The Season of Discontent is upon us...

[oneheadlite]

...
I will say, I appreciate the fact Costco uses Nitrogen when they mount tires. The properties of the gas are such it doesn't fluctuate with temps like traditional, compressed, ambient air. I never have to adjust the pressure in the tires on my wife's car.

That's interesting. In my experience, the cars that come in to our shop with the green valve stem caps are quite frequently (uniformly) 10+ psi low. I've always attributed it to nitrogen being sold as the "ultimate never need to check your tires" solution, so people never keep up with them.

Do you know if they use pure (bottled) nitrogen to set beads/fill tires when they mount them? My understanding is that if you want the benefits of nitrogen you really need to do it that way (plus pull a vacuum and refill once seated) vs the standard "scrubbed" nitrogen that a lot of shops use. I can't remember the specs of the machine we had at the dealership when I worked there, but the actual final percentage of nitrogen wasn't much higher than ambient air...

The full on Nitrogen fill is more of a racing thing; the machines I've seen in normal shops hook up to the normal compressed air and somehow scrub additional nitrogen. The tires are then deflated and reinflated (usually with full car weight on them) 3 times to boost the nitrogen content.

Full disclosure: outside of my observations when checking tire pressure on cars when I do oil changes, my knowledge base for nitrogen machines used at shops is limited to my exposure back in the day. A quick google shows Costco's nitrogen "shoots for" 93% vs the regular 78 percent ambient. Who knows what the actual normal result is.


Other completed random thing that occurred to me - If I round down and guesstimate that I've averaged 5 oil changes a week, for as long as I've been in the industry I've done over 5200 oil changes in my career. And this is never having worked as a "lube tech".

[PA DETAILER]

[Desertnate]

That's interesting. In my experience, the cars that come in to our shop with the green valve stem caps are quite frequently (uniformly) 10+ psi low. I've always attributed it to nitrogen being sold as the "ultimate never need to check your tires" solution, so people never keep up with them.

Do you know if they use pure (bottled) nitrogen to set beads/fill tires when they mount them? My understanding is that if you want the benefits of nitrogen you really need to do it that way (plus pull a vacuum and refill once seated) vs the standard "scrubbed" nitrogen that a lot of shops use. I can't remember the specs of the machine we had at the dealership when I worked there, but the actual final percentage of nitrogen wasn't much higher than ambient air...

The full on Nitrogen fill is more of a racing thing; the machines I've seen in normal shops hook up to the normal compressed air and somehow scrub additional nitrogen. The tires are then deflated and reinflated (usually with full car weight on them) 3 times to boost the nitrogen content.

Full disclosure: outside of my observations when checking tire pressure on cars when I do oil changes, my knowledge base for nitrogen machines used at shops is limited to my exposure back in the day. A quick google shows Costco's nitrogen "shoots for" 93% vs the regular 78 percent ambient. Who knows what the actual normal result is.

I don't purposely choose a tire shop because they Nitrogen, but it's a nice bonus when we get it. I used to discount it all as snake oil until I did a little research and observed what was going on with my own vehicles. One thing I found was the aircraft industry has used nitrogen for landing gear tires for a very long time because it doesn't expand/contract like ambient air when the temperatures change.

Several years ago when we first bought a set of tires at Costco on the wife's car I first noticed what was going on when we had a sudden cold snap (like a 30+ degree drop in a matter of hours) that set off TPMS warnings on both my car and my daughter's. I aired up all of our tires and when I checked my wife's car, the pressure was spot-on. As time passed, I found I never had to add/blead off air no matter what time of year or the temps. It was spot on all the time. Later I experienced the same thing in my car when I got a nitro fill on a set of tires purchased at Costco. The only car I had to ever adjust was the daughter's car with ambient air in the tires. It all ended in my car when I started autocrossing on those tires which required frequent inflation/deflation and the ratio of the gasses equalized to typical ambient air.

Again, I'm not one of those people who will fanatically only get a nitro fill in my tires, nor will I pay extra for it. However, I won't turn it down if it comes a part of the package of getting tires mounted.

I have no idea what Costco does when they set the beads. I'd love to watch, but they don't let you in the bays and most of the time I have a shopping list to occupy my time while the work is being done. Does make you wonder how they handle that part of the process.

[PA DETAILER]

Calling for a really dismal weekend. Cool and rain. Fine, i will stay in and drink BEER!

[Desertnate]

You're going to get what we've got now in the Midwest. Next week is looking to get even cooler with our first frost and several days with highs in the 40's. I guess fall finally decided to show up!

People have been talking about bringing in their detailing supplies, but I'm faced with another dilema. Swapping out my Summer/Winter wheels. I have a road trip coming up soon and was hoping to do it on my Summers. Not looking like that is going to happen....

[Klasse Act]

You're going to get what we've got now in the Midwest. Next week is looking to get even cooler with our first frost and several days with highs in the 40's. I guess fall finally decided to show up!

People have been talking about bringing in their detailing supplies, but I'm faced with another dilema. Swapping out my Summer/Winter wheels. I have a road trip coming up soon and was hoping to do it on my Summers. Not looking like that is going to happen....

Absolutely play it safe whenever possible!

Sent from my SM-G991U using Tapatalk

[boosteddub69]

Living in central TX, this is when detailing season starts for me.

The summer months are hot and miserable. I’m usually doing rindless washes in the garage at 6am to avoid the worst of the heat. Many summer mornings are 80+ degrees with humidity to match.

When late October hits, the mornings are cooler, the sun is lower in the sky and the mosquitoes are less savage.

Sorry for my northern detailing brothers and sisters but this is the good time for me.

[Bill D]

It's detailing season in Florida too. I plan to use my garage queens more now.

[Klasse Act]

Living in central TX, this is when detailing season starts for me.

The summer months are hot and miserable. I’m usually doing rindless washes in the garage at 6am to avoid the worst of the heat. Many summer mornings are 80+ degrees with humidity to match.

When late October hits, the mornings are cooler, the sun is lower in the sky and the mosquitoes are less savage.

Sorry for my northern detailing brothers and sisters but this is the good time for me.

Just do us a favor, enjoy it that much more because we can't We look forward to those sunny 35-40 degree days...BIG TIME! I can only speak for myself but go down in the laundry room and fill up my 5 gallon buckets with pretty hot water and which ever RW I'm feeling at the moment and get out there and get after it. Because I've got my trusty Worx hydroshot I can rinse out the wheelwells and perform a good tire/wheel cleaning too. Once done I feel better and it makes me very happy, that goes a LOOOONG way because of the 3-4 of cold/gray/white/slush and sh!t

Sent from my SM-G991U using Tapatalk

[JDGolden]

Just do us a favor, enjoy it that much more because we can't We look forward to those sunny 35-40 degree days...BIG TIME! I can only speak for myself but go down in the laundry room and fill up my 5 gallon buckets with pretty hot water and which ever RW I'm feeling at the moment and get out there and get after it. Because I've got my trusty Worx hydroshot I can rinse out the wheelwells and perform a good tire/wheel cleaning too. Once done I feel better and it makes me very happy, that goes a LOOOONG way because of the 3-4 of cold/gray/white/slush and sh!t

Sent from my SM-G991U using Tapatalk

Clean cars look even cleaner during winter. Until you drive it. Lol