ScottG wrote:
kvangil wrote:
My experience has been that it depends on how long it's been sitting in storage. If just a couple weeks, I barely lose anything...Over winter, it may drop about 10psi.
Same here with every vehicles tires I have ever stored.
Nitrogen will not make any difference because most of the loss is where the tire seals to the rim and that space is relatively large.
Air is also lost through the tire rubber. It looks solid, but at the molecular level, it is "open" enough to allow air (80$ Nitrogen, 20% oxygen) to seep through. Note how fast Helium a very small molecule, leaks through a latex ballon vs. "air". With tires there is Not much leakage, but you will loose some through the material. Depending on the tire construction, you could loose a few pounds over the winter to maybe 5psi.
Luckily, Nitrogen, even though it is lower molecular weight than Oxygen, is actually a larger molecule, and leaks at a slower rate than oxygen.
The tubes I use on my off road motorcycle, are very thick but natural rubber. They loose about 1psi/two weeks. When you start at 8-10psi, it's significant.
