Snow tires from Amazon!

[Dave Marshak]

This thread reminded me that when I was in college I had a job in a shop that fixed tires for 18 wheelers. The rim was in 2 pieces held together by a retaining ring, and the whole thing was set by bringing it up to some high pressure, maybe 80 or 100 psi. The boss told me to stand on the opposite side of the wheel from the retaining ring and reach through the center of the wheel to inflate the tire. And aim the retaining ring away from the office. IIRC that was before OSHA.

A few months after I quit that job, there was a picture in the Daily News of a guy who was doing the same thing when the tire blew off the rim. The explosion blew his clothes off, and he was lying dead and naked on the ground. I learned later that responsible shops put the wheels in cages before they inflated them.

dm

 

[raytseng]

Yea man i see these green machines not just airhoses into the wall but im not going to die on a hill to prove this point. But the root point to me was the guy didn't want to pay the extra $44/$11, and not necessarily about why. If people think its a scam over $44/$11 thats between them and costco; I dont care what costco policy is, they are free to do whatever they want. If the skeptic needs evidence that's for costco to provide not me, i don't care that this guy doesn't want to use costcos services at their rates, that's just be slightly more space at the warehouse for me, no worries. The skeptics will always find something about the evidence to complain about and turn into deniers.

Especially since there is a customer self-service nitrogen hose at the edge of my costco tire center for topoffs I know they have bought the machines; and I understand they need to pay for those machines, and I understand what they are offering for my own purchases, but I don't have to bat for costco to sell to other people.

Ive seen other times that costco employees worded things in specific ways because they didn't want to embarrass the customer too and soft talk out of a dispute, so if this was just an euphemism to tell this guy the policy is this is a required fee, just like all kinds of fees when you buy anything, or the other costco policies, so be it. Even the deal with this guy's refund, I think was a compromise that the customer service rep didnt want to deal with this crap anymore but still preserve this guys ego, and just say oh its per car. but fees are always per tire not per car. The guy probably would just keep pushing and cc dispute next if he didnt get something is my guess, and still when he was done; he went back to post it to his social media.

I think this aligns more what I said in my other post, its easier from a business to find a way to just filter out the cheapskates. Their business isn't worth the extra hassle, they are always skeptical and will find a way to make you lose money, whether its straightup in $, or in lost time, or in reputation. The idea that you are earning a customers loyalty and future business doesn't work with cheapskates because they will be first to ditch you for a cheaper option.

 

[murphysf]

Costco does it up here for a reasonable price. It costs a bit more if you didn't buy the tires there, but I don't remember how much it was. I found this on the interwebs...

Costco no longer installs customer provided tires. They did this for 2-3 years and then stopped about a year or so ago.

 

[Joby Graham]

Are you making this up? Nobody would vacuum a tire that could severely damage the structure and be counterproductive.
Nitogen fill is accomplished by purging cycles. And most high volume serious nitogen fill setups like they have at costco or tirerack they have automated systems to do the tire filling and the purge cycles. This achieves over 95% nitrogen vs 78% from ambient.
The tech hooks up the tires, sets the desired pressure and presses a button and it'll do a purge or multiple purges or whatever target is configured. The machine handles it all on multiple tires at a time. The tech isn't standing there manually inflating and checking tires 1by1 using a air hose and a manual stick gauge in a high volume place.

Unless you're going for a landspeed record, absolute complete purge of oxygen is not necessary for consumer applications; and most likely the on-site nitogen concentrator/generator does not achieve 100% nitrogen either.

[this is also relevant to @Francois's post above, the way I see it, the scenario at Costco isn't exactly that they don't have regular air; but their tire filling system is already setup and optimized to move mass # of cars through with automatic machines to do nitrogen fill; and all the air tools are all setup at their stations only for tools.
When you're asking them to not use nitrogen, you basically asking them to modify their whole setup and switch out tools and hoses just for you to not pay the fee and they would have to manually fill your tires by hand instead of using the automatic machine. Costco is about pushing volume through, not to do a special 1-off cases. I I can see why they say they say they don't fill cars with regular air and say they only fill with the nitrogen machines. Really it's a softer way of saying we don't want to do your special request that's going to take more time; for less money. ]

Yes, putting mounted tires/wheels on a vacuum is done by racing teams. Radial tires don't deform much and no damage is done. Bias plys do deform and suck in, but come through unscathed. When i had race tires for my Formula Ford shipped to my home, they were banded together and were deformed more than they would be by getting vacuumed. I agree nitrogen is the ideal, but unnecessary for street cars, as long as dry compressed air is used for inflation to prevent corrosion to the inside of the wheel or TPMS sensors. FWIW, the advice on dried, filtered compressed air was given to me by a two time SCCA national champion, who spent his career as a Firestone tire engineer who had access to their racing department.

 

[raytseng]

still doesn't make sense to me given all the current nitrogen fill machines all have auto cycling now.
If I were in the scenario to get max performance, I'd rather just press the button again and cycle the machine more times if i doubt the fill quality was good enough.
I don't question your experience and extra info that it turned out fine, but that is just an example of one and you shouldn't treat it as a rule, especially if you're providing this as a paid service. In general tires are not designed to be compressed that way, and some will be damaged from that deformation. If the point of this fussiness is you're stiving for perfection, I don't understand why would you would even take the risk to create new imperfections, when doing the extra cycles are basically close to free and accomplish the same thing without risk.

Tirerack notes the same thing and says tires should not be placed under vacuum

https://m.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=191

 

[Tom K.]

I agree nitrogen is the ideal, but unnecessary for street cars, as long as dry compressed air is used for inflation to prevent corrosion to the inside of the wheel or TPMS sensors.

Is there a simple, relatively inexpensive air drying appendage I can attach to the discharge of my trusty Craftsman home compressor to dry the air reasonably well?

A quick internet search provided a huge variety of ideas, all of which were "the best".

 

[raytseng]

Is there a simple, relatively inexpensive air drying appendage I can attach to the discharge of my trusty Craftsman home compressor to dry the air reasonably well?
A quick internet search provided a huge variety of ideas, all of which were "the best".

It depends on your fussiness.
If we're still talking about tires, remember it is more important to just be at the right psi than looking for perfect air.
There are various ways to reduce the moisture in the air you can look them up, but they are mainly for more humidity sensitive projects and all those have some level of investment.

If you are looking for the simplest method, your air compressor needs a tank then make sure the tank metal stays cold, even with external cooling (i.e. ice) and if you leave the air to chill there, it will cause some of the water to drop out into the tank and not stay in the air. I am sure you can find the web articles on this method for details and how to dump the water and maintain the tank..

Alternatively, if you can get the air when moisture content is low (e.g when temps are below freezing) that automatically provides you pretty dry air. So if you're fussy and you need to top off tires on a below freezing cold day in your garage, you could purge to cycle in the more of this known dry air if you've got nothing better to do.
This is all more trouble than its worth and only makes sense if you are equally as fussy with all the other parts of auto maintenance too.

 

[Jwrags]

Am I the only one here that just puts tires on my car and makes sure they are inflated to appropriate pressure and drive I never knew it could be so complex.

 

[raytseng]

Am I the only one here that just puts tires on my car and makes sure they are inflated to appropriate pressure and drive I never knew it could be so complex.

I agree with you in general especially when it gets super fussy and drifts more into multiple goals blending frugality vs safety vs performance, but tires are analogous in importance as skiboots or ski bindings.
If you've ever experienced a failure or crash still due primarily to your poor driving decisions; but with a contributing factor of being cheap on tires / neglectful of tire maintenance; you never neglect tires again and go down the rabbit hole of complexity.

 

[François Pugh]

Clearly one is better off phoning or stopping by local tire shops and asking what they charge than relying on the internet.
As to nitrogen, I have found that if you only use regular air (78% nitrogen) that may not be supper dry and keep your tires and steel rims for 20 odd years, you may have to get the rust cleaned off one of them once or twice due to a bad seal at the rim.

 

[raytseng]

Clearly one is better off phoning or stopping by local tire shops and asking what they charge than relying on the internet.
As to nitrogen, I have found that if you only use regular air (78% nitrogen) that may not be supper dry and keep your tires and steel rims for 20 odd years, you may have to get the rust cleaned off one of them once or twice due to a bad seal at the rim.

Gas station self-service water+air kiosks are notorious for literally water dripping in from the water hose, so you're literally spritzing in water in with the air.
If you must use a gas station kiosk; it's a good idea to spray a bit first to attempt to clear water out the line as best you can.

 

[François Pugh]

I use one of these.

https://www.canadiantire.ca/en/pdp/motomaster-digital-hi-flow-inflator-0095205p.html#srp

They go on sale once in a while.
Actually, this one:

https://www.canadiantire.ca/en/pdp/motomaster-digital-compact-inflator-0095204p.html?rrec=true#spc

 

[Joby Graham]

still doesn't make sense to me given all the current nitrogen fill machines all have auto cycling now.
If I were in the scenario to get max performance, I'd rather just press the button again and cycle the machine more times if i doubt the fill quality was good enough.
I don't question your experience and extra info that it turned out fine, but that is just an example of one and you shouldn't treat it as a rule, especially if you're providing this as a paid service. In general tires are not designed to be compressed that way, and some will be damaged from that deformation. If the point of this fussiness is you're stiving for perfection, I don't understand why would you would even take the risk to create new imperfections, when doing the extra cycles are basically close to free and accomplish the same thing without risk.

Tirerack notes the same thing and says tires should not be placed under vacuum

https://m.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=191

[/QU
Never said that I've done the vacuuming/nitrogen filling on my own tires, just that I've seen pictures/heard it being done. I've got no problem if people want to use nitrogen or how its installed. I'm fine using my own compressor with tandem moisture filters and routinely draining the tank. Whatever inert gas that floats one's boat.

 

[Bruuuce]

If using Tire Rack keep in mind that you can use Active Junky for a discount. I got 5% back from them on each of my last two orders.