Free Air is Inferior

[paragon2]

The old saying is "you get what you pay for". The next time you pull into a gas station to pump up a tire, pass up the "free air". Go to a station that charges a half buck or more to get your air. The price is right on the free air, but the air is poor quality air that will shorten the life of your tires. If you must use the free air in an emergency, be sure to remove and replace it as soon as possible afterwards. It's simply not quality air and should not be used for any length of driving. The rule of thumb is to find the station that charges the highest price for their air and go there. The more it costs, the better the air quality.

This important message brought to you by "The National Air Institute" (NAI) Washington DC.

[willshak]

on 6/25/2007 2:20 PM [e-mail] said the following:

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Good one!

[gfretwell]

The guy who sold me my monster oxygen free speaker cables with the gold ends said you should only use argon in your tires ;-)

[Clark]

[e-mail] wrote in news: [e-mail]:

How far north do you live? Argon is only good above the 45th parallel.

[Mark Sparge]

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Probably giving away my age with this one, but does anybody else remember the Pfister Gas Station chains advertising "pink" air?

Mark

[Edwin Pawlowski]

I know you said it in jest, but a lot of people are being sold on nitrogen in their tires. Stations are getting $5 a tire. They use nitrogen in race cars and aircraft where it has some benefits, so naturally, someone came up with the idea of selling it to the gullible public as a real value. .

[Chuck (in SC)]

I'm a airline pilot and I used to fly for a race team.. The only advantages to nitrogen is no Oxy present, dry (easy to have dry air too.. ) THE reason it's used is compressed cylinder of Nitrogen, when regulated down to usable pressures, goes a LOOOOONG way. If you're in pit road,, and using air tools, no compressor is needed. In Lear jets, a volleyball size/shaped tank at 1700 lbs is used to "blow" the gear down in an emergency and for emergency braking. If the same cubic ft of dry air could be stored in the same size tank.. that would be used. Also.. if you're going to pressurize something that has to be pressurized higher than air compressor system will go safely, you grab the nitrogen tank... Chuck

[Stormin Mormon]

Carbon dioxide would do much of that kind of thing. As a liquified gas, it would seem like it would have more capacity.

[Frank]

Both O2 and N2 are near enough perfect gases and you can compress the same volume. The oxygen would weigh slightly more for the same volume because of higher molecular weight. Oxygen under high pressure does present flammability problems in that it should not contact organic materials when under high pressure. Nitrogen should also be kinder to rubber since oxidation is the major degradation pathway. Frank

[gfretwell]

In fact GM used to have a tiny CO2 tank in the trunk to inflate the spare in the 70s when the compact, deflated spare was what you got in a compact car. It was about an inch bigger than the bare rim deflated. The problem was what do you do with the bad tire you replaced. It would not fit back in the tiny hole the spare was in.

[mm]

They make argon at the Argonne National Laboratories, near Chicago. Argonne is a trade name.

>

[mm]

That's because they use imported Chinese air, and it's low quality. Partly because of all the air pollution in parts of China.

Pay the 50 cents and get real American air.

BTW, Chinese air quickly degrades into its component parts, and that's another problem.

[Karl S]

They use nitrogen in race tires because they know exactly how much it will expand as the tire heats up.

[Karl S]

And never drink free water out of fountains. Always buy the expensive bottled stuff.

[mm]

I was in Evian, France once. I was just driving through but made a point to get out of the car and drink from the water fountain. I presume it was Evian water.

I've heard that bottled water costs between 200 times and 200,000 times what tap water costs.

I've also driven through Mariananske Lasne (Marianbad). I guess we had parked on the back side, away from the main entrance. We got out and quickly came across saw the springhouse where everyone was filling their cups from the pipe there. The cups looked like giant Meerschaum pipes, in that they were china and had a china tube going to the bottom of the cup, so people could drink and look straight ahead at the same time, while walking.

Some 8-year old kid showed us how we could go 20 feet away and get the same water straight from the stream for free, so we emptied our canteens and filled it with "health water", my name for it. I was 5 miles awaly before I took my first drink, and it was terrrible, and I was glad I hadn't paid for it. I had no other source of water for probably an hour. Commmunist Czechoslovakia wasn't full of 7-11's and restaurants to buy a drink at, or even many gas stations with bathrooms and water from the sink.

[Joseph Meehan]

For $2.00 per tyres I will fill it with 78% Nitrogen.

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Close enough. I'll fax the money.

[Tony Hwang]

Hmmm, It does not matter to me. My tires are free air compatible. Read the label on tires when you buy a set next time.

[mm]

I checked outside and mine need radial-belted air.

This must be why there are two air hoses at some gas stations.

[Clark]

mm wrote in news: [e-mail]:

That doesn't change the recommendation that argon only be used north of the

45th parallel. South of the line, one should use nogra.