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Originally Posted by sbestca
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.
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Hence the fallacy of nitrogen fills ...
After say 7 years, the INSIDES of a tyre will still look and feel brand new.
You can't keep sun and oxygen away from the outside though, so tyres start to dry-rot and crack.
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The actual material cost of nitrogen fill is so low that tires could be purged and re-filled for pennies at the next opportunity.
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Yet everybody way overcharges for N2 fills ...
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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,
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Those are UV effects, i.e. sunlight.
Next time your tyres are off, have a look inside.
Unless you've been running on a flat tyre too long, they'll be pristine.
The "good" rear tyre on my Peugeot 306 had 100.000 miles on it, back in the day. The outsides were badly cracked due to sun exposure. The inside was totally pristine and smooth.
It was replaced as the other rear tyre was bust - I didn't bother to swap it when it went flat , I just drove it to the tyre dealer.