I guess it was inevitable, as last night on the evening news I think I caught the tail end of a promotion for, you guessed it, nitrogen in car tires! The hooks appeared to be claim for 3 point something percent more gas mileage and some sort of better response to temperature (and of course they added the good ol’ boys and gals appeal that it was used by NASCAR etc.!) This may now have even been picked up by some major car service chain(s).
Kind of ironically (in light of what I read on this thread) a few years ago I was continually plagued by air leaks/flat tires in some also very old tubed rubber tires I still have on the front of a sizeable though many decades old tractor I regularly crank up and use not at any high speed but at a leisurely pace on my property. I was some tired of having to continually re-inflate these tires, and for various reasons I didn't want to try to dismount/fix/replace/remount these tires either. While I suspect this is quite a formal no-no in many fields and I would not recommend this for anyone else, I nevertheless clamped a garden hose end on a short air inflation hose and filled the tires with water (along with I guess whatever plain ol' nasty air was in same) under a little pressure with my garden hose. I believe it is not my imagination that I noticed a HUGE decrease in my required attention, at least thus far, to this matter, and I don't think the tires ever again went fully flat as they had before. Also while I guess my rims might eventually rust off, I kind of like the extra front weight when I put a heavy implement or lift on the back end. I guess it all depends on your vantage point/application, but it might now take a lot of convincing for me to now put nitrogen in these particular tires!
