Or are nitrogen filled tyres all a big confidence trick that some tyre places pull to extract an extra £10 a corner out of the gullible?
Yup.
I'm sure that if you cough up whatever it costs to have the percentage of nitrogen in your tyres increased from the standard fit 78% to a nominal 100%, complete strangers will be falling over themselves to buy you an expensive Belgian beer in a poncy glass and be hanging on your every word once the wine bar conversation turns to anything with carbon fibre mirror caps and extended mono.pur.
It can't do any harm - if you put aside the deleterious effects on your wallet, that is - but it's going to make things mighty inconvenient further down the road.
Every time you need your fireproof tyres topping up you won't be able to use regular old fresh air.
No Sir.
That'll dilute the nitrogen see, Sir, and your car won't drive in a straight line any more, Sir, because one of the tyres has got some air in it and you'll have to watch it like a hawk Sir, else it'll either swerve off the motorway by itself or that tyre will get hot and explode and just think what might happen to your children and your lovely wife, Sir.
And your wife is really lovely, Sir.
Especially in that summer dress.
Have you noticed how the light shines through it, Sir?
So you'll have to traipse all the way to the 'inflation specialist' to have it done for you while you sit in a waiting room that still smells of stale fags even though the smoking ban is years old, and the only entertainment is either an ancient and well-thumbed copy of
Nuts or last week's local rag with half the small ads and take-away curry house numbers torn out.
It'll cost you extra in fuel to get there as well, since it's highly unlikely that your tyres will lose any of their precious gas at the same time you just happen to be passing.
And what happens if, heaven forbid, you go outside one morning to find one of your tyres looking too soft to drive on?
What do you do then?
Panic, that's what you do.
You spill your expensive hand-ground Ethiopian coffee all over your slacks and your patent loafers and flap your hands helplessly like a nun who's just seen up the window-cleaner's shorts by accident.
I suppose you could always call the AA or the RAC on the off-chance that they might have a cylinder of nitrogen in the back of the van, but
really.
How could you maintain the tiniest shred of credibility if you ring them up and say that you can't put air in a soft tyre because air has got 22%
other things in it, and the 'tech' with steel toecaps at the tyre specialist says it won't be safe to drive?
Good old-fashioned air.
That's what you need.
Good old-fashioned air full of the smells of freshly-cut grass, Castrol R, autumn bonfires, newly-laid tarmacadam, home-baked bread, sizzling bacon, the nape of your baby's neck and old leather furniture.
And a footpump.
The same sturdy old footpump that your grandad used to use to blow up the crossplies on his Rover 90 while the Player's No10 in his lips was nothing more than a filter and a long curve of ash that never fell off.
.
