Nitrogen in tires?

[LexusAussie]

I have had my tires filled with Nitrogen on my past 2 Lexus. The benefits I have observed are: Better Fuel economy (minor improvements only) but not anywhere near enough to recover the cost of the Nitrogen inflation; Better ride quality; Not having to check tire pressures. My last RX lost approx 1 PSI in a year on Nitrogen. My tire dealer (who filled my tires with Nitrogen) checks my tires as often as I like. Overall, not having to check my tire pressures was worth the minor $$

[wytstang]

Wytstang and Killrwheels,

You guys should have to put up with my daughter. I was passed by a silver Prius today on the I-24 this morning. Her only comment? "Dad, even the Prius drivers go faster than you!!!"

At least I did pass one guy (I was running between 60 and 65 on the way in), the only problem was he had a flat tire and was rolling on the shoulder of the road trying to get to the next exit. Everyone else was going 70+.

I guess I like spending my money on guns, ammo and gear for the cars instead of gas. By the way, 385 miles into this tank and the MFD is reading 44.7 mpg on the Camry with 310 miles cruising range left

The problem with that is buying hybrids come with a premium vs there petro counter parts. They (News article) did the math and it was calculated that hybrids don't start saving you money from gas savings till about 3-8 years down the road (depending on models). Your spending more on payments (and total purchase price) then on the pumps and vise versa........Catch 22

[GeorgiaHybrid]

wytstang,

It depends on the car. With the Camry, the latest estimates from the auto magazines are around 20 months. For the fancy Lexus, about 103 years.... I had a POS S80 Volvo that was getting 25mpg (on premium). At my usual mileage per year (24,000) and the current cost for fuel, I should break even around the 14 month mark.

I compared mine to a 4 cyl. XLE equiped with the same features and payed a $1200.00 premium for the hybrid. For that difference, why not??? I can understand your statement about the payments but I paid cash for these (company cars) so tht never entered the equation.

The Camry is not as much fun as a lot of cars that I have owned in the past but is is very reliable and at my age (50+) some of us old farts like our comfort

[ricka]

Avoid 10% ethanol gasoline if at all possible. This alone will decrease your mileage between 3 to 10%. It is cheaper for the stations to sell but if you notice, they do not lower the price when they started to pump it. Ethanol is an oxygenated fuel and causes some O2 sensors to tell the computer “you are letting too much oxygen in the exhaust, burn more fuel”.

I've never heard this one...when comparing prices between the lower cost stations like Racetrack or QT (who use ethanol) they are some 25 cents cheaper than the name brand Shells, Texacos and Chevrons near my home. I get about 25mpg and 30 on the road in a Audi A6 quattro 6-cylinder. Also, not sure if ethanol is really bad for the car either but I'm open for feedback and proof.

[GeorgiaHybrid]

Ricka,

Ethanol contains aprox. 76,000 BTU/Gal and gasoline contains aprox. 115,500 BTU/Gal. E10 (10% ethanol) contains 111,550 BTU/Gal. or roughly 97% of the energy content of gasoline. Depending on the engine, computer, terrain and driving habits you can get somewhat close to your mileage with gasoline (call it 3% less) under ideal conditions.

There are some engine, computer, driver combinations however that will deliver up to 8 or 10% less mileage on E10. Some engine management systems will mis-read the amount of O2 in the exhaust stream as the engine burning in a "lean" condition and increase the amount of fuel delivered from the injectors. As you might imagine, this will decrease your fuel economy.

The bright side to this is that ethanol has an octane rating of +/- 110 which does help the performance of the engine. In my mis-spent youth, I ran an A Gas drag car that would outrun itself when fueled with alcohol compared to gasoline. The only difference was the jetting on the carb. The alcohol required roughly 2/3 more fuel than gas.

My business partner runs what I call toilet bowl racing (modified dirt track but they go round and round like flushing a toilet....). There are a lot of tracks they run alcohol at (better performance and the engine runs cooler) but at the longer tracks they are forced to run gasoline as the fuel cell will not hold enough alcohol to run the race without a pit stop.