Tyre Treatment?

[Ducked]

Ducked -
If & when you decide on new tires, you might look into the tire package offered by CostCo here on the island.
It looks to be a pretty comprehensive plan with good after buy service included.

Also, they do offer that 'nitrogen' inflation. Although, IMO, the jury is still out on actually how much of an advantage that is for non-commercial users. Still, if it has a good side and its part of the package - good for them.

http://tirenitrogen.typepad.com/techinfo/Ford%2520Baldwin%2520TireAging%2520%25232.pdf

Paper on tyre failure mechanism. (Its specific to tread separation, but the conclusions may be generalisable)

I think this research arose out of US litigation and recalls over apparently tyre-related Ford Explorerrollovers, with associated mass-recalls of Firestone tyres.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firestone_and_Ford_tire_controversy

N filling is mentioned towards the end. They find a 70% reduction in rubber deterioration compared to air.

As they point out, you can't get the oxygen below 5% without repeated purging, which I suppose Costco might not be willing to shell out for.

[Ducked]

This is quite scary, and I suppose you guys could take it as vindication.

I'll admit it doesn't behave as I'd expect a rear blowout to behave. I'd expect the car to swerve in the opposite direction, (though that might be due to driver input) and I wouldn't expect a blowout to have enough energy to lift the back of the vehicle, as this seems to.

I'll admit that my attitude to tyre perfection may be partly conditioned by a rear blowout I experienced very many years ago in a Commer van (not the most stable of vehicles) while travelling fairly fast (as Commer vans went) on the A1 in Scotland.



We heard a bang but none of us, including the driver,(I was a hitcher) realised that the tyre had gone until maybe 10 miles down the road, when someone asked where all the black smoke was coming from. It was burning quite fiercely when we stopped and was difficult to put out.

The van was pretty heavily loaded with gear and hitchers, and not long before the driver had stopped to pick up a couple of rather pneumatic Swedish girls (yeh I know, only in the movies) who apparently were too much for his...er...rubber.

I always imagined that a front blowout would be much worse, and have tried to put the best tyres on the front wheels of my various "bangers" but recent reading suggests that apparently that too is wrong and misguided, or at least controversial

A rear blowout is apparently considered by some to be more dangerous and, in the case of a significant difference, you should maximise tread/grip on the rear wheels to stop the tail sliding out into a spin (that last bit makes sense, not so sure about the first bit).

[Ducked]

Wouldnt be that hard to inflate with CO2. Bit of yeast and sugar.....

Nitrogen.

.

That'd be better, and is cheap to produce industrially in bulk (by fractional distillation of air) but there probably wouldn't be payback for setting up a system in petrol stations, even if you could prove it worked.

I don't know of any cheap supply of pure N readily available to individuals.

Methane or propane might be all right, though the slight fire/explosion hazard would be a deterrent. One would have to purge all the air from the tyre, which would be difficult.

I'll admit I thought this was a slightly off-the-wall suggestion, though not very dangerous provided you purged the air, so you had only fuel gas and avoided an explosive mixture.

I reckoned without the mind-boggling stupidity/venality of the makers of tyre sealant aerosols, who apparently use(d) BUTANE as a propellant, and then told/tell the punter to get the tyre inflated with AIR!

Didn't that get flagged at the first development meeting? Had they been sniffing their own product?

http://www.ehow.com/how_7666572_fix-flat-tire-butane.html

http://www.tiredefects.com/fix-a-flat/aerosol-tire-inflators.cfm

NOTE: This is separate and distinct from the "hillbilly" practice of seating the bead on the rim with a deliberate ether/propane etc. explosion, which, while a bit scary, is a known risk tackled under fairly controlled conditions, rather than an accident indefinately waiting to happen.

[Ducked]

Minor update on this. Havn't been driving much, but have given the front tyres a light "top-up" coating with SFO perhaps every couple of months or so since the original 6 coats.

I'd moved the worst tyres to the rear. A few months ago I started treating them with Canola oil, which is a bit more stable than SFO. They've had perhaps 3 coats.

The cracks have....er....gone.

(well almost)

OK obviously they can't have gone. They must just have been hidden/closed up, either because there's been some swelling of the surrounding rubber, and/or because the cracks have filled up with a sticky mixture of veg oil and degraded rubber/carbon black.

Maybe if I'd been driving more they'd have stayed open.

I didn't really expect cosmetic improvement and have to regard it as a bad thing, since it could hide a problem.

OTOH, if the cracks are filled/closed up, it seems reasonable to suppose they are to some extent protected from further ozone attack.

Might post some pictures later, when/if I score some more online picspace.