you live in a hot area (southern Europe or US) and your tires will be used more than 2-4 years, nitrogen may preserve the rubber and cord life by preventing aging (oxidizing) of the rubber. For those of us up north or wearing out tires in a couple years, nitrogen fill has no advantage to rubber life.

Interestingly, they also studied purging the tires with nitrogen vs just filling with residual air and didn't find a significant advantage. Refilling with air added more oxygen, but running tires low is also a significant wear and heat factor.

Do you have the name of that study? Once in awhile we have people asking about N but most respond with "waste of money" or similar. I've never heard that angle on increasing tire life, and am a bit skeptical.

[Xist]

sbestca, thank you for clarifying. That makes sense. I had not had tires dry rot before, so maybe the previous owner did something wrong with these.

Wouldn't they dry rot faster on the outside? I do not know about oxidation, but the sun will get them!

The Mazda is still on Autotrader, but when I got out of class and asked the owner if I could see it tomorrow, he did not respond.

[Xist]

Reading about nitrogen in other threads leads me to think that a more scientific way to compare nitrogen and air would be to inflate the right side with one and the left with the other.

Sounds irritating, eh?

[Xist]

Well, I have my anatomy final tomorrow. The professor gave us a study guide, basically a three-page terms list. Hey, had I had those on my last two tests I would not have averaged a 64!

I studied for weeks for each of those...

So far I have one page of Things that I Already Know and then the guy asked if I could be up there within the hour. I had wanted to take the full study guide on the bus, with a two-hour commute, I really hoped to drive back. I did not see any reason to print what I had, so I just left, and since I always get lost in Phoenix, I drove seventy, instead of my usual fifty-five.

I got lost--a few times.

He was not there, his mother who only spoke Romanian let me look at the car, and then I needed to wait an hour for him to get off work so that I could test drive and take it to a mechanic, and that was at least another hour that I wished that I had something to study.

The $3,150 car required $4,300 in repairs, so I ended that experience as quickly as I could, and then spent at least an hour driving back.

I did pick up a 4x8 campaign sign that had come loose and was laying on the sidewalk. I almost hit another car because I could not see anything on the right, but fortunately, that driver did not want me to hit them, so we avoided that situation.

The next nearest car on Autotrader is a 1,998 Saturn SL2 for $3,150, with 101,000 miles.
There is a 2,003 PT Cruiser for $3,500 with 66,000 miles and a 1,990 Civic with 265,000 miles for $2,500.

So, grill block, ScanGauge, and wheel covers for my Forester?

[Xist]

My sister is in the process of trading in her 2,004 Kia Spectra. I thought that almost anything would be better than my Forester, but I am learning that just is not true.

The first time that I bought a Focus off of my father I drove my brother-in-law's Focus and it scared me. I had an extremely difficult time believing that it had anything in common with my car. It wore out, she bought a big SUV for her two sons, and he started driving her Kia.

Well, now it is falling apart. Five years newer, smaller frontal area, smaller engine, FWD, a manual transmission, and it is only rated 22/29.

I have enough drama in my life!

[Xist]

I finally ordered an UltraGauge. Yay.

[Xist]

A car just came up on Autotrader, a 2,002 Elantra.

I was feeling very lazy. I just had my last final today and want to go to bed and then make plans and stuff, but it seemed like a good car, priced right, and it got better mileage than other cars I had researched, including a 1991 Corolla at a dealer for $1,750.

Then I checked my bank account. I was only paid $160 this month. My dad wants me to drive up to work for him (hence this thread), otherwise I will not be paid much next month, either.

I figure that if I do find a nice car, before I would be able to sell my Forester I would also find a nice house, and would not have the money soon enough.

[Xist]

Yesterday I tried finding a repair manual and then went to the junkyard where I found both my power steering hose and the fender liner, but I could not remove the hose and they wanted $19.35 for the fender, which I can order new for twice that much. It was fairly worn out. I just need to figure out how to disconnect this: from hoses that run under the car, to the other side, back up, and to who knows where after that.

I had been having problems with my driver's door. I thought that it was just the remote battery, but it is actually in the door. I was just waiting for daylight to take it apart. It would really help to find a manual!

Somehow my mom thought that I was babysitting down here instead of working up there. It finally started snowing. I was supposed to build a fence!