nitrogen inflation service for tires@ costco

Seems like a dumb discussion. They use nitrogen on race cars because the pressure change as it heats up is less than with air, resulting in a more consistant handling car. As for there being less moisture in nitrogen, well in almost 25 years of car ownership, I've not yet heard of a steel wheel rusting thru from the INSIDE...It's just a way for Costco to try and make more money.. As for me?..The compressor in my garage suits me just fine...

I had a flat during a long distance drive on a Sunday. I had 800km to drive and no tire place in sight that was open on a Sunday. I had no choice but to drive the 800km on a small spare tire.

The spare tire gets very hot when you drive more than 80km/hr and you can feel the tire dragging when it gets like this. I had to stop every hour cool the spare down and my maximum speed was 80km all the way. The 8hr drive ended up being a 16h drive by the time I got home.

Nitrogen may be a good idea if you have the smaller spare in your trunk. Less leaks and less overheating.

rubmeister100 said:

The spare (whether full sized or compact) should be completely flat after a few years if it were filled with air seeping through the rubber sidewalls according to the nitrogen peddlars!

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Hard to believe as atmospheric air is about 80% Nitrogen. There may be a slightly higher oxydation of the inner rubber with air than with Nitrogen, because the Oxygen (20%) in the air is under 2.5 times atmospheric pressure, and therefore chemically acts as if it is 50% Oxygen. But I have never heard of a tire problem from inside oxydization. Sunlight on the outside is much worse on the rubber.

I was at a Truck Fleet show earlier this year and sat in on a paper talking about Nitrogen inflation of truck tires. Sounded a bit like Hocus Pocus until some field data from Schneider National was presented. They substantiated a lot of the claims made by the people pushing the idea.
Personally, I think you would get similar benefits using a a compressed air dryer to prevent moisture and oil getting into the tire in the first place.

Check out http://www.tirelast.com/ for some info if interested.

Just my $0.02

Actually air is only 78.084% nitrogen, not 79%