Nitrogen in car tires

[Scuba Steve]

My friend is trying to convince me to take out the air of my tires and inflate it with nitrogen. Is it worth while??? $5.00 per tire. Would it effect the TPMS module???

Steve

[XterraVersa]

Save the money. Air is what 70% Nitrogen?

This is a scam that rips off the gullible. There is no proof that nitrogen helps or hurts anything.

[weems84]

My friend is trying to convince me to take out the air of my tires and inflate it with nitrogen. Is it worth while??? $5.00 per tire. Would it effect the TPMS module???

Steve

What is supposed to be the benefit with nitrogen??

[07Vsdn]

there was a long argument on mustangforums.com about this.

long story short, it's a scam.

[matt_a]

there was a long argument on mustangforums.com about this.

long story short, it's a scam.

It's not a complete scam, but it's not really worth the money either.

What is supposed to be the benefit with nitrogen??

The idea is that nitrogen is a much more stable gas than regular air. When you inflate your tires with air, high and low temps can increase and decrease your tire pressure by more than a few psi. Try checking your tire pressure when the car has sat overnight and the tires are cold. Then go for a drive at highway speeds for a while and check it again. You'll see what I mean. Nitrogen is not affected by temperature changes so your pressure stays more constant. More consistant pressure = more consistant tread wear. So in other words, yes...nitrogen does do what they claim it does. But, you don't need it if you just check your pressure regularly.

[07Vsdn]

i actually HAVE tested my air pressure from "cold" (sitting over night) to "hot" (driven on highway) and couldn't detect a difference in psi with my cheap, but generally accurate, tire pressure gauge. i can only surmise that our tires do not generate enough heat in normal driving (vs. the stress that race/track cars experience) to truly affect psi.

the problem with the argument that n2 is more stable, which has been argued as incorrect on another forum (see note below), is that even if it WERE true it is ALSO true that our tires are designed from the manufacturers to be filled with AIR. thus, the varying operating temparature properties, if they exist, attributed to o2, which itself only makes up 21% of AIR (see below), are well known by the manufacturer and have been accounted for in the design, structure, and operation of the tire.

that is to say the tire and and car manufacturer know that at "cold" our tires are supposed to be inflated to 32 psi (for the mustang atleast i forget what the versa is). they also know that after driving the psi will increase to, say, 35 psi, which thus is the TRUE operating temperature of the tire. if n2 really is a more stable gas (see below) and were to remain at 32 psi your tire would then be operating at a temperature below what the tire is designed for.

but, maybe i'm wrong i'm not an engineer, just making an inductive argument that may have false premises...

* "At relatively low pressures (ie tire pressures) N2, O2 and water vapor will all behave as ideal gases, and follow PV=nRT. Pressure will increase or decrease to the same extent as the temperature increases or decreases regardless of which gas is in the tire. (Even at 300 psi, which is about 20 atm, there is little deviation from ideality.) Therefore the comments about N2 not changing in pressure as the temperature changes are without merit."

"We ALL have Nitrogen in our tires. Here is what makes up AIR:

Nitrogen 78.084% Oxygen 20.946% Argon 0.934% Carbon dioxide 0.038% Water vapor 1% Other 0.002% "

The idea is that nitrogen is a much more stable gas than regular air. When you inflate your tires with air, high and low temps can increase and decrease your tire pressure by more than a few psi.

Modified by 07Vsdn at 8:56 AM 9/11/2007
Modified by 07Vsdn at 8:57 AM 9/11/2007

[lain]

its really not worth it but then it doesnt hurt anything by my knowledge

[NY.AD.MAN]

i"We ALL have Nitrogen in our tires. Here is what makes up AIR:

Nitrogen 78.084% Oxygen 20.946% Argon 0.934% Carbon dioxide 0.038% Water vapor 1% Other 0.002% "

It's simple chemistry. Even at an 80% makeup, there is still 1/5 extraneous makeup, or in this case just over that, and that extra composition does in fact change quite a bit.

Regular air consists of a good deal of nitrogen, yes. BUT there are several other ingredients that are much more prone to expansion and contraction! This means, in Laman's terms, that the nitrogen within the tires helps, but does not have a true efficiency when discussing ability to hold pressure.

Consider this,

When you drive around, your tires are constantly heating up and cooling down which inevitably causes the shape of your tire to change, even if just a bit.

Take this small change and apply it over the life of your tires, and you're looking at something pretty significant... Now, consider if your tire pressure stays more constant and apply that over to the life of your tires... Not the difference between a 30,000 and a 40,000 mile tire, but still has it benefits!

1. Your tires stay inflated longer, so if your car ever sits around (i.e. vacation, etc.), then you're not going to need to check tire pressure.

2. It won't effect the TPMS since the system only checks pressure

3. Even adding a small amount of mileage to your tires allows for that 5 dollars to be easily worth it.

I say go for it.

[matttail]

Part of the story with Nitrogen is not only stablizing temp/pressure but that nitrogen is supposed to escape from your tires more slowly. Nitrogen molecules are bigger than 'air's' so they should leak less (the reason you have to fill up your bike tires again every summer).

Costco fills your new tires with Nitrogen as part of the standard service at no additional cost.

I would pay no more than $5 per tire - it's not worth the $10 per tire that my dealer tried to sell me on the last time I was in there. Compressed nitorgen is very cheep to buy - and all they're doing is letting all the air out of your tires and pumping in Nitrogen instead so don't let them tell you there's any labor involved.

[matt_a]

...all they're doing is letting all the air out of your tires and pumping in Nitrogen instead so don't let them tell you there's any labor involved.

But somebody has to stand there and press the valve pin!

[lain]

But somebody has to stand there and press the valve pin!

Very respectable position of higly skilled individuals. Legend has it that the last 10 men that attempted to learn this trade...well lets just say only 3 of them remain.

[Ever Victorious]

I come also from a background of autocrossing, where you want your tires to be at a stable (warm) temperate and stable (high) pressure.

I have yet to see a single autocrosser running nitrogen in their tires.

So what are you going to do if your nitrogen-filled tire gets low? Not all places offer it, so if you're in a rural area, you're going to have to drain ALL your tires and refill them (yes, all, because you don't want one tire running at different pressures than the other 3...).

And if you ARE in the city, do you get charged $5 per tire to get your nitrogen refilled?

Screw that, give me plain jain air, that I can get basically anywhere on the planet for free, that has been put in pneumatic tires since their invention.

Also, having your car in/out of alignment will affect your treadwear WAY more than a couple psi of air. Sweat the petty stuff less and make sure your car is mechanically where it's supposed to be, that will help a lot.

[matttail]

So what are you going to do if your nitrogen-filled tire gets low? Not all places offer it, so if you're in a rural area, you're going to have to drain ALL your tires and refill them (yes, all, because you don't want one tire running at different pressures than the other 3...).

Actually it's perfectly fine to top off your nitrogen filled tires with regular air - the idea being this works till you can go back to the place the filled them for you and have then empty and refile your tires. That's part of what the dealer was advertising when I was there - pay once and they will fill/refill for free.

[srellim234]

Fill 'em up with helium. Lightens the load and gets you better gas mileage as a result.

To avoid traffic jams, fill the rest of the car up with helium, too. Go over everyone like a balloon and laugh at them like Donald Duck as you go by...

ps. - Don't mind me; I'm just being a

[COVersaSL]

I would think that you would have to fill up the air bags with helium if yo uwanted to fly over every one? Maybe get some air shocks and put helium in them too

[rainerng]

Nitrogen molecules are bigger than 'air's' so they should leak less (the reason you have to fill up your bike tires again every summer).

99.998% of Air is made up of Nitrogen, oxygen, Argon and CO2. Nitrogen molecules are the SMALLEST of these. So Nitrogen molecules are actually NOT bigger than 'air's' like you said.
Modified by rainerng at 8:43 AM 9/12/2007

[07Vsdn]

From another forum:

"The rate of effusion (or diffusion) of a gas through a porous membrane depends on the molar mass and to some degree on the molecular diameter. N2 and O2 are almost the same size and N2 is lighter than O2 (28 g/mol vs 32 g/mol) so if either gas were to effuse out of the tire, nitrogen would do it more quickly. Luckily, tires are designed not to be porous membranes. "

from a blog:

Molecular size is a bit tricky. As a quick comparison, we can use the covalent radius defined as 1/2 the distance between to identical covalently bonding nuclei. This is measured in picometers (1 pm= 1x 10-12 m). Nitrogen's covalent radius is 73pm so the length of a nitrogen molecule ought to be 4 X 75pm or 300 pm. A molecule of oxygen ought to be just a shade smaller 4 X 73pm or 292pm. So an oxygen molecule ought to be a little less than 3% smaller than a nitrogen molecule.

Part of the story with Nitrogen is not only stablizing temp/pressure but that nitrogen is supposed to escape from your tires more slowly. Nitrogen molecules are bigger than 'air's' so they should leak less (the reason you have to fill up your bike tires again every summer).

Costco fills your new tires with Nitrogen as part of the standard service at no additional cost.

I would pay no more than $5 per tire - it's not worth the $10 per tire that my dealer tried to sell me on the last time I was in there. Compressed nitorgen is very cheep to buy - and all they're doing is letting all the air out of your tires and pumping in Nitrogen instead so don't let them tell you there's any labor involved.

[matt_a]

So what have we learned from all of this? It sounds like using Nitrogen in your car tires certainly wont hurt anything, but it may not offer any big advantage either. With that said, paying $5 to $10 per tire to have it done kinda sounds like a waste of money to me. *shrugs

[07Vsdn]

it certainly won't hurt. in fact, i did some research for an earlier discussion about this and it appears this is a play off the airline industry, and racing teams, who use nitrogen. but those are in extreme and high performance situations.

"if it's good enough for airliners and indy car it's good enough for you, too! $20 please..."

i will amend one thing. i filled up my car's tires at just over 32 psi yesterday after a good detailing and just took a 15 min drive on the interstate and after checking my tire pressure they did go up a little over 1psi. i had said before that i had not noticed a change in cold and operating temperatures...

[Martin Roy]

Well... this calls for Mythbusters !

[carnexus]

It's not a complete scam, but it's not really worth the money either.

The idea is that nitrogen is a much more stable gas than regular air. When you inflate your tires with air, high and low temps can increase and decrease your tire pressure by more than a few psi. Try checking your tire pressure when the car has sat overnight and the tires are cold. Then go for a drive at highway speeds for a while and check it again. You'll see what I mean. Nitrogen is not affected by temperature changes so your pressure stays more constant. More consistant pressure = more consistant tread wear. So in other words, yes...nitrogen does do what they claim it does. But, you don't need it if you just check your pressure regularly.

Also the air in your tire causes condensation, now if you are a car collector who has… say 50-100 cars and most of them are going to be sitting around for long periods of time. Than nitrogen is an excellent idea, it will not erode the inside of the tires or corrode your rims. Jay Leno has nitrogen in all of his cars but again he has a reason to.

[Flatline]

Here is a little bit of useless knowledge.....

Nitrogen was originally (and still) used in aircraft tires due to the fact that when the plane is in flight, the air in the tires cools and condenses (and forms ice in some cases). When the plane lands and the tires hit the runway they heat up to tremendous heat (in comparison to the air inside the tires) which would cause the condensation to rapidly increase thus potentially blowing the tire. Nitrogen is much less prone to this.

[lain]

Here is a little bit of useless knowledge.....

Nitrogen was originally (and still) used in aircraft tires due to the fact that when the plane is in flight, the air in the tires cools and condenses (and forms ice in some cases). When the plane lands and the tires hit the runway they heat up to tremendous heat (in comparison to the air inside the tires) which would cause the condensation to rapidly increase thus potentially blowing the tire. Nitrogen is much less prone to this.

Thank you for that information. I will make sure when I buy my first flying car I will put nitrogen in the tires

[achr]

I think one thing that's missing from this discussion is "What's Not In Your Tires" when you fill them with Nitrogen, that being Oxygen, the biggest contributor to corrosion and deterioration around. Rust doesn't form without oxygen. Similarly, aluminum doesn't degrade without Oxygen. I can't count the number of times I've had to have tires removed from aluminum rims and have the rims cleaned up inside so they don't leak around the bead. Fire won't burn without Oxygen present. At the company I worked for, whenever a can of paint or other adhesives were opened and partially used, we were instructed to purge the can with Nitrogen to prevent skimming over before the next use. There IS a benefit to this stuff folks.

My Nissan dealer fills ALL tires on new cars with Nitrogen before delivery and will refill them free if the need arises due to a road hazard. They have been doing this for over 4 years now and they say the results are worth the cost to the dealership.

Don't know about the rest of you, but I'm with Jay Lenno on this one.

[XterraVersa]

Do these scammers evacuate 100% of the air from your tires before refilling them? NO!!! I have never seen a vacuum chamber in a tire shop. You will never have pure nitrogen in your tires.

The argument that if it is good for whoever it is good for me is a BS way of making yourself feels good after being scammed. If it is that good why don't all F1 teams use it. Ferrari, McLaren & BMW don't, these teams are a lot better than any Indycar team. Most NASCAR teams don't use it.

If you have corrosion on your rims it is most likely caused from moisture & salt you drove through. Think how much moisture would it take to condense enough to fill the tire to reach the rim.

You will wear your tires out before they are eaten away from the inside. Even if the inside is oxygen free, what about the outside.

But if you want to spend your money on your belief that N2 is better, then by all means spend away. There is a sucker born every day. See the fake sun roof thread.

[Martin Roy]

From what I have read, there is good and bad for both of the possibilities. Why not leave it that way ! People are beginning to be disrespectful of each others and that makes it less interesting to read or reply to.

Please, stay friendly in your argumentation.