Quote:
Originally Posted by Howlermonkey
Incorrect.
"Tire pressure" is the pressure differential between atmospheric and the pressure inside the tire.
The flow of the pure nitrogen from the higher energy state (inside the tire) through the porus tire to the lower energy state (outside the tire) ensures very little, if any oxygen contacts anything but the outside surface of the tire.
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You're talking to one of the tire-gods of the internet.
But if you don't believe him, maybe you'll believe the NHTSA:
http://www.nhtsa.gov/DOT/NHTSA/NRD/M...009/811094.pdf
Quote:
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Tires inflated with nitrogen of greater than about 97 percent purity actually gained oxygen during the 90-day test. This strongly indicates that the change in oxygen in the tire cavity is primarily a result of diffusion and not reactive consumption of the oxygen.
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Whereas tires inflated with regular air went from 20% oxygen to 15%...
The only way to keep new oxygen out of the tire is to have a certain percentage of oxygen such that the partial pressure of oxygen inside the tire is the same as the partial pressure of oxygen outside it.
The kicker:
Quote:
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The results for 23 tires subjected to hundreds of hours of laboratory roadwheel aging with air,50/50 N2/O2, or nitrogen inflation were inconclusive. Results did not indicate a correlation be*tween the inflation gas used and the time to failure in this particular roadwheel durability test
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They did successfully get a few tires to fail, but only by oven-aging them while inflated with oxygen-enriched (not normal) air.