Quote:
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.