That’s how I used to get car accessories, except is was my dad who “knew a guy, who knew a guy……”
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A customer complained of a vibration at highway speeds. I balanced 3 tires, 4th tire would not balance. After installing the weights and performing the check-balance, it called for 2 more ounces in new locations on the wheel. Something is moving inside the tire.
I dismounted the tire, found tire sealer inside, customer created his own problem.
Notice the tire sealer did not harm the paint on the wheel.
It could have been a bundle of $100 bills so good to investigate.
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Notice the alloy wheels, usually powder coated and the new tire. A steel rim from pre 90’s with regular paint and after a coule of years would not look like this.
The steel wheels of the years of past had low quality paint but that is a small audience to caution today. I hope the tire sealant sold today is less corrosive than it was in 1970’s.
I would not think that the water would break down the rubber. Have you ever seen a tire dissolved on a car that sat for years in dirt/muddy fields, or a tire that was used as a bumper on a dock to keep boats from banging into the structure, and every home that has a well uses a pressure tank and all the old ones used a rubber bladder in them and many have been operational for decades. There are so many more examples, but rubber does not dissolve in water. One final thought, if you are referring to old cars that have been sitting on the bottom of the ocean and when they are recovered the tires are gone, well, the tires were probably consumed by microbes. Google “Titanic and microbes” and you will find that there are microbes that even eat iron. Remember, rubber is organic and if you’ve shopped in the grocery stores lately, then you know organic items are good for you, Yum!!!
I really can’t say but a lot of lake docks in Minnesota and South Dakota use the donut wheels from junk yard spare tires. These sit in the water all summer. Pulling the dock out for the winter, the tires are just covered in Algie but no deterioration or air loss for at least ten years.
Well clearly I’m getting beat up about the effects of water on rubber, but the cracked wheel and severely rusted wheels I have personally seen. Agree this was over 30 years ago but they did happen.
Well when they start calling you obscene names . . . I’ll never say never myself but will tuck it away in the back of my brain just in case.
Let’s petition congress to repeal Charles’ Law relating volume to temperature. Then the pressure wouldn’t decrease if the temperature goes down, nor would the pressure increase if the temperature goes up.
Seems to me if Congress is working.to pass a bill putting the nation on daylight time year around so we don’t have to reset our car clocks twice a year, Congress could repeal Charles’ law so we wouldn’t have to add air to our tires when the temperature drops.
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You have enough answers, but in a related matter, consider the physics when you want to buy an air mattress for when you go camping. Take my word for it - LOL
I have never known an air mattress that did not leak.
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How does an air mattress relate to a tire ?
Easy: a car is supported on its tires and a person is supported on an air mattress.
And that air mattress leaks and gets cold/shrinks over night, so I get to feel all the rocks under the tent by morning. That’s one reason I switched to a cot.
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air pressure/temperature - plus a bit of practical humor.
Nail on the head!
That’s one reason I switched to a hotel. 
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Then buy a foam mat. The air in the bubbles is a very good insulator. The polymer component if the foam is a pretty good insulator too.
I always wondered if wheel/rim material affected the amount of fluctuation in tire pressure also - secondary of course to ambient temperature.
In other words, do steel rims, or alloy wheels change more with temperature, contributing to over or under-pressure.