Nitrogen in tires-dealer add-on $199.00-Really!

[SteveSRT8]

A water remover (dryer) for my compressor was cheap and effective, so nearly 80% nitrogen rich dry air is fine by me.

Stealerships are creative and will try anything, this seems to prove it...

 

[Shannow]

I think I need to market a clear bubble that you can put around your tyres to stop the oxygen from attacking the outside too.

First fill with N2, place bubble around tyre purge with N2 as well.

Tyre never sees O2 again.

Handling and traction might suffer a tad, but I'm sure that tyre preservers would sell to some.

 

[javacontour]

The addition of "the sucker sticker" is a good sign you should not be car shopping at that dealer.

If I see such stickers, I usually don't shop there. It's a sign they play games. I'm there to buy a car, not to play a game.

 

[Ken2]

Quote:
That reminds me of a "Winter to Summer Air Service" performed on your tires for 30 bucks. We once had a tech recommend the service to a rookie service advisor, which in turn sold it to the customer.
The service writers are paid by commission. The more "services" they sell to customers, the bigger their paycheck. No sales of services, they're looking for a new job.

Quote:
I don't buy the less oxidation theory. If there truly was oxidation going on inside the tire, the O2 would be converted to CO2 and the oxidation would stop anyway.
Only for carbon that is oxidized. The steel that is oxidized creates rust, the aluminum creates aluminum oxide, and whatever compounds are created by the oxidation of the components in the rubber tire liner. But, it hasn't been a problem for me in all these years.

At least Costco puts in the nitrogen and supplies the green valve caps for no extra charge--$15 per wheel for mount, balance, nitrogen, green caps, and everything else.

It took me too long to find where I was cheated by the car dealer the last time I bought a car. They always cheat us. I negotiated a pretty good discount on the price, plus there were some incentives from the maker. In my state a cash-back incentive is subject to sales tax, but other discounts are not. The sleazy finance guy charged me sales tax on the sticker price of the car, which was an overcharge of the tax. I suspect that they forwarded the correct tax to the state and pocketed the overage. The so-called finance manager is paid purely by commission on what extras he can sell and what he can cheat out of the customers.

 

[ecotourist]

Originally Posted By: Ken2
Only for carbon that is oxidized. The steel that is oxidized creates rust, the aluminum creates aluminum oxide, and whatever compounds are created by the oxidation of the components in the rubber tire liner. But, it hasn't been a problem for me in all these years.

I can agree with that. Either way it would remove the O2 (if it actually happened to any meaningful degree) - and stop the oxidation.

I've never had any problem with oxidation of the inside of a tire. To be clear, I just don't think it's a concern.

PS I do have those pretty green valve caps on my BMW - from Costco. I don't object to having N2 in my tires. I just won't pay extra for it.

 

[y_p_w]

Originally Posted By: Ken2
The steel that is oxidized creates rust, the aluminum creates aluminum oxide, and whatever compounds are created by the oxidation of the components in the rubber tire liner. But, it hasn't been a problem for me in all these years.

Aluminum oxidation is very different than the oxidation from most other metals. It's closer to chromium oxidation (the mechanism that makes stainless steel "stainless"). It will oxidize so quickly that it forms a protective coating of oxide that keeps out any further oxygen from reaching the metal. If the coating is scratched, it will reform quickly.

Quote:
http://www.aluminiumdesign.net/design-support/aluminium-corrosion-resistance/

Aluminium corrosion resistance is very good in untreated aluminium. Untreated aluminium has very good corrosion resistance in most environments. This is primarily because aluminium spontaneously forms a thin but effective oxide layer that prevents further oxidation.

Aluminium oxide is impermeable and, unlike the oxide layers on many other metals, it adheres strongly to the parent metal. If damaged mechanically, aluminium’s oxide layer repairs itself immediately.


Iron has a different corrosion issue. It corrodes relatively slowly, and as the corrosion layer forms, it tends to crack and then expose more bare metal to oxygen.

Of course there are environments where aluminum oxidation is an issue, such as aluminum hull boats, high temperature environments, or where there's galvanic corrosion due to dissimilar metals in close contact.

 

[BHopkins]

Originally Posted By: Roob
That's insane!!!!

I've always used nitrogen and I find it to be great for me, ymmv.
My initial cost was about $15-20 for all four tires, that includes lifetime fills. No more bothering with gas station air, I just go to my shop and they do the check and top up if needed. Usually I will see about a 1-2psi loss on one or two tires, sometimes none, over four-five months. I like it for its advantages/benefits.
If interested in those, see this link.

http://www.getnitrogen.org/deepscience/


That's about the most air pressure loss I see between 7500 mile tire rotations. And I use the free 78% blend. I used to check my tire pressure regularly. But I rarely check in any more, except when I'm going on a long road trip. They just don't lose much. And Discount checks them for me at each rotation.

 

[danthaman1980]

Originally Posted By: HardbodyLoyalist
Actually, no gas obeys the ideal gas law. They all deviate; it's just a matter of how much. pV = nRT is fine for back-of-the-envelope calculations; but for serious work, scientists and engineers use the van der Waals equation:

http://www.chem.ufl.edu/~itl/2045/lectures/lec_e.html

 

[weebl]

Not tire related, but stealership antics nonetheless that I'm sharing that just happened.

In January 2014, we bought a brand new Passat TDI. Canadian documentation in the owner's manual indicates an OCI of 15,000 km (just over 9,000 miles) / 1 year, not sure why they didn't align it to the 10,000 miles on the ones sold in the USA, but nothing I'm losing sleep over.

Fast-forward to July, and one day, the maintenance minder comes up telling me an oil change is due in 19 days. I go through the menus, and find that the stealership had reprogrammed the OCI to 8,000 km / 6 months. I call them, they admit as much it was probably done at PDI, and agreed to reset it.

When I do arrive for the appointment, the service writer tried to defend it, at first telling me that the environment in Germany is different than in Canada. I call her B S, and tell her that this is a North American specific model, and it is documented in the Canadian manual. She then backpedals and says the dealership recommends it. Of course they would recommend people forking over more money to them. I tell her I don't care what they recommend, I will follow what VW of Canada recommends. They change it back, the whole process taking seconds after they hook up a computer.

Part of me wants to report them to VW of Canada. The other part of me wants to use as a stick to hold over their heads in the future, should I have any warranty issues that I would want them to go to bat for me, that they may otherwise let VW deny in the hopes that I will then pay out of pocket at a higher rate than VW would pay for. And if that never arises, then I guess they get a freebie from me.

The B S stealerships pull is just amazing, and even more amazing that they have so many people fall for it.