July 11, 2013 • 43 mins
Many race car teams fill their tires with nitrogen, but is it right for your daily driver? Join Scott and Ben as they break down the facts - and fiction - surrounding nitrogen vs. 'regular air' in your car's tires.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car Stuff from house stuff Works dot Com. Hi, and
welcome to car Stuff. I'm Scott Benjamin and I'm Ben Bollin,
and we've got an interesting question today. UM. I guess
we can just go right with the question, but there's
something I want to ask you first, maybe okay later. Um. Now,
(00:25):
you had mentioned earlier in um, in an earlier podcast
about the Harley Davidson engines, right the engine sounds you
had you had said that your father or your uncle's
or cousins or somebody could distinguish between American made bikes
and Japanese made bikes. Yes, yeah, that they can. They
can hear the Harley and they can identify the Harley.
(00:50):
They could usually identify bikes almost the same way that
people can identify bird calls. Okay, yeah, Well we've got
somebody who a listener who confirms that in that uh
you know it's uh, it's from a long time listener,
L Bouche. Yeah, that's right, And he had written to
say that he was listening to the Harley Sound podcast
(01:10):
and I just wanted to add that, you know, if
you've been around them a long time, I'm going to
kind of paraphrase this. This is from Facebook. Um. So,
he said, if you've been around these for a long
long time, you're able to tell the sound not only
of a distinct you know, like between Harley Davidson and
a Japanese bike or another type of bike, British bike
or whatever, but you're able to distinguish the sound between
(01:33):
the generations of Harley engine. He is accomplished it doing
just that. So he mentions um. For example, he notes
the mechanical sound of a of a knuckle if you've
if you've you know, said, if you're lucky enough to
know somebody who has one, or have ever had one yourself, um,
or the word or whine of a pan. If you
listen closely to the movie Easy Rider, you can hear
(01:53):
that one. Uh man. He's paying attention to this stuff.
Is this is great detailed um and has always been.
The scene has always been. Nothing sounds like a shovel head,
which is his favorite engine. Of course, he mentions here
in this this note um and says that you know,
most people when they hear a Harley engine sound, they're
what they're thinking of in their head is probably um.
(02:16):
The shovel head sound. It's very distinctive and very pure
to him, is what he says. Um. And then there's
like a real tinny sound of an evo. Um. And
if you get into the iron Heads, there's a piercing
sound that sounds like it's pointed at your ear drum. Um,
and the flatheads and so on and so on. So
he says that you know, based on the head design
and after the flywheel design, it's it's kind of like
(02:37):
a group thing. Each one has its own starting procedure,
its own sound, everything about it. He says, you really
have to know know your bike. Get to know your
bike well. Um. And one kind of funny thing he
answer is that at the end, he says, you have
to become one with your bike or else. And then
he and I'll paraphrase this for sure. I put it
in a little more colorful language and I'd like to
(02:58):
use here. Uh. He says that you have to get
to you have to become one with your bike or
else they'll do something to your rear end. But I
won't I won't say what he says. But um, keep
the rubberside down, l boch so um, he's got his
ears on is what he says out there, and he's
always listening, but he wanted to make a note that,
(03:18):
you know, very distinctive sounds within the Harley brand itself.
So knuckle pans shovel head. Yeah, knuckle pan shovel head.
Um evo's I mean he mentions all different types of
types of bikes here, but um, yeah, you can you
can distinctly tell the difference between all of those. He
always writes such a good mail. I appreciate that. I'd
(03:38):
also like to um check out some other listener mails,
maybe later on in this podcast, because as you know,
we didn't ever get to all of them. Oh yet,
since since two thousand and eight, we've yet to get
to all of them. I think you're I think you're right.
I mean, we're continually answering it online. We're making a list,
we're checking it twice. I try to get on Facebook,
answer as many questions as like and here and there,
(04:01):
try to interact with people on Twitter. But um, before
we get straight to that mail, I have a question
for you, Scott. What's that Why don't they use normal
air in race car tires? Part one of the question.
And second, uh, well second, should we copy race car
tire rules in our consumer cars. I think maybe we'll
(04:24):
get to the to get to the root of that
as we go through this podcast. But um, and what
you're talking about here when you say normal air in
in race car tires or in car tires, as we'll
find out, UM, we're talking about nitrogen. And I think
a lot of our listeners will probably you know, perk
up when they hear that, because they may if they've
if they've been to a tire shop recently, um particularly
(04:48):
oddly enough, Costco will offer this as a free service,
so they'll offer nitrogen inflation. Most new tire places will
offer nitrogen inflation as part of a eel. You know,
it's like a premium service. It's an upgrade. It's an upgrade,
and see pay a little bit more for it in
some places, but cost Go again, that's a that's a
free service on their part. Um. It's it's something that
(05:11):
you know, people when they first hear it, they may think, well,
I would guess the initial reaction would be why why
would you do that? Right? And then they may say, well,
what's that going to cost me? And then they'll be
back to now, wait a minute, what did you say
it would do for me, because, um, there's there's a
short list of things that that they claim nitrogen will
do for a tire owner, right, anybody who owns tires,
(05:32):
I guess if you own it on a motorcycle, on
a car or whatever. Sure, Um, there's a short list, right,
And yeah, there's a short list. And you are probably
familiar with these tires, even if you didn't know it,
because you'll notice they have a green valve stem camp
So uh so look around the next time we're walking
by a parking lot and see he's got the green valeve.
(05:52):
One thing that nitrogen has is a more consistent rate
of expansion and contraction. Yeah. And that's uh mostly because
there's far less water vapor in them, right, I mean
there's there's less oxygen involved. Um. Yeah, Okay, man, I
think we're going forward, maybe just a bit too fast. Yeah,
we have to go into the difference between air and nitrogen.
(06:16):
Air and finger quotes, right, because it's it's just atmospheric air,
like what we're breathing right now. That's a normal compressor. Uh.
You know, any normal compressor that you go to is
going to have air in it. Um, But you have
to go to a specialty tire store to get nitrogen.
So what's in air? So here's the thing. Uh air
has more moisture in it, but the compressed air that
(06:38):
you're using when it's dry, it's about one percent. You know,
other gases oxygen and are you ready? I know you
already know this percent nitrogen. Yeah, so we're already talking
about something that has uh seventy and nearly nitrogen already
to begin with. That's air. And I want to tell
(07:00):
you that when you're filling up your tires with nitrogen,
you're only guaranteed to get about ninety three to nine
percent nitrogen in those tires. That's that's with a full service.
I'd say that's a complete thing that we'll talk about
in a minute. But um, so you're really talking about
like a fifteen to seventeen percent increase under the best
circumstances of of an increased on I guess concentration of
(07:22):
nitrogen and your tires, you're still gonna have trace amounts
of of oxygen and I think less water vapor than
even the one percent I would guess. And then there's
other other gases, like you know, like neon and helium,
and crypton and xenon and all all the exactly how
the funnels that's right, I mean they've composed less than
one percent. So um, you know, under the best circumstances,
(07:44):
you're getting nitrogen in your tires at these at these stations.
And so this also the advantages this gives you, as
you said, Scott, it eliminates moisture, cuts it down to
a great degree. And it also because they're a more
consistent rate of expansion contraction um, it reduces the weight
(08:04):
at which the compressed gas diffuses through the tire walls.
So the this means, at least in theory, according to
an excellent article by the guys That's straight Dope, this
means that a tire filled with nitrogen will have that
optimal tire pressure longer, which again theoretically would mean that
(08:28):
you'll have more uniform tire wear and maybe even better
gas mileage. That's where they get a little bit I
think extravagant. I understand. So these claims that you'll hear
when when you say, like, why would I you know
that would be your first question, why would I want
to use nitrogen and my tires instead of just air?
UM A lot of times at the point immediately to
fuel economy saves you on fuel. Um, that's if your
(08:50):
tires remain inflated at the exact same rate that there
when they leave the shop, because they're supposed to be
like a certain ps I with it's thirty five, forty
four whatever. It happens to be very specific, right, and
they'll be like, I know that it costs five dollars
more per tire, but the savings over the long term,
the long term savings, that's it, right, and entire wear.
I can understand that if it if it tires not
(09:12):
overinflated or deflating it, you know, at variable rates depending
on the temperature, because temperature plays into this as well. Um.
You know, as we get colder, you'll find that tires
require more air to be added into them because of
the the air contracts expands and whatever happens. To listen,
there's a there's a lot. I'm getting kind of wrapped
up in this. I'm sorry, I'm getting way off topic.
(09:34):
But um, there's the other claims that they say, or
it'll slow down leaks. You mentioned these, Uh, the way
it diffuses through the walls of the tire. I think
that's diffusing, and it's it's more you're right, it's uh,
it diffuses at a slower rate because the nitrogen molecules
are larger than the oxygen. Moley, Okay, I actually kind
(09:56):
of buy this one now that the reason is because
when you look at microscopically, if you look at your tire,
it's made up of these strands. As I've been told
that looked like almost like spaghetti, and the spaghetti is
bound together. It's not like one solid piece that that
nothing is going to permeate either way, either direction, in
or out. Um, very tiny, tiny amounts of oxygen escaping
(10:18):
your tires all the time. There's just nothing you can
do about that. If you parked a car and left
it for twenty years, you're gonna come back to flat
tires for if nothing else, because air has just simply
I guess, gone through the wall of the tire at
some point, you know, the twenty years and it's gone flat.
You know, you may be able to pump it up
and work fine, who knows. Um there's also dry rot
(10:38):
and that's another thing. Um. Dry rot prevention is something
that a lot of people promote with this the tires
last longer because there's no um, there's no water vapor inside.
They say that the wheels themselves, the rims, won't rust
and deteriorate, leaving you know, like little um areas in
the in the bead that would allow air to escape
as well. Right, And in the past that could be
(11:00):
more of a could have been more of a concern.
I think it's fair to point out now that wheel
wheel rust is not the great scourge that it used
to be. Inside that we're talking inside the tire where
you can't see and uh and outside, I mean you
can see it happening onside. But I think about like
high performance cars have alloy wheels that don't just don't rust. Yeah,
(11:23):
and then codings, there's codings that you know, they're they're
involved now with manufacturing and they know to watch for
these types of things. I'm sure that in the past
it was a lot worse. Now. I do want to
point out that, um, there is a lot of air
that comes out of um most compressors now if you
go to a gas station, as one of one of
these authors here points out, it was a popular mechanic.
(11:44):
Oh yeah, and um he points out. The author points
out that He's dismounted tires in the past that have
had this hard to believe that have had several quarts
of water inside, possibly from compressed air hose that collected
water was never purged properly. And if you want to, uh,
you know, kind of see this for yourself. See how
how it's possible pull up to a gas station that
(12:06):
has you can just do one that has free air.
You don't have to go to one that you have
to pay for it to do this. But you know,
push the button to activate the compressor and then use
your thumb or fingernail to press the press of the
valve that allows the air to flow, you know, freely
out of that out of that compressor, and chances are
your finger is gonna get wet from the air that's
in the line or in the compressor itself. Um, all
(12:26):
of that would be blasting into your tire. He's correct,
And that you know it it gathers up over time,
and that water vapor you know that that builds up
and and and it adds weight, It adds um. I
don't know instability, I guess to the to the tire,
it's it's it's really a problem in there. So nitrogen
being such a dry um, I guess gas, Um, it's
(12:48):
it's much much better in that situation. Well, yeah, that okay,
there is some scientific merit to that argument. I think
what I would question about that argument would be the
degree to which that damage occurs. Um. Now, of course,
if we're talking over time, Scott, then yes, it will
(13:09):
create wheel rot over time. UM. And tires are consumables
on a car, so you're not supposed to have them
the whole time. I'm not. I'm not trying to be
an anti nitrogen person, understand, especially given that the regular
air we're already using there's already seventy nitrogen almost yea,
So it's kind of hard to h hard to deny that. However,
(13:32):
um ox oxygen does attack the substance of a tire
over time, So reducing the oxygen by increasing the amount
of nitrogen, which is an inert substance, will reduce that
that problem for tires. Okay, so we're talking about long
term use, like if you're gonna have tires on a
car for a long time. We're almost talking and I'm
(13:55):
I'm gonna say we're almost talking like museum cars or
store cars. You put in the storage. It's a long
time it is. You would most likely go through the
through the tread of the tire before this would ever
become an issue really on most tires unlike a daily
driver for sure. Yeah, exactly, I mean and works. And
again we're talking about still gears of use. UM. So
(14:16):
I hate to be so down on it. I really don't.
I don't mean to be, but because there's a lot
of applications where this does work. Oh yeah, I've got
some good ones, are they? Well, one thing that nitrogen
is just um, let's keep a family friendly. One thing
nitrogen really kicks butt at scott is not catching on
fire or supporting combustion. So that's why you might see
(14:39):
that's one of the reasons why you see nitrogen in
race car tires. It's also why you see nitrogen in
tires on aircraft and space shuttles, places where fire is bad. Also,
I want to add in for the f of the
racing tires, IndyCar, Formula One, NASCAR, all those guys use
this UM. Part of that is that they don't have
(15:01):
to UM continually, I mean continually check air tire pressure
on race day, and I know they do that Anyways,
they check them all the time, they really do. They're
very very um uh conscientious about about how much air
pressure is in each tire, um at what time and
before it goes on the vehicle, and you know, what
comes off the vehicle, how much has left. You know,
they're they're really watching the tires all the time. But um,
(15:23):
this gives them one less thing to really have to
worry about. I mean, it's a very small adjustment if
it has to be made. Um So you know, it's
used in critical tire applications like you mentioned racing aircraft,
heavy duty commercial equipment. You know, if you're gonna be
um running a strip mine somewhere, or any kind of
mining equipment that has you know, those enormous tires that
are they're twelve feet tall. Um, you're not gonna want
(15:45):
to have to monitor those every hour, every two hours
to see how the temperature is affecting the tire pressure.
Because if you blow one of those out and you're
in the in the middle of the yeah, you're in
the middle of the cory or the jungle in South America,
a new tire could be a wee go away two
weeks or a month away because they have to build
these things just for that vehicles like Arctic research vehicles
(16:07):
or something. Correct. Yeah, this, this is a great point
for us to make because I think both of us
are saying that we're not anti nitrogen tires. It's a
good thing and it depends upon the application. Um, However,
these this method is being sold two people. Um perhaps
(16:31):
with is it fair to say exaggerated claims? Yeah, and
you you know, you kind of hit the nail on
the head here when he said we're not we're not
anti nitrogen entires that by any means. However, there are
limits to this and uh, and I have maybe I
think I have a lower limit than you have on
this because when I mentioned my my limits, I think
(16:51):
I saw your eyebrows. Rais my limit would be one dollar? Yes,
if they're going to charge a dollar more for this entires,
I'm just not going to do it. I'm you know
what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna buy a tire gauge
and I'm gonna watch my tires carefully. That's that's the
way to really monetor your tires and make sure that
everything is a working correctly. Now at nitrogen I know
(17:11):
works for people that you know, maybe don't pay as
much attention to their automobile and want to go somewhat
maintenance free on their tires. Yeah, don't want don't want
the hassle of needing to check your tire pressure, which
according to most manufacturers, you should be doing every time
that you hop in your car, which I know no
one does that, but sure no, I mean, I mean
(17:33):
according to it, Well, you know what I want to get.
I'll get into the amount of people that likely don't
even look at their tires in just a moment, because
there's a place I want to point some of our
listeners too. But I do say that, you know, even
a dollar, even if it's even if they say we're
gonna fill the up and it's gonna be a dollar
additional for nitrogen inflation, that's say, let's skip that. Really,
(17:54):
that's just I know, and I know it sounds super cheap,
but I just don't feel like it's something that's necessary
because even after you get the nitrogen inflation um, if
you want to fill it again, if you need to
adjust some way, you're gonna have to find a nitrogen
inflation station in order to adjust these things. Now, I
know that you can add standard air from any compressor
(18:15):
to a nitrogen inflated tire and it it operates just fine.
But wouldn't that sort of defeat the purpose You're you're
deluding the concentration of nitrogen that's in the tire, and
they're the proper ways to do it. And I saw that, Um,
I'm gonna look at my notes here, because I saw
that there's a way that that they do this time
about bleeding the tire. Yeah, bleeding the tire. And there's
there's this like purge cycle that they have to do
(18:36):
in order to properly do this. It's not so if
you go somewhere and and they want to fill your tires,
it's not just a matter of um, you know, kind
of deflating them, you know, with a fingernail or whatever
and let they go down flat and then and then
filling it back up with nitrogen. There's this whole purge
cycle thing that has to happen for it to be
done properly. Right, they have to fill it and then
(18:56):
bleed it and then fill it again. And each time
they go through this cycle, they're deluding the amount of
oxygen within the tire. Yeah, I guess, yeah, they're they're
concentrating the purity of the nitrogens maybe a better way
to say it. Yeah. But I also want to point
out that when they do that, ben Um, there's there's
(19:18):
one thing that people need to watch out for. Some
places will use a vacuum, and at all costs, avoid
any place to uses a vacuum to do this, because
you don't want to deflate a tire where they actually
suck the air out of the tire and it becomes
deformed and kind of mouth shaped. I guess it's these
deflated tires look horrible in the in the image that
I saw, they look like it looks you know how
(19:40):
if you have a hat that has had something lay
on it for too long, or somebody stepped on the
hat right, it has that that it's a similar look.
It's it's really bad. And the problem is that you know,
that's actually subjecting the tire to like a situation almost
like if you were to to encounter some really bad
row hazards, you know, like if you were to to
(20:02):
bend to tire and in a way that it shouldn't
be bent. Um. These vacuums, at all costs, avoid them.
They're they're safer, better ways to do this, and you know,
the professionals know what they're doing. But if you go
to a smaller shop, they may try to sell you this, uh,
this vacuum treatment where they vacuum out all the old
air and pumping the new air. Ask them ahead of
time if they're going to do that, because that's definitely
something you don't want to do. And I think we're
(20:24):
also both saying that if you if you don't want
to check your tire pressure, Scott, I think you have
a statistic for that too, right, Yeah, I do. And
I have one more last thing I want to I
want to mention at the very end. But um, yeah,
the statistic comes from a place called the Get Nitrogen Institute.
So you can imagine what they're with their anglers here
(20:44):
on thiss G and I now it's if you want
to go to this place, you can. You can go
online and look this up. It's called get nitrogen dot
org and um what it does is allows you to
find a nitrogen dealer near you. And there's thousands of
these things all over the United States and everywhere now
over the world. Really, Um, there's a they make a
lot of claims on the site. Now we mentioned increased
(21:05):
fuel economy, increased tire life, UM, improved handling and traction.
Now that comes with now again all these increased fuel
economy and all that stuff, that's just watching your tire pressure.
If you watch your tire pressure with normal air and
you get the same thing, right, same thing with fuel economy,
improved handling, attraction, same thing. Watch your watch your tire pressure,
you're gonna get the same thing. Better for the environment.
(21:29):
I don't know. I guess that comes with the fuel economy. UM,
I don't really. Maybe so you're increasing your mileage UM,
longer wheel life. Maybe we talked about that that the
wheels are made better now, I mean, you know they're
watching for corrosion things like that. Tires probably are less
permeable than they were in the past. I bet they're tighter.
(21:49):
They don't lose air as fast as they used to. UM.
There's also a savings calculator here, and this is what
this gets me. I don't know how this works, ben. Um. Now,
the the information that you you input would be the
miles driven per year. Okay, then the the average or
the tire cost for replacements. So whatever your tires cost
on your vehicle. Okay, so iner that number um average
(22:12):
fuel price that you'll be paying, just a rough estimate
of what you think you'll be paying, and uh, the
miles per gallon for your car what you normally get.
And then from that information, you know, you press calculate
and it will tell your savings. And there's a National
Savings calculator and a you know, dealers Added you know
today or whatever you know that the deal in nitrogen UM.
(22:35):
It's just I don't quite know where all of this
information is coming from, how the how this calculator actually works.
But according to g n I, and this is the
staff that I was talking about, according to them that
this get Nitrogen Institute, eighty five percent of Americans don't
check their tire pressure regularly. Now do you believe that?
I have another statistic that I will tell you in
(23:00):
just a moment, But first I think it's time that
we talked about something completely different. What do you think, Well,
it's not completely different. I guess it's still about cars. Okay,
I'll take it. Okay, good enough, because I've found a
really cool movie. It's an old movie. And I'll get
to the reason why this is cool at the very end.
Now it may not sound initially like something you don't
want to watch. Um, oh boy, I shouldn't sell like that.
(23:22):
Well no, hey man, I've you've warned me uh this
way before about different films, and you converted me despite
my skepticism. So I'm going to hear you out. Okay,
what's on Netflix this week? Hot Cars and it's from
from nineteen fifty six. Again it's called hot Cars. Um.
It's a story of a used car dealer whose name
is Nick Dunn Um, who needs to get here. This
(23:45):
is kind of cheesy, but he needs to raise money
really quickly for an operation for his son. Okay, so
he needs quick money, needs it fast. What's he gonna do? Um?
He reluctantly gets involved with the stolen car ring. Now,
this is a mob run stolen car rings, and of course,
being a local used car dealer, you can imagine what's
going to happen here. So a local detective gets involved
(24:06):
in this, gets a little snoopy about what's going on
at the dealership, at the at the lot there. Um
kind of finds out what's going on at the last minute,
you know, when this investigation is kind of nearing its son.
He turns up dead. The the the detective turns out dead.
So so this owner, this Nick Dunn and fellow. Um,
he ends up on the run from the law. He's
(24:26):
accused of murder. And it all leads up, and I'm
not giving anything away, it all leads up to this
big final duel on a roller coaster. I know, I
don't sounds funny, but but he's on this roller coaster
in this kind of big final duel with the stolen
car ring leader, the mob boss guy, and that's very dramatic. However,
I think what our listeners are gonna take from this,
(24:48):
what they're gonna really appreciate in this is that if
you recall I said Nick Dunn as a used car
dealer in this nineteen fifty six and the cars involved
in this movie, the vehicles that you're gonna see, I
mean nineteen fifty five Pontiac Chief Train Wagon, nineteen fifty
Stude Bagger, Um, there's a nineteen fifty old Uh, there's
(25:09):
fifty four and fifty six Caddies there. Um, there's even
an old mg mg T d E from nineteen fifty
fifty six Chevy bell Air. I mean the lot is
loaded with cars of that era, of course, and a
little bit of anything and everything. I think listeners are
gonna really like just kind of watching the background in
this whole movie because it's it's got so many, so
(25:31):
many classic cars now, um that you just don't see
on the road ever. Now they are indeed hot cars, indeed, yes,
and uh not hot as in stolen at least. All right, man,
I'll tell you what you You really did prove me wrong.
I love being proven wrong, especially when it's about something good.
You proved me wrong with Fast Lady, So I'm gonna
(25:52):
stick with you for hot cars. Yeah, the storyline maybe
a little cheesy and that you know, someone needs money
for an operation. That's why I'm doing this. But you
name several uh beautiful cars in that era. So if
you would like to get on the same page with
me and check out Scott's movie recommendation for the week,
then check it out on Netflix instant, where you can
(26:15):
find this film and thousands more. Oh uh, and if
you are not a member of Netflix No Worries, you
can get a free thirty day trial by going to
Netflix dot com slash car stuff. Tell him. Scott and
Ben sent you. And we're not saying you have to
watch hot cars might be a good choice. We're saying
it might be a good choice. Um. And with that
(26:38):
being said, Scott, I wanted to UM, I wanted to
put some space between our dueling statistics because I have one,
so I said. According to get Nitrogen, Get Nitrogen says
that Americans do not check their tire pressure regularly. Okay,
this is a little bit different because, um, the n
(27:00):
h t S, a National Highway Transport Safety Association UH
says that less than sixty of US motorists actually check
and adjust their tire pressure regularly. I actually think I
believe that number even more. I believe that number just
I guess the way it's framed seems a little bit
more realistic. But whenever somebody says a D five, that's
(27:22):
a heck of a high number. That is a pretty
high number of people. I don't know, because I I
maybe it's the people that I hang out with. I
think I think a lot of people that I know
are kind of conscientious of their automobile. You know, oil
changes at the right time, UM, you know, making sure
that you know they've they've got new wiper blades. On
all the time and making sure the headlights work and
(27:43):
all that. I think people that that I hang around
with they're just kind of like that. So maybe it's
for us I have a skewed view maybe um in
saying that, you know, I think I think more people
are checking their their tire pressure more often. Yeah, that's
what I mean, That's what I think to all right,
So to bring it all back around before we get
(28:04):
to your last thing there, Scott um, I believe that
the argument here. Unfortunately, most of the stuff that I've
read about nitrogen and daily drivers has come with a
a resounding response from the reviewers. A lot of people
say that for the price or depending on the price, uh,
(28:24):
they don't think it would be worth it for a
daily driver. And to me and personally, for me, I'd
rather just check my entire pressure. But if you are
someone who, um, if you're offer routing a lot in
places where it would be difficult to get a tire,
and you somehow don't bring replacement tires, then maybe uh,
(28:46):
you would want to to even then I think people
should just get a spare tire. But if if for
some reason you're against it, then sure, by all means
nitrogen um will work for you if you are just
dead set against checking your tires, if you have some
sort of abiding personal issue with it, than nitrogen is
for you. Fair enough. And I want to double check
one thing here, what's up? Now? We read these numbers,
(29:07):
and I want to read them to make sure they're
not saying similar things or the word because if it's
not a class, it is because now, according to g N,
I again of Americans do not check their tire pressure regularly,
So saying the people don't check their tire pressures regularly. Now,
what what was your number? Less than do check their
tire pressure regularly? Okay, I'm gonna need to figure this
(29:29):
one out later. So it sounds like there's a Venn
diagram there, right, it does. Yeah, it's like who checks
and who doesn't check? So the number is depressingly high.
It really is. I think I think, you know, in general,
most people probably don't check the tires as regularly as
they should. And but but I think my group of
people that I hang around with, I think that that
we that we do UM different different group, different different interests.
(29:53):
I suppose here's here's an idea. It's never too early
to plan a gift for people. I just want to
throw this in there, Scott, because it's it's an excellent
thing that I do to try to get um this
kind of maintenance work off of my back for someone
else's car. Um if they're doing a Christmas thing or
a Hanukkah thing, or any any situation really where you
(30:16):
can give them a gift. Uh, give them a card
that says, you know, a happy birthday, happy Columbus Day,
whatever doesn't matter, okay, and attach a tire gauge to
this card in the envelope and then you know, write
something nice if you want. But all you have to
really write down is the recommended p s I of
(30:38):
their tires. I've done this like four times and I've
never gotten in trouble for it. And does it say
this is no say like check your damn tires. The
one time it said something close to that with a
roommate of mine. But most it depends on the audience,
I guess, right. Yeah, most times it's stuff like dear
you know on so and so blah blah blah, just
(30:59):
keep this in your car, and uh, it's just thinking
of your safety. It's a nice way I think to
help people, and it's you could say, as my gift
to you, I'm going to have your the the normal,
plain old, ordinary, everyday air replaced with fancy nitrogen. Yeah,
only the best for you, that's right. And then you
could just even if you wanted to, just put green
caps on it and not worry about it. Oh no, man,
(31:22):
that's a little okay, that's dishonest. I know you shouldn't
do that, but but you know, do when you're in
traffic look around for the green caps on people's tires.
And I swear to you I can. I can probably
find five cars on my way home today. And there's
a lot of traffic on my way home, so give
me a lot of opportunities. But um, I bet I
could find five cars on my way home today that
have green caps on the on the wheels, on the
(31:43):
val stems that indicate that there's nitrogen in those tires.
And I don't know if that's a lot of people
that just happen to buy their tires at costco, or
if it's people that are really performance oriented or just
you know, or or you know, want less maintenance. I
guess for something like this. Now, I want to point
out one last thing here that I found really interesting. Now,
we talked about costs and this stuff, and I said
(32:04):
I probably wouldn't go over a dollar is extremely cheap.
But what I'm saying, what I'm really mean by that
is if it's not free, I'm probably not going to
do it. I just don't think it's worth the upgrade. Okay,
so it's it's an upgrade for sure, I'm not really
willing to pay for it because of you know what
I know about it. Now we're about to talk about
(32:25):
how much people might charge. Well, typically the cost is
I mean just ballpark about five or six dollars attire
is a typical cost for what it will cost to
have you know, all the regular air UH purged, daddy
your wheels and you know this Niger's and added Now
I read an article in UH from edmund Edmunds dot com.
Oh yeah, I've got this one, do you. Okay? Yeah,
(32:46):
this is interesting because, um it came from someone in
a Dodges Challenger owners owners forum. And the owner of
this DADGS Challenger is someone who's about to be an
owner of a Dadage Challenger. I was looking at the
car on the lot and kind of you know, checked
out the windows sticker right where they have all the
list of the options, all the bells and whistles that
(33:07):
are included on the car. And so what do they find, ben, Uh,
they find that there's a nitrogen upgrade item that is
on this Uh that is an add on on this car,
on this Dad's Challenger, which is a performance car. Of course, yeah,
very much so. Um, so this is this dealer upgrade,
this nitrogen upgrade. How much were they charging? Do you
(33:28):
do you have the number? Yes? How much was it? Well,
it wasn't seventy dollars? Now it was much more than that.
Oh wait, well the one um, let's see it was
a sixty nine dollar item on the supplemental windows sticker.
But a another four member said the dealer was charging
a hundred and seventy nine dollars one hundred and seventy
(33:49):
nine dollars for a nitrogen upgrade. It's the same thing,
I know. So they get this car on the lot
from you know, the factory wherever it comes from, you
where they build these things, and uh, a dealer purchase
the oxygen, puts in nitrogen and that is somehow worth
one seventy nine dollars to the new owner of that
Dodge Challenger. Well, you know, if I were buying a
(34:11):
car at that lot and I saw that, this is
where the information becomes your friend. If you see that,
then you immediately have, um, what's it called carte blanche
to question every other single price on there, and you can, um.
I think it would be worth it to open a
negotiation and say, okay, well, you know, if I bought
(34:33):
this car without those tires and took it to the mechanic,
you know, two blocks down the way. Uh, then I
would pay what twenty four dollars for that? Right? If
it's six bucks attire, which is still a little too much.
I saw quoted at like ten dollars attire, and then
even as high as thirty dollars per tire out of mechanics.
But that dealer one took the cake that far. That
(34:54):
is the That is the largest number that I've seen
so far for a nitrogen upgrade. Don't pay for it, guys,
that not that much. That is way too much. Even
the sixty charge I mean that was so that that
range runs from sixty nine to one seventy nine on
these dealer upgrades. I just uh, I would be very
careful about stuff like that on a window sticker of
a performance car, if you were, if you're in the market,
(35:15):
if you're shopping for one right now, and uh, now,
do you want to bring back an oldie but a
goodies segment? It's been a while since we did it, Scott,
what's that listener mail? Let's do it all right? So
we've got a couple of emails here that man, some
some unready emails from our Nuts and Bolts Part nine
episode that we did. I've still got a stack at
(35:36):
these things on my desk. Um. You know that we
just didn't get too because you remember we read letter
after letter. Yeah, we got to a part where didn't
we make that a two part episode? Yeah, we eventually did. Yeah.
Now I'm gonna I'm gonna kind of skip the end
of this one because there's there's an interesting note here
at the end that I want to get the answer
to from you from me? Yeah, this is unexpected, So
(35:57):
I'll see what you say. This comes from Cameron. And
Cameron actually wrote in about hybrids and uh, I guess
we're we're talking about hybrids for a while. Um, and
he basically I guess I think he ended up the
green with me on hybrids and that. UM. He mentioned
that he was at a class where he was chatting
with the professor from someone from Texas University about hybrids
(36:18):
and fuel cells and the future power generations for cars
and things like that, UM, and the professor ended the
talk with the student of Cameron by saying, maybe I'll
maybe I see again sometime down the road and hopefully
you'll be driving one of those new fuel cells or hybrids,
and Cameron said, not a chance. I'm sticking. I'm sticking
to it, to my internal combustion engine. UM, they're just
(36:40):
too much fun to play with. So I got the
idea that you know, right now, amout a chance. Maybe later,
you know, we'll see what happens. And kind of got
the same yeah idea about this whole thing. But I'm
getting off topic here because what I really really wanted
to get to is this final little note on Cameron's
email here UM that says, I was wondering why you
guys don't like rain X Personally. I love the stuff
(37:02):
to the point that when driving other people's cars for
extended periods of time in the rain, I make the
next stop to purchase and apply rain X to their car.
Oh I remember, so, Cameron wrote in and wondering because
I've heard this from you in the past, since the
very beginning. I think we've talked about rain xs early on,
and I'm I'm not terribly fond of it because I
(37:23):
have had one bad experience with it, and I think
it was operator air. I think I applied it incorrectly
because now I've watched some videos about how to properly
apply this, and it comes down to like using steel
wall to clean surface, microfiber closs and how you apply it,
and it's really very specific and how you do it.
What's your beef with with with the rain product or
(37:45):
I should say products like rain X, because there's many
of them out there are other yeah, other similar sort
of water repellent things said tell usman, enlighten us, why
you don't like grain X. I know you're on this,
this is this is fine, this is fine. You know.
I try to keep it positive. I will be honest
with you. UM. I despise rain X. I have no
(38:07):
problem with people who involved in the company, and I
think that if other people want to use it, that's fine.
It's just not for me. UM. I have perhaps part
of it is that I've never been in a situation
where I applied it. Whenever I was driving someone else's
car that had rain X on it, it was just
a huge pain in the south side. I don't know
(38:31):
how to say that family friendly, um, but it's a
huge pain in the key start um. In my opinion,
I would prefer windshield wipers, for instance. The one thing
that got me is that if you're in very heavy
traffic it's also very heavy rainfall. Rain X works better
and the rainex products work better when you're when you
(38:53):
have that speed and help the water beat off of
it understood, and I would be more fine with with
rain X if it um if that problem wasn't as
apparent to me, because we do a lot of traffic.
We got a lot of traffic. We have a lot
of traffic, so we were driving in slow sour speeds
in the city situations and uh. And I find that
(39:15):
during the daytime also it's a little bit dragging because
it makes it beat so well, um it often breaks
into tiny, tiny, little um droplets of water instead of
just being maybe one larger droplet. I know it's supposed
to beat up and roll off, but yeah, again, when
you parked, it doesn't work as well, doesn't so right,
I agree with you on that. We'll see. Also, I
do want to point out that objectively, yes, it's a
(39:37):
brilliant product, it's a brilliant idea. Um, it's just not
for me. I prefer windshield wipers. At night. You almost
don't even really need your wipe. But now I know
you're supposed to use them in conjunction with rain X,
but um, at night. Really, I've been driving at night
with rain X on my on my windshield and I
feel like I don't need my wipers at all. But
then when you get into an area where there is
like you do see that there is water there? Yes,
(39:59):
it is. It is true. The sheeting off of the
glass and feeling away, it's and and again I watched
some recent videos about how to apply it, and it
comes down to you using like four odd steel wool
and preparing the surface and then a microfiber cloth in
a certain direction and then waiting the exact amount of
time before you reapply and then remove it. And you know,
(40:21):
there's all kinds of different ways to do this, but
I think the people that I saw doing it were
r v owners who put a lot of and of
course they have a big flat one shield who they
need to get water off and quickly. Um. And I
think it's very it's gotta, it's got, it's got its applications. Well, yes,
submittedly it has multiple applications. And I'm not saying that
(40:41):
I hate people who use rain necks who make it.
I am saying that I hate it on my car.
It's it's it's fine, but it's kind of like, you
know how in the movies there would be able to
be those parents who would say, do whatever you want
when you don't live here, but not in my house.
Whoever you want your own cars, not on my car again. Uh.
(41:03):
And maybe it's just because again, every every place that
I've been around, maybe people applied it incorrectly. I think
that's probably likely. That might be why I got burned
with it, because I've had some good experiences and some
bad experiences with it, and on the same vehicle. So
it does matter how you apply the stuff and how
it works. So Cameron, I mean, I know you like
it a lot. Ben doesn't like it so much, but
(41:23):
it maybe I can get him to try it again.
I'm kind of fifty fifty about it. I haven't used
it in a long time, but but I surely have
enjoyed making me sweat today. Then it's fun. It's only
had some rain X to apply to our studios. I
might use some of my glasses and then try to
run really fast and see how that works. You should
do that. You should do that, Cameron, of course. See,
I thank you for writing the email. Scott, thank you
(41:46):
flaming get this off my chest about rain X. I
hope I didn't put you in. And now it's totally fun.
It's really fun because you guys have had this rain
X intervention. I'll promise the following I will check out
a YouTube video about how best to apply rain X
and you know what, man, I'll try it. And then
you're gonna have to come back and apologize to us
(42:07):
for the wrongs that you know when you told us
about how you didn't you didn't like rain X and
you had a bad experience. I think the word I
was despised. All right, Well that's up. So in the meantime,
while Scott are off on this particular adventure, we hope
you enjoyed our episode on nitrogen tires and whether or
not that Nitrogen services right for you right in tell
(42:29):
us what you think you'd love to hear about it.
You can find us on Facebook. We're also on Twitter,
and our email address, as always, is our stuff at
Discovery dot com. For more on this and thousands of
other topics, this is how stuff works dot com. Let
us know what you think, send an email to podcast
(42:50):
and how stuff works dot com
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car Stuff from house stuff Works dot Com. Hi, and
welcome to car Stuff. I'm Scott Benjamin and I'm Ben Bollin,
and we've got an interesting question today. UM. I guess
we can just go right with the question, but there's
something I want to ask you first, maybe okay later. Um. Now,
(00:25):
you had mentioned earlier in um, in an earlier podcast
about the Harley Davidson engines, right the engine sounds you
had you had said that your father or your uncle's
or cousins or somebody could distinguish between American made bikes
and Japanese made bikes. Yes, yeah, that they can. They
can hear the Harley and they can identify the Harley.
(00:50):
They could usually identify bikes almost the same way that
people can identify bird calls. Okay, yeah, Well we've got
somebody who a listener who confirms that in that uh
you know it's uh, it's from a long time listener,
L Bouche. Yeah, that's right, And he had written to
say that he was listening to the Harley Sound podcast
(01:10):
and I just wanted to add that, you know, if
you've been around them a long time, I'm going to
kind of paraphrase this. This is from Facebook. Um. So,
he said, if you've been around these for a long
long time, you're able to tell the sound not only
of a distinct you know, like between Harley Davidson and
a Japanese bike or another type of bike, British bike
or whatever, but you're able to distinguish the sound between
(01:33):
the generations of Harley engine. He is accomplished it doing
just that. So he mentions um. For example, he notes
the mechanical sound of a of a knuckle if you've
if you've you know, said, if you're lucky enough to
know somebody who has one, or have ever had one yourself, um,
or the word or whine of a pan. If you
listen closely to the movie Easy Rider, you can hear
(01:53):
that one. Uh man. He's paying attention to this stuff.
Is this is great detailed um and has always been.
The scene has always been. Nothing sounds like a shovel head,
which is his favorite engine. Of course, he mentions here
in this this note um and says that you know,
most people when they hear a Harley engine sound, they're
what they're thinking of in their head is probably um.
(02:16):
The shovel head sound. It's very distinctive and very pure
to him, is what he says. Um. And then there's
like a real tinny sound of an evo. Um. And
if you get into the iron Heads, there's a piercing
sound that sounds like it's pointed at your ear drum. Um,
and the flatheads and so on and so on. So
he says that you know, based on the head design
and after the flywheel design, it's it's kind of like
(02:37):
a group thing. Each one has its own starting procedure,
its own sound, everything about it. He says, you really
have to know know your bike. Get to know your
bike well. Um. And one kind of funny thing he
answer is that at the end, he says, you have
to become one with your bike or else. And then
he and I'll paraphrase this for sure. I put it
in a little more colorful language and I'd like to
(02:58):
use here. Uh. He says that you have to get
to you have to become one with your bike or
else they'll do something to your rear end. But I
won't I won't say what he says. But um, keep
the rubberside down, l boch so um, he's got his
ears on is what he says out there, and he's
always listening, but he wanted to make a note that,
(03:18):
you know, very distinctive sounds within the Harley brand itself.
So knuckle pans shovel head. Yeah, knuckle pan shovel head.
Um evo's I mean he mentions all different types of
types of bikes here, but um, yeah, you can you
can distinctly tell the difference between all of those. He
always writes such a good mail. I appreciate that. I'd
(03:38):
also like to um check out some other listener mails,
maybe later on in this podcast, because as you know,
we didn't ever get to all of them. Oh yet,
since since two thousand and eight, we've yet to get
to all of them. I think you're I think you're right.
I mean, we're continually answering it online. We're making a list,
we're checking it twice. I try to get on Facebook,
answer as many questions as like and here and there,
(04:01):
try to interact with people on Twitter. But um, before
we get straight to that mail, I have a question
for you, Scott. What's that Why don't they use normal
air in race car tires? Part one of the question.
And second, uh, well second, should we copy race car
tire rules in our consumer cars. I think maybe we'll
(04:24):
get to the to get to the root of that
as we go through this podcast. But um, and what
you're talking about here when you say normal air in
in race car tires or in car tires, as we'll
find out, UM, we're talking about nitrogen. And I think
a lot of our listeners will probably you know, perk
up when they hear that, because they may if they've
if they've been to a tire shop recently, um particularly
(04:48):
oddly enough, Costco will offer this as a free service,
so they'll offer nitrogen inflation. Most new tire places will
offer nitrogen inflation as part of a eel. You know,
it's like a premium service. It's an upgrade. It's an upgrade,
and see pay a little bit more for it in
some places, but cost Go again, that's a that's a
free service on their part. Um. It's it's something that
(05:11):
you know, people when they first hear it, they may think, well,
I would guess the initial reaction would be why why
would you do that? Right? And then they may say, well,
what's that going to cost me? And then they'll be
back to now, wait a minute, what did you say
it would do for me, because, um, there's there's a
short list of things that that they claim nitrogen will
do for a tire owner, right, anybody who owns tires,
(05:32):
I guess if you own it on a motorcycle, on
a car or whatever. Sure, Um, there's a short list, right,
And yeah, there's a short list. And you are probably
familiar with these tires, even if you didn't know it,
because you'll notice they have a green valve stem camp
So uh so look around the next time we're walking
by a parking lot and see he's got the green valeve.
(05:52):
One thing that nitrogen has is a more consistent rate
of expansion and contraction. Yeah. And that's uh mostly because
there's far less water vapor in them, right, I mean
there's there's less oxygen involved. Um. Yeah, Okay, man, I
think we're going forward, maybe just a bit too fast. Yeah,
we have to go into the difference between air and nitrogen.
(06:16):
Air and finger quotes, right, because it's it's just atmospheric air,
like what we're breathing right now. That's a normal compressor. Uh.
You know, any normal compressor that you go to is
going to have air in it. Um, But you have
to go to a specialty tire store to get nitrogen.
So what's in air? So here's the thing. Uh air
has more moisture in it, but the compressed air that
(06:38):
you're using when it's dry, it's about one percent. You know,
other gases oxygen and are you ready? I know you
already know this percent nitrogen. Yeah, so we're already talking
about something that has uh seventy and nearly nitrogen already
to begin with. That's air. And I want to tell
(07:00):
you that when you're filling up your tires with nitrogen,
you're only guaranteed to get about ninety three to nine
percent nitrogen in those tires. That's that's with a full service.
I'd say that's a complete thing that we'll talk about
in a minute. But um, so you're really talking about
like a fifteen to seventeen percent increase under the best
circumstances of of an increased on I guess concentration of
(07:22):
nitrogen and your tires, you're still gonna have trace amounts
of of oxygen and I think less water vapor than
even the one percent I would guess. And then there's
other other gases, like you know, like neon and helium,
and crypton and xenon and all all the exactly how
the funnels that's right, I mean they've composed less than
one percent. So um, you know, under the best circumstances,
(07:44):
you're getting nitrogen in your tires at these at these stations.
And so this also the advantages this gives you, as
you said, Scott, it eliminates moisture, cuts it down to
a great degree. And it also because they're a more
consistent rate of expansion contraction um, it reduces the weight
(08:04):
at which the compressed gas diffuses through the tire walls.
So the this means, at least in theory, according to
an excellent article by the guys That's straight Dope, this
means that a tire filled with nitrogen will have that
optimal tire pressure longer, which again theoretically would mean that
(08:28):
you'll have more uniform tire wear and maybe even better
gas mileage. That's where they get a little bit I
think extravagant. I understand. So these claims that you'll hear
when when you say, like, why would I you know
that would be your first question, why would I want
to use nitrogen and my tires instead of just air?
UM A lot of times at the point immediately to
fuel economy saves you on fuel. Um, that's if your
(08:50):
tires remain inflated at the exact same rate that there
when they leave the shop, because they're supposed to be
like a certain ps I with it's thirty five, forty
four whatever. It happens to be very specific, right, and
they'll be like, I know that it costs five dollars
more per tire, but the savings over the long term,
the long term savings, that's it, right, and entire wear.
I can understand that if it if it tires not
(09:12):
overinflated or deflating it, you know, at variable rates depending
on the temperature, because temperature plays into this as well. Um.
You know, as we get colder, you'll find that tires
require more air to be added into them because of
the the air contracts expands and whatever happens. To listen,
there's a there's a lot. I'm getting kind of wrapped
up in this. I'm sorry, I'm getting way off topic.
(09:34):
But um, there's the other claims that they say, or
it'll slow down leaks. You mentioned these, Uh, the way
it diffuses through the walls of the tire. I think
that's diffusing, and it's it's more you're right, it's uh,
it diffuses at a slower rate because the nitrogen molecules
are larger than the oxygen. Moley, Okay, I actually kind
(09:56):
of buy this one now that the reason is because
when you look at microscopically, if you look at your tire,
it's made up of these strands. As I've been told
that looked like almost like spaghetti, and the spaghetti is
bound together. It's not like one solid piece that that
nothing is going to permeate either way, either direction, in
or out. Um, very tiny, tiny amounts of oxygen escaping
(10:18):
your tires all the time. There's just nothing you can
do about that. If you parked a car and left
it for twenty years, you're gonna come back to flat
tires for if nothing else, because air has just simply
I guess, gone through the wall of the tire at
some point, you know, the twenty years and it's gone flat.
You know, you may be able to pump it up
and work fine, who knows. Um there's also dry rot
(10:38):
and that's another thing. Um. Dry rot prevention is something
that a lot of people promote with this the tires
last longer because there's no um, there's no water vapor inside.
They say that the wheels themselves, the rims, won't rust
and deteriorate, leaving you know, like little um areas in
the in the bead that would allow air to escape
as well. Right, And in the past that could be
(11:00):
more of a could have been more of a concern.
I think it's fair to point out now that wheel
wheel rust is not the great scourge that it used
to be. Inside that we're talking inside the tire where
you can't see and uh and outside, I mean you
can see it happening onside. But I think about like
high performance cars have alloy wheels that don't just don't rust. Yeah,
(11:23):
and then codings, there's codings that you know, they're they're
involved now with manufacturing and they know to watch for
these types of things. I'm sure that in the past
it was a lot worse. Now. I do want to
point out that, um, there is a lot of air
that comes out of um most compressors now if you
go to a gas station, as one of one of
these authors here points out, it was a popular mechanic.
(11:44):
Oh yeah, and um he points out. The author points
out that He's dismounted tires in the past that have
had this hard to believe that have had several quarts
of water inside, possibly from compressed air hose that collected
water was never purged properly. And if you want to, uh,
you know, kind of see this for yourself. See how
how it's possible pull up to a gas station that
(12:06):
has you can just do one that has free air.
You don't have to go to one that you have
to pay for it to do this. But you know,
push the button to activate the compressor and then use
your thumb or fingernail to press the press of the
valve that allows the air to flow, you know, freely
out of that out of that compressor, and chances are
your finger is gonna get wet from the air that's
in the line or in the compressor itself. Um, all
(12:26):
of that would be blasting into your tire. He's correct,
And that you know it it gathers up over time,
and that water vapor you know that that builds up
and and and it adds weight, It adds um. I
don't know instability, I guess to the to the tire,
it's it's it's really a problem in there. So nitrogen
being such a dry um, I guess gas, Um, it's
(12:48):
it's much much better in that situation. Well, yeah, that okay,
there is some scientific merit to that argument. I think
what I would question about that argument would be the
degree to which that damage occurs. Um. Now, of course,
if we're talking over time, Scott, then yes, it will
(13:09):
create wheel rot over time. UM. And tires are consumables
on a car, so you're not supposed to have them
the whole time. I'm not. I'm not trying to be
an anti nitrogen person, understand, especially given that the regular
air we're already using there's already seventy nitrogen almost yea,
So it's kind of hard to h hard to deny that. However,
(13:32):
um ox oxygen does attack the substance of a tire
over time, So reducing the oxygen by increasing the amount
of nitrogen, which is an inert substance, will reduce that
that problem for tires. Okay, so we're talking about long
term use, like if you're gonna have tires on a
car for a long time. We're almost talking and I'm
(13:55):
I'm gonna say we're almost talking like museum cars or
store cars. You put in the storage. It's a long
time it is. You would most likely go through the
through the tread of the tire before this would ever
become an issue really on most tires unlike a daily
driver for sure. Yeah, exactly, I mean and works. And
again we're talking about still gears of use. UM. So
(14:16):
I hate to be so down on it. I really don't.
I don't mean to be, but because there's a lot
of applications where this does work. Oh yeah, I've got
some good ones, are they? Well, one thing that nitrogen
is just um, let's keep a family friendly. One thing
nitrogen really kicks butt at scott is not catching on
fire or supporting combustion. So that's why you might see
(14:39):
that's one of the reasons why you see nitrogen in
race car tires. It's also why you see nitrogen in
tires on aircraft and space shuttles, places where fire is bad. Also,
I want to add in for the f of the
racing tires, IndyCar, Formula One, NASCAR, all those guys use
this UM. Part of that is that they don't have
(15:01):
to UM continually, I mean continually check air tire pressure
on race day, and I know they do that Anyways,
they check them all the time, they really do. They're
very very um uh conscientious about about how much air
pressure is in each tire, um at what time and
before it goes on the vehicle, and you know, what
comes off the vehicle, how much has left. You know,
they're they're really watching the tires all the time. But um,
(15:23):
this gives them one less thing to really have to
worry about. I mean, it's a very small adjustment if
it has to be made. Um So you know, it's
used in critical tire applications like you mentioned racing aircraft,
heavy duty commercial equipment. You know, if you're gonna be
um running a strip mine somewhere, or any kind of
mining equipment that has you know, those enormous tires that
are they're twelve feet tall. Um, you're not gonna want
(15:45):
to have to monitor those every hour, every two hours
to see how the temperature is affecting the tire pressure.
Because if you blow one of those out and you're
in the in the middle of the yeah, you're in
the middle of the cory or the jungle in South America,
a new tire could be a wee go away two
weeks or a month away because they have to build
these things just for that vehicles like Arctic research vehicles
(16:07):
or something. Correct. Yeah, this, this is a great point
for us to make because I think both of us
are saying that we're not anti nitrogen tires. It's a
good thing and it depends upon the application. Um, However,
these this method is being sold two people. Um perhaps
(16:31):
with is it fair to say exaggerated claims? Yeah, and
you you know, you kind of hit the nail on
the head here when he said we're not we're not
anti nitrogen entires that by any means. However, there are
limits to this and uh, and I have maybe I
think I have a lower limit than you have on
this because when I mentioned my my limits, I think
(16:51):
I saw your eyebrows. Rais my limit would be one dollar? Yes,
if they're going to charge a dollar more for this entires,
I'm just not going to do it. I'm you know
what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna buy a tire gauge
and I'm gonna watch my tires carefully. That's that's the
way to really monetor your tires and make sure that
everything is a working correctly. Now at nitrogen I know
(17:11):
works for people that you know, maybe don't pay as
much attention to their automobile and want to go somewhat
maintenance free on their tires. Yeah, don't want don't want
the hassle of needing to check your tire pressure, which
according to most manufacturers, you should be doing every time
that you hop in your car, which I know no
one does that, but sure no, I mean, I mean
(17:33):
according to it, Well, you know what I want to get.
I'll get into the amount of people that likely don't
even look at their tires in just a moment, because
there's a place I want to point some of our
listeners too. But I do say that, you know, even
a dollar, even if it's even if they say we're
gonna fill the up and it's gonna be a dollar
additional for nitrogen inflation, that's say, let's skip that. Really,
(17:54):
that's just I know, and I know it sounds super cheap,
but I just don't feel like it's something that's necessary
because even after you get the nitrogen inflation um, if
you want to fill it again, if you need to
adjust some way, you're gonna have to find a nitrogen
inflation station in order to adjust these things. Now, I
know that you can add standard air from any compressor
(18:15):
to a nitrogen inflated tire and it it operates just fine.
But wouldn't that sort of defeat the purpose You're you're
deluding the concentration of nitrogen that's in the tire, and
they're the proper ways to do it. And I saw that, Um,
I'm gonna look at my notes here, because I saw
that there's a way that that they do this time
about bleeding the tire. Yeah, bleeding the tire. And there's
there's this like purge cycle that they have to do
(18:36):
in order to properly do this. It's not so if
you go somewhere and and they want to fill your tires,
it's not just a matter of um, you know, kind
of deflating them, you know, with a fingernail or whatever
and let they go down flat and then and then
filling it back up with nitrogen. There's this whole purge
cycle thing that has to happen for it to be
done properly. Right, they have to fill it and then
(18:56):
bleed it and then fill it again. And each time
they go through this cycle, they're deluding the amount of
oxygen within the tire. Yeah, I guess, yeah, they're they're
concentrating the purity of the nitrogens maybe a better way
to say it. Yeah. But I also want to point
out that when they do that, ben Um, there's there's
(19:18):
one thing that people need to watch out for. Some
places will use a vacuum, and at all costs, avoid
any place to uses a vacuum to do this, because
you don't want to deflate a tire where they actually
suck the air out of the tire and it becomes
deformed and kind of mouth shaped. I guess it's these
deflated tires look horrible in the in the image that
I saw, they look like it looks you know how
(19:40):
if you have a hat that has had something lay
on it for too long, or somebody stepped on the
hat right, it has that that it's a similar look.
It's it's really bad. And the problem is that you know,
that's actually subjecting the tire to like a situation almost
like if you were to to encounter some really bad
row hazards, you know, like if you were to to
(20:02):
bend to tire and in a way that it shouldn't
be bent. Um. These vacuums, at all costs, avoid them.
They're they're safer, better ways to do this, and you know,
the professionals know what they're doing. But if you go
to a smaller shop, they may try to sell you this, uh,
this vacuum treatment where they vacuum out all the old
air and pumping the new air. Ask them ahead of
time if they're going to do that, because that's definitely
something you don't want to do. And I think we're
(20:24):
also both saying that if you if you don't want
to check your tire pressure, Scott, I think you have
a statistic for that too, right, Yeah, I do. And
I have one more last thing I want to I
want to mention at the very end. But um, yeah,
the statistic comes from a place called the Get Nitrogen Institute.
So you can imagine what they're with their anglers here
(20:44):
on thiss G and I now it's if you want
to go to this place, you can. You can go
online and look this up. It's called get nitrogen dot
org and um what it does is allows you to
find a nitrogen dealer near you. And there's thousands of
these things all over the United States and everywhere now
over the world. Really, Um, there's a they make a
lot of claims on the site. Now we mentioned increased
(21:05):
fuel economy, increased tire life, UM, improved handling and traction.
Now that comes with now again all these increased fuel
economy and all that stuff, that's just watching your tire pressure.
If you watch your tire pressure with normal air and
you get the same thing, right, same thing with fuel economy,
improved handling, attraction, same thing. Watch your watch your tire pressure,
you're gonna get the same thing. Better for the environment.
(21:29):
I don't know. I guess that comes with the fuel economy. UM,
I don't really. Maybe so you're increasing your mileage UM,
longer wheel life. Maybe we talked about that that the
wheels are made better now, I mean, you know they're
watching for corrosion things like that. Tires probably are less
permeable than they were in the past. I bet they're tighter.
(21:49):
They don't lose air as fast as they used to. UM.
There's also a savings calculator here, and this is what
this gets me. I don't know how this works, ben. Um. Now,
the the information that you you input would be the
miles driven per year. Okay, then the the average or
the tire cost for replacements. So whatever your tires cost
on your vehicle. Okay, so iner that number um average
(22:12):
fuel price that you'll be paying, just a rough estimate
of what you think you'll be paying, and uh, the
miles per gallon for your car what you normally get.
And then from that information, you know, you press calculate
and it will tell your savings. And there's a National
Savings calculator and a you know, dealers Added you know
today or whatever you know that the deal in nitrogen UM.
(22:35):
It's just I don't quite know where all of this
information is coming from, how the how this calculator actually works.
But according to g n I, and this is the
staff that I was talking about, according to them that
this get Nitrogen Institute, eighty five percent of Americans don't
check their tire pressure regularly. Now do you believe that?
I have another statistic that I will tell you in
(23:00):
just a moment, But first I think it's time that
we talked about something completely different. What do you think, Well,
it's not completely different. I guess it's still about cars. Okay,
I'll take it. Okay, good enough, because I've found a
really cool movie. It's an old movie. And I'll get
to the reason why this is cool at the very end.
Now it may not sound initially like something you don't
want to watch. Um, oh boy, I shouldn't sell like that.
(23:22):
Well no, hey man, I've you've warned me uh this
way before about different films, and you converted me despite
my skepticism. So I'm going to hear you out. Okay,
what's on Netflix this week? Hot Cars and it's from
from nineteen fifty six. Again it's called hot Cars. Um.
It's a story of a used car dealer whose name
is Nick Dunn Um, who needs to get here. This
(23:45):
is kind of cheesy, but he needs to raise money
really quickly for an operation for his son. Okay, so
he needs quick money, needs it fast. What's he gonna do? Um?
He reluctantly gets involved with the stolen car ring. Now,
this is a mob run stolen car rings, and of course,
being a local used car dealer, you can imagine what's
going to happen here. So a local detective gets involved
(24:06):
in this, gets a little snoopy about what's going on
at the dealership, at the at the lot there. Um
kind of finds out what's going on at the last minute,
you know, when this investigation is kind of nearing its son.
He turns up dead. The the the detective turns out dead.
So so this owner, this Nick Dunn and fellow. Um,
he ends up on the run from the law. He's
(24:26):
accused of murder. And it all leads up, and I'm
not giving anything away, it all leads up to this
big final duel on a roller coaster. I know, I
don't sounds funny, but but he's on this roller coaster
in this kind of big final duel with the stolen
car ring leader, the mob boss guy, and that's very dramatic. However,
I think what our listeners are gonna take from this,
(24:48):
what they're gonna really appreciate in this is that if
you recall I said Nick Dunn as a used car
dealer in this nineteen fifty six and the cars involved
in this movie, the vehicles that you're gonna see, I
mean nineteen fifty five Pontiac Chief Train Wagon, nineteen fifty
Stude Bagger, Um, there's a nineteen fifty old Uh, there's
(25:09):
fifty four and fifty six Caddies there. Um, there's even
an old mg mg T d E from nineteen fifty
fifty six Chevy bell Air. I mean the lot is
loaded with cars of that era, of course, and a
little bit of anything and everything. I think listeners are
gonna really like just kind of watching the background in
this whole movie because it's it's got so many, so
(25:31):
many classic cars now, um that you just don't see
on the road ever. Now they are indeed hot cars, indeed, yes,
and uh not hot as in stolen at least. All right, man,
I'll tell you what you You really did prove me wrong.
I love being proven wrong, especially when it's about something good.
You proved me wrong with Fast Lady, So I'm gonna
(25:52):
stick with you for hot cars. Yeah, the storyline maybe
a little cheesy and that you know, someone needs money
for an operation. That's why I'm doing this. But you
name several uh beautiful cars in that era. So if
you would like to get on the same page with
me and check out Scott's movie recommendation for the week,
then check it out on Netflix instant, where you can
(26:15):
find this film and thousands more. Oh uh, and if
you are not a member of Netflix No Worries, you
can get a free thirty day trial by going to
Netflix dot com slash car stuff. Tell him. Scott and
Ben sent you. And we're not saying you have to
watch hot cars might be a good choice. We're saying
it might be a good choice. Um. And with that
(26:38):
being said, Scott, I wanted to UM, I wanted to
put some space between our dueling statistics because I have one,
so I said. According to get Nitrogen, Get Nitrogen says
that Americans do not check their tire pressure regularly. Okay,
this is a little bit different because, um, the n
(27:00):
h t S, a National Highway Transport Safety Association UH
says that less than sixty of US motorists actually check
and adjust their tire pressure regularly. I actually think I
believe that number even more. I believe that number just
I guess the way it's framed seems a little bit
more realistic. But whenever somebody says a D five, that's
(27:22):
a heck of a high number. That is a pretty
high number of people. I don't know, because I I
maybe it's the people that I hang out with. I
think I think a lot of people that I know
are kind of conscientious of their automobile. You know, oil
changes at the right time, UM, you know, making sure
that you know they've they've got new wiper blades. On
all the time and making sure the headlights work and
(27:43):
all that. I think people that that I hang around
with they're just kind of like that. So maybe it's
for us I have a skewed view maybe um in
saying that, you know, I think I think more people
are checking their their tire pressure more often. Yeah, that's
what I mean, That's what I think to all right,
So to bring it all back around before we get
(28:04):
to your last thing there, Scott um, I believe that
the argument here. Unfortunately, most of the stuff that I've
read about nitrogen and daily drivers has come with a
a resounding response from the reviewers. A lot of people
say that for the price or depending on the price, uh,
(28:24):
they don't think it would be worth it for a
daily driver. And to me and personally, for me, I'd
rather just check my entire pressure. But if you are
someone who, um, if you're offer routing a lot in
places where it would be difficult to get a tire,
and you somehow don't bring replacement tires, then maybe uh,
(28:46):
you would want to to even then I think people
should just get a spare tire. But if if for
some reason you're against it, then sure, by all means
nitrogen um will work for you if you are just
dead set against checking your tires, if you have some
sort of abiding personal issue with it, than nitrogen is
for you. Fair enough. And I want to double check
one thing here, what's up? Now? We read these numbers,
(29:07):
and I want to read them to make sure they're
not saying similar things or the word because if it's
not a class, it is because now, according to g N,
I again of Americans do not check their tire pressure regularly,
So saying the people don't check their tire pressures regularly. Now,
what what was your number? Less than do check their
tire pressure regularly? Okay, I'm gonna need to figure this
(29:29):
one out later. So it sounds like there's a Venn
diagram there, right, it does. Yeah, it's like who checks
and who doesn't check? So the number is depressingly high.
It really is. I think I think, you know, in general,
most people probably don't check the tires as regularly as
they should. And but but I think my group of
people that I hang around with, I think that that
we that we do UM different different group, different different interests.
(29:53):
I suppose here's here's an idea. It's never too early
to plan a gift for people. I just want to
throw this in there, Scott, because it's it's an excellent
thing that I do to try to get um this
kind of maintenance work off of my back for someone
else's car. Um if they're doing a Christmas thing or
a Hanukkah thing, or any any situation really where you
(30:16):
can give them a gift. Uh, give them a card
that says, you know, a happy birthday, happy Columbus Day,
whatever doesn't matter, okay, and attach a tire gauge to
this card in the envelope and then you know, write
something nice if you want. But all you have to
really write down is the recommended p s I of
(30:38):
their tires. I've done this like four times and I've
never gotten in trouble for it. And does it say
this is no say like check your damn tires. The
one time it said something close to that with a
roommate of mine. But most it depends on the audience,
I guess, right. Yeah, most times it's stuff like dear
you know on so and so blah blah blah, just
(30:59):
keep this in your car, and uh, it's just thinking
of your safety. It's a nice way I think to
help people, and it's you could say, as my gift
to you, I'm going to have your the the normal,
plain old, ordinary, everyday air replaced with fancy nitrogen. Yeah,
only the best for you, that's right. And then you
could just even if you wanted to, just put green
caps on it and not worry about it. Oh no, man,
(31:22):
that's a little okay, that's dishonest. I know you shouldn't
do that, but but you know, do when you're in
traffic look around for the green caps on people's tires.
And I swear to you I can. I can probably
find five cars on my way home today. And there's
a lot of traffic on my way home, so give
me a lot of opportunities. But um, I bet I
could find five cars on my way home today that
have green caps on the on the wheels, on the
(31:43):
val stems that indicate that there's nitrogen in those tires.
And I don't know if that's a lot of people
that just happen to buy their tires at costco, or
if it's people that are really performance oriented or just
you know, or or you know, want less maintenance. I
guess for something like this. Now, I want to point
out one last thing here that I found really interesting. Now,
we talked about costs and this stuff, and I said
(32:04):
I probably wouldn't go over a dollar is extremely cheap.
But what I'm saying, what I'm really mean by that
is if it's not free, I'm probably not going to
do it. I just don't think it's worth the upgrade. Okay,
so it's it's an upgrade for sure, I'm not really
willing to pay for it because of you know what
I know about it. Now we're about to talk about
(32:25):
how much people might charge. Well, typically the cost is
I mean just ballpark about five or six dollars attire
is a typical cost for what it will cost to
have you know, all the regular air UH purged, daddy
your wheels and you know this Niger's and added Now
I read an article in UH from edmund Edmunds dot com.
Oh yeah, I've got this one, do you. Okay? Yeah,
(32:46):
this is interesting because, um it came from someone in
a Dodges Challenger owners owners forum. And the owner of
this DADGS Challenger is someone who's about to be an
owner of a Dadage Challenger. I was looking at the
car on the lot and kind of you know, checked
out the windows sticker right where they have all the
list of the options, all the bells and whistles that
(33:07):
are included on the car. And so what do they find, ben, Uh,
they find that there's a nitrogen upgrade item that is
on this Uh that is an add on on this car,
on this Dad's Challenger, which is a performance car. Of course, yeah,
very much so. Um, so this is this dealer upgrade,
this nitrogen upgrade. How much were they charging? Do you
(33:28):
do you have the number? Yes? How much was it? Well,
it wasn't seventy dollars? Now it was much more than that.
Oh wait, well the one um, let's see it was
a sixty nine dollar item on the supplemental windows sticker.
But a another four member said the dealer was charging
a hundred and seventy nine dollars one hundred and seventy
(33:49):
nine dollars for a nitrogen upgrade. It's the same thing,
I know. So they get this car on the lot
from you know, the factory wherever it comes from, you
where they build these things, and uh, a dealer purchase
the oxygen, puts in nitrogen and that is somehow worth
one seventy nine dollars to the new owner of that
Dodge Challenger. Well, you know, if I were buying a
(34:11):
car at that lot and I saw that, this is
where the information becomes your friend. If you see that,
then you immediately have, um, what's it called carte blanche
to question every other single price on there, and you can, um.
I think it would be worth it to open a
negotiation and say, okay, well, you know, if I bought
(34:33):
this car without those tires and took it to the mechanic,
you know, two blocks down the way. Uh, then I
would pay what twenty four dollars for that? Right? If
it's six bucks attire, which is still a little too much.
I saw quoted at like ten dollars attire, and then
even as high as thirty dollars per tire out of mechanics.
But that dealer one took the cake that far. That
(34:54):
is the That is the largest number that I've seen
so far for a nitrogen upgrade. Don't pay for it, guys,
that not that much. That is way too much. Even
the sixty charge I mean that was so that that
range runs from sixty nine to one seventy nine on
these dealer upgrades. I just uh, I would be very
careful about stuff like that on a window sticker of
a performance car, if you were, if you're in the market,
(35:15):
if you're shopping for one right now, and uh, now,
do you want to bring back an oldie but a
goodies segment? It's been a while since we did it, Scott,
what's that listener mail? Let's do it all right? So
we've got a couple of emails here that man, some
some unready emails from our Nuts and Bolts Part nine
episode that we did. I've still got a stack at
(35:36):
these things on my desk. Um. You know that we
just didn't get too because you remember we read letter
after letter. Yeah, we got to a part where didn't
we make that a two part episode? Yeah, we eventually did. Yeah.
Now I'm gonna I'm gonna kind of skip the end
of this one because there's there's an interesting note here
at the end that I want to get the answer
to from you from me? Yeah, this is unexpected, So
(35:57):
I'll see what you say. This comes from Cameron. And
Cameron actually wrote in about hybrids and uh, I guess
we're we're talking about hybrids for a while. Um, and
he basically I guess I think he ended up the
green with me on hybrids and that. UM. He mentioned
that he was at a class where he was chatting
with the professor from someone from Texas University about hybrids
(36:18):
and fuel cells and the future power generations for cars
and things like that, UM, and the professor ended the
talk with the student of Cameron by saying, maybe I'll
maybe I see again sometime down the road and hopefully
you'll be driving one of those new fuel cells or hybrids,
and Cameron said, not a chance. I'm sticking. I'm sticking
to it, to my internal combustion engine. UM, they're just
(36:40):
too much fun to play with. So I got the
idea that you know, right now, amout a chance. Maybe later,
you know, we'll see what happens. And kind of got
the same yeah idea about this whole thing. But I'm
getting off topic here because what I really really wanted
to get to is this final little note on Cameron's
email here UM that says, I was wondering why you
guys don't like rain X Personally. I love the stuff
(37:02):
to the point that when driving other people's cars for
extended periods of time in the rain, I make the
next stop to purchase and apply rain X to their car.
Oh I remember, so, Cameron wrote in and wondering because
I've heard this from you in the past, since the
very beginning. I think we've talked about rain xs early on,
and I'm I'm not terribly fond of it because I
(37:23):
have had one bad experience with it, and I think
it was operator air. I think I applied it incorrectly
because now I've watched some videos about how to properly
apply this, and it comes down to like using steel
wall to clean surface, microfiber closs and how you apply it,
and it's really very specific and how you do it.
What's your beef with with with the rain product or
(37:45):
I should say products like rain X, because there's many
of them out there are other yeah, other similar sort
of water repellent things said tell usman, enlighten us, why
you don't like grain X. I know you're on this,
this is this is fine, this is fine. You know.
I try to keep it positive. I will be honest
with you. UM. I despise rain X. I have no
(38:07):
problem with people who involved in the company, and I
think that if other people want to use it, that's fine.
It's just not for me. UM. I have perhaps part
of it is that I've never been in a situation
where I applied it. Whenever I was driving someone else's
car that had rain X on it, it was just
a huge pain in the south side. I don't know
(38:31):
how to say that family friendly, um, but it's a
huge pain in the key start um. In my opinion,
I would prefer windshield wipers, for instance. The one thing
that got me is that if you're in very heavy
traffic it's also very heavy rainfall. Rain X works better
and the rainex products work better when you're when you
(38:53):
have that speed and help the water beat off of
it understood, and I would be more fine with with
rain X if it um if that problem wasn't as
apparent to me, because we do a lot of traffic.
We got a lot of traffic. We have a lot
of traffic, so we were driving in slow sour speeds
in the city situations and uh. And I find that
(39:15):
during the daytime also it's a little bit dragging because
it makes it beat so well, um it often breaks
into tiny, tiny, little um droplets of water instead of
just being maybe one larger droplet. I know it's supposed
to beat up and roll off, but yeah, again, when
you parked, it doesn't work as well, doesn't so right,
I agree with you on that. We'll see. Also, I
do want to point out that objectively, yes, it's a
(39:37):
brilliant product, it's a brilliant idea. Um, it's just not
for me. I prefer windshield wipers. At night. You almost
don't even really need your wipe. But now I know
you're supposed to use them in conjunction with rain X,
but um, at night. Really, I've been driving at night
with rain X on my on my windshield and I
feel like I don't need my wipers at all. But
then when you get into an area where there is
like you do see that there is water there? Yes,
(39:59):
it is. It is true. The sheeting off of the
glass and feeling away, it's and and again I watched
some recent videos about how to apply it, and it
comes down to you using like four odd steel wool
and preparing the surface and then a microfiber cloth in
a certain direction and then waiting the exact amount of
time before you reapply and then remove it. And you know,
(40:21):
there's all kinds of different ways to do this, but
I think the people that I saw doing it were
r v owners who put a lot of and of
course they have a big flat one shield who they
need to get water off and quickly. Um. And I
think it's very it's gotta, it's got, it's got its applications. Well, yes,
submittedly it has multiple applications. And I'm not saying that
(40:41):
I hate people who use rain necks who make it.
I am saying that I hate it on my car.
It's it's it's fine, but it's kind of like, you
know how in the movies there would be able to
be those parents who would say, do whatever you want
when you don't live here, but not in my house.
Whoever you want your own cars, not on my car again. Uh.
(41:03):
And maybe it's just because again, every every place that
I've been around, maybe people applied it incorrectly. I think
that's probably likely. That might be why I got burned
with it, because I've had some good experiences and some
bad experiences with it, and on the same vehicle. So
it does matter how you apply the stuff and how
it works. So Cameron, I mean, I know you like
it a lot. Ben doesn't like it so much, but
(41:23):
it maybe I can get him to try it again.
I'm kind of fifty fifty about it. I haven't used
it in a long time, but but I surely have
enjoyed making me sweat today. Then it's fun. It's only
had some rain X to apply to our studios. I
might use some of my glasses and then try to
run really fast and see how that works. You should
do that. You should do that, Cameron, of course. See,
I thank you for writing the email. Scott, thank you
(41:46):
flaming get this off my chest about rain X. I
hope I didn't put you in. And now it's totally fun.
It's really fun because you guys have had this rain
X intervention. I'll promise the following I will check out
a YouTube video about how best to apply rain X
and you know what, man, I'll try it. And then
you're gonna have to come back and apologize to us
(42:07):
for the wrongs that you know when you told us
about how you didn't you didn't like rain X and
you had a bad experience. I think the word I
was despised. All right, Well that's up. So in the meantime,
while Scott are off on this particular adventure, we hope
you enjoyed our episode on nitrogen tires and whether or
not that Nitrogen services right for you right in tell
(42:29):
us what you think you'd love to hear about it.
You can find us on Facebook. We're also on Twitter,
and our email address, as always, is our stuff at
Discovery dot com. For more on this and thousands of
other topics, this is how stuff works dot com. Let
us know what you think, send an email to podcast
(42:50):
and how stuff works dot com
CarStuff News
Hosts And Creators
Scott Benjamin
Ben Bowlin
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