Hollywood Zoom

COSTCO offers it FREE to it's customers just tell them that you want to refill your tires with nitrogen. For all the people who are just popping off at the mouth without trying it -Attention: THIS IS NOT A SALES PITCH - I DID IT AND FEEL AND HEAR THE DIFFERENCE AND DID SO IMMEDIATELY UPON CHANGING OVER AS DID OTHERS WHO RODE IN MY CAR BEFORE THE CHANGE AND NOW AFTER - THIS IS NOT SPECULATION - YOU CAN'T DISPUTE FACTS THAT ARE VERIFIED BY MORE THAN ONE PERSON WITH NO BIAS. I WAS SKEPTICAL MYSELF UNTIL NOW -2ND DAY OF BEING CONVERTED- do a google search on the matter and find out for yourself - apparently NASCAR knows what they're doing - go argue with them!

Gord96BRG

There's one reason, and one reason only, why racers use nitrogen - consistent pressure gain with temperature change. Rotamotion and PUR NRG discussed this - since nitrogen is "dry" (ie no water vapour content), the engineers can predict exactly what the tire pressure will be for expected tire temperatures on track. With air, the tire pressure rate of change due to temperature will vary depending on the humidity content. So if you want your tire on track at 220F to be at 32.3 psi, what do you set your cold pressure to? With nitrogen, you can say confidently, 27.6 psi. With air, you say "it depends" - it could be 27.6 with dry air, or 26.2 psi with humid air. That's not good enough for racing purposes!

On the street, however - it makes no difference, and there's absolutely no performance benefit to using nitrogen.

Regards,
Gordon

Gomez

NRG, it's not my thread....Hollywood Zoom talked about Googling!.

Okay, I have made no statement with regards to the cars ride or the sound produced by tyres filled with nitrogen (although I find it hard to grasp just how that may occur given all that has happened is you have removed the 20% component of oxygen and a little moisture). All I have stated is that there will be no "amazing performance boost" (read, handling/cornering improvement) using nitrogen. The gain is obtained when people who do not check their tyre pressures as often as they should, benefit from nitrogen's ability to maintain the correct pressure for longer. As they say, 35psi is 35psi!

Nascar and other professional race teams use it for the reasons that PUR NRG stated in his post. These reasons are not all that relevant for a road car application. You will not generate the same amount of thermal expansion as a Nascar/F1 racer while you're cruisin' on Hollywood Blvd!

Gomez.

PUR NRG

Sorry Gomez for this mistaken attribution.

To reiterate: main benefits of nitrogen fills are reduced gas diffusion and no moisture content. Both benefits are of marginal use for daily drivers. Most likely source of Hollywood Zoom's perceived benefits (noise and ride) come from new tires.

I tend to doubt Costco uses a full purge machine to make sure there's only nitrogen in the tire. More likely they mount the tire (15 PSI ambient air) and pressurize with nitrogen. Going to Costo and asking them to top off tires with nitrogen isn't going to do much.

Here's a challenge for you Hollywood Zoom: go to any gas station, empty the air out of your tires and fill with station air. Repeat once more to make sure most of the nitrogen is flushed out. Then tell me the road noise and handling is significantly different than when you had nitrogen in the tires. I seriously doubt you'll notice any difference.

NavyDood

I'll second this statement. Main benefits... 100% water free and its stabile at different temperatures. It does not expand and contract like air from an air compressor.

Here's a good link

Hollywood Zoom

Pur Nrg - I can appreciate you guys getting all technical and stuff but the KISS principle wins the day. At the cost of being FREE don't knock it till you've tried it - it's a full refill meaning they put the car up on the lift deflate all air from tires then reinflate with nitrogen - I never said anything about topping the air in tires off with NITROGEN.
I don't know about you guys but I have worked in automotive related field for more than 12 years and the smooth ride and handling has always played a part in contributing to overall performance.
You can't beat most bang for the Buck when it's free and someone will even do it for you! It's America Baby, take the free ride for a change - they don't come by too often!

Jeffjett

You Rang !!! LMAO :D

Gomez

Ahh, Cara Mia!

Rob Tomlin

I was wondering just how far down this thread I was going to have to read before someone actually cleared this up! I had to get pretty far!

But this is right. Well done Gordon.

Ole Spiff

Well with all due respect to the critics and scoffers, there may in fact be some benefit in areas where the temperatures get above 100, which means temps on the pavement are 130 degrees plus. The controlled expansion of straight nitrogen just might have some benefits. Where I live the temps get over 100 in the shade; you can imagine what the street surface temps are. For those of us who spend way too much time commuting on freeways, less expansion of air could in fact "improve" the ride because the tire pressures don't increase as much. This might make it a bit quieter too.

If in fact Costco does this for free, I'm going to go down and check it out. Certainly can't hurt. I'll let the forum know if they do or not, and if so, what effects if any it actually has.

mezzer

I could have swore tires was spelled with an "i" not a "y". Thats all I have.

Gomez

Thanks for your input Mr Speelcheckar!
Proper english grammar would have dictated the use of the word, "sworn".

Your Webster's dictionary would spell the word "tyre", tire. I venture to say most other parts of the english speaking world would spell the word the way I spell it. Actually, the foot thick (30cm!) circa 1960 Webster's I have here has both spellings!

Gomez.

zoom44

hey i have that dictionary!!

mezzer

Learn to take a joke mate!

mezzer

That's one good looking dictionary by the way.

Gomez

No Wukkers!

newtlicious

Hollywood Zoom- YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!. You remind me of this guy named Brandon I used to know. Brandon ran his mustang into a phone pole and it crunched up the hood in the front making another opening above the grill. His car stayed that way for months and finally I asked when he was going to get it fixed. He said he was going to leave it that way because now it had ram-air and it was noticably faster. Maybe he had nitrogen tires too! And a supercharged paint job, and a nitrous filled steering wheel, and flamethrower spark plugs.

Spazm

I fill my tires with NOS. Excuse me...

NaWs y0.

But seriously, I'm a lazy a-hole, I may just try the nitrogen thing at Costco next time I go.

Razz1

the reason why Leno uses it, is because he has a fleet of cars and doesn't have to fill the tires up everytime he want to take one out for a ride.

Gee anyone knows that who stores there car. My last sports got 9000 mile on it in 2 years.

The Rx8 sits in the garage all the time too. Cement gets cold and dfaltes the tires all the time. I have to refill my tires all the time bercause it is in storage.

Not something you want to do when your rich and you just want to pop into a vehicle and go for a spin.

Ummm which of my 4 vehicles do I want to drive today?

DARKMAZ8

I know that racecars use it but nitrogen is a lot cheaper nowadays and should be availiable at some gas stations soon.

Genesis

When I had my AD07's installed with Volk LE37's the dealer topped up with N2....perfect. Haven't needed to go back for another top up yet, but will do when the time calls

KYLiquid

with my miata i would get the cars alignment and ride hight dialed in and get the car corner weighted at a shop. he would alwasy highspeed balance the tires and fill them with nitrogen. he also let me sit in the car when we adjusted everything, a lot of shops wont let you sit in the car on the lift....

the question : is it really worth it? on a street car.....no not really (IMO) but if you track the car a lot, or its a race only car, sure why not.

Jedi54

iTrader: (7)

I purchased new tires from Costco recently (for my truck) and they now only use Nitrogen to fill them.

Not sure where to go if I need to top off the tires a bit but nice to see that Costco has made the switch.

PUR NRG

Simply filling/topping off the tire with nitrogen is a half-assed job since there is still some moisture in the ambient air inside the tire to begin with. (If you assume 15 PSI ambient, a 30 PSI fill means you still have half the moisture to contend with.) You really need to flush the tire air to get the full benefit of a nitrogen fill.
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midlife crisis

so your tire gauge reads 15 PSI all the time???