Nitrogen in tires.

pete black

Well-known Member
Bought a new set of tires today and paid $12 extra for the set to have inflated with nitrogen. Any thoughts?
 
Free air is 78% nitrogen, and 100% nitrogen is of no added value except in very specific applications.(Not a car / truck/ tractor).
 
The tiny oxidation caused by the use of air (20% oxygen) has little effect on the inside of the tire. Now you will have more expensive leaks!!. I think regular air is compatible. Just kidding. Jim
 
Pete we seriously considered buying a nitrogen filler for the tire shop. The selling point of the machine is somethine like this. They work well if you are driving thousands of miles a year. Gals like tires filled too. The nitrogen won't escape thru the tire sidewalls like air as a result they seldom have to check air pressure. When I get to retire and travel I will put new tires on the van and have them filled.
 
Wasted money.
Ordinary air is 78% =/- nitrogen, 20% =/- oxygen, the balance makes up the other gasses, such as hydrogen, helium, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, etc.
More than you wanted to know- Ordinary nitrogen contains water vapor. "Oil Pumped" nitrogen is moisture free, but very expensive. Learned that in military communications. Older telephone cables have paper insulation, & are pressurized to keep moisture out in case of damage to the sheath. Accidentally introducing "water pumped" nitrogen when testing a splice or repair destroys the paper insulation, shorts out the circuits, & results in cutting out & replacing a section. If caught in time, only 10 feet or so, if not caught soon, maybe a mile or so.
All materials, whether in solid, liquid, or gaseous state, volume (pressure) varies directly with temperature.
Water (moisture) is unique. It contracts when cooled to 37 =/- degrees F, then expands when cooled further. The reverse occurs when warmed.

Willie
 
(quoted from post at 22:24:37 01/23/17) You won't have to worry about adjusting the air pressure when the weather changes now. That's a plus.

The last set of tires I bought at a place that uses nitrogen in all tires mounted. It is true that the pressure is more stable over time and fluctuates less with changes in seasonal temperature.

I've also noticed some large trucking firms tire pressure stickers specify nitrogen in the tires. These companies wouldn't go to that expense without a measurable payback.
 
3 bucks a tire doesn't sound unreasonable.

What you're actually buying is dry air. Compressed air has a lot of water in it, and that water expands and contracts with temperature much more than nitrogen (or oxygen). So your tire pressures should be more stable when filled with pure nitrogen.

I suspect the benefits of nitrogen-filled tires are much less in drier climates, where there's not so much water in compressed air.
 
Nitrogen is still subject to the ideal gas law that relates pressure, temperature, and volume just like dry air is. Simple physics say a tire's pressure will still fluctuate with temperature even when filled with 100% N. And, nitrogen is just as likely to percolate out of the tire over time - naturally, since air is mostly nitrogen anyway. So, don't believe that just because tires have pure N that regular pressure checks aren't needed. A reduction in water content is the main advantage and this would only be important in very demanding applications like race cars where the tires get very hot.
 
I'm not sold on it. Maybe for racing applications where pressures are critical and temperatures are extreme, but for daily driving, no.

The biggest advantage is the nitrogen is supposedly dry. But what about the atmosphere that's already in the empty tire? No way to vacuum it down, so the nitrogen is mixed with normally occurring moist air from the initial fill.
 
Wife's last couple of cars have had it. They still seem to go down in pressure when cold out. Air is added. Had several nails in tires with slow leaks. Get them fixed most places only have air for tires. Could not tell a difference in the one with only air. Seems mostly like another dealer gimmick to get a few more dollars from customers ?
 
The nitrogen is only good for the young generation. All that matters is if the car is gassed and the cell phone battery is charged. For the rest of us it's a waste of money. A very very tiny amount of air seeps through the rubber in tires where on nitrogen it's a very very very tiny amount. If you check the air pressure from time to time you have nothing to worry about.
 
thanks folks for all the thoughts. knew some of the supposed pros but not given much thought to them. tires are on our 17 years old granddaughters car so may have some value. tires come with life of tire free flat repair to be refilled with nitrogen. also in the event of flat fixed elsewhere or compressed air having to be added they will deflate and refill with nitrogen for free. figured $12 worth a try.
 
It's gilding the lily.

There are very minor benefits but having had nitrogen filled tires (free) as well as air filled tires, I would not pay a cent for nitrogen.

Dean
 
tom, i had toyed with the idea of the nitrogen machine, but its awful spendy. i checked at our local welding gas supplier, and they can set us up for about 300 with a big cylinder of nitrogen shielding gas, regulator and hose. if you dont do a mega bunch of tires, the bottle may be way more economical.
 
(quoted from post at 02:46:16 01/24/17) Wasted money.
Ordinary air is 78% =/- nitrogen, 20% =/- oxygen, the balance makes up the other gasses, such as hydrogen, helium, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, etc.
More than you wanted to know- Ordinary nitrogen contains water vapor. "Oil Pumped" nitrogen is moisture free, but very expensive. Learned that in military communications. Older telephone cables have paper insulation, & are pressurized to keep moisture out in case of damage to the sheath. Accidentally introducing "water pumped" nitrogen when testing a splice or repair destroys the paper insulation, shorts out the circuits, & results in cutting out & replacing a section. If caught in time, only 10 feet or so, if not caught soon, maybe a mile or so.
All materials, whether in solid, liquid, or gaseous state, volume (pressure) varies directly with temperature.
Water (moisture) is unique. It contracts when cooled to 37 =/- degrees F, then expands when cooled further. The reverse occurs when warmed.

Willie

Ordinary air is 78% =/- nitrogen, 20% =/- oxygen, the balance makes up the other gasses, such as hydrogen, helium, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, etc.
More than you wanted to know

I bet that he went to school and knew that :)
 
That's the main point of pure nitrogen, I think. In case of fire, a blowing tire will not enhance or support the fire. Hence the use of nitrogen in aircraft tires.
May also reduce fire risks on vehicles, but I wouldn't hazard to guess by how much.
 

I'm surprised there aren't any retailers out there selling helium-filled tires for the obvious advantage of making the car lighter.
 

$12 worth of lottery tickets would be a better investment. As long as the air is dry , doesn't really matter what it is.
 
(quoted from post at 01:24:37 01/24/17) You won't have to worry about adjusting the air pressure when the weather changes now. That's a plus.

Universal gas law affects any gas, N2 expands and contracts with temperature like any other .
 
(quoted from post at 11:35:39 01/24/17)
I'm surprised there aren't any retailers out there selling helium-filled tires for the obvious advantage of making the car lighter.

Interia of the vehicle will be unchanged even if the vehicle was "lighter".
 
We used helium to leak-test automotive air conditioner pumps. Helium is a small molecule that squeezes through very small leaks.
 
An ad on the radio claims oxygen leaks out the tire faster than nitrogen.

Unless you vacuum all the air out of the tire before adding nitrogen, you will always have some oxygen inside the tire.

Bubba claims you don't have to rotate the air from summer to winter using nitrogen.

I'm too cheap to pay for nitrogen. The tire barn uses nitrogen and doesn't charge a dime.
 
Race car drivers and pit crews have been using nitrogen years before the public was able to have it added in our tires. Because in race cars the temperature varies a lot more than in our vehicle tires. Nitrogen doesn't expand or contract as much as air so that's why the race car teams have been using it. Their cars' suspension are fine tuned to a gnats hair and any imperfection can wear a tire faster. What you paid of $12 is extremely cheap. Car dealers charge a lot more. Would I do it? Maybe. It's kind of hard to justify to have them filled with nitrogen when there's a cost involved and they can go flat just the same if filled with air and air is free or some places it cost a $0.25 to turn on the compressor. My choice would be these!
Flat Free
 

The only advantages of N2 is that a hot tire can't burn briefly on the inside . And that bottles N2 is the cheapest dry gas on the market.
Dry atmospheric air and dry N2 have 0.00000001 difference in expansion and contraction due to temperature .
 
Observations

- (It is drier than air.)
Is that not negated when a rag slop of soapy water is splashed all over the bead when the tire is being mounted?

-(The nitrogen molecules will not leak through the tire as fast)

If this is true and normal air is 78% nitrogen then why not fill tire with air, wait a few weeks until the 22% that is not nitrogen leaks out then top up again with air, you should now have 95%+ nitrogen.
 
(quoted from post at 09:20:12 01/25/17) Observations

- (It is drier than air.)
Is that not negated when a rag slop of soapy water is splashed all over the bead when the tire is being mounted?

-(The nitrogen molecules will not leak through the tire as fast)

If this is true and normal air is 78% nitrogen then why not fill tire with air, wait a few weeks until the 22% that is not nitrogen leaks out then top up again with air, you should now have 95%+ nitrogen.

Haven't seen a tire shop use soapy water in years.

You're stretching and twisting more than a pretzel factory in your second paragraph.
 
(quoted from post at 12:48:33 01/25/17)
(quoted from post at 09:20:12 01/25/17) Observations

- (It is drier than air.)
Is that not negated when a rag slop of soapy water is splashed all over the bead when the tire is being mounted?

-(The nitrogen molecules will not leak through the tire as fast)

If this is true and normal air is 78% nitrogen then why not fill tire with air, wait a few weeks until the 22% that is not nitrogen leaks out then top up again with air, you should now have 95%+ nitrogen.

Haven't seen a tire shop use soapy water in years.

You're stretching and twisting more than a pretzel factory in your second paragraph.


Many of the tire mounting lubricants still come as a concentrate that you mix with water prior to use, so the end result of water being present on the bead remains the same.

In the second paragraph I was addressing the claim that oxygen seeps out of the pores of the tire, while nitrogen does not.
If the claim is true and the nitrogen will not seep out then how is it pretzel twisting to believe the 78% nitrogen in the air would not leak out, as per the claim.

Personally I do not believe in using nitrogen, but for the sake of addressing what claims the sellers of nitrogen promote.
Either what they say is true and mathematically what I said must then also be true or it is all a bunch of immaterial nonsense.
My vote goes for the nonsense. :lol:
 
I heard many years ago that scrapers picking up dirt and hauling down a mountainside were having tires get so hot that they were blowing off the rims and the resulting wrecks were killing operators. They went to nitrogen filled tires and solved their problem. I was told that airplanes first used nitrogen filled tires for safer landings.
 

Heard from ? If a tire did reach the ignition temperature of rubber inside the tire and oxygen supporting combustion ? The tire would have melted before that point .
 
My BIL and sister live in Sedona, AZ. He uses it. Says it doesn't leak out of the tire bead like air. They have a lot of curved roads and ups and downs. He is a retired compressed gas salesman/counselor.
 

Somebody that sold N2 is now recomending the use of N2 ? How is it that nitrogen "does not leak around the bead" like air ?
 
> My BIL and sister live in Sedona, AZ. He uses it. Says it doesn't leak out of the tire bead like air.

In Sedona, them dang energy vortexes will suck the air right outta yer tires. I done seen it wif my own two eyes!
 
PM is mostly theoretical BS, Geo. I always use air & on my 15 year old truck and 18 year old car with aluminum wheels and 55 year old truck with steel wheels, I don't see rust or corrosion. So, if there is anything to that, I will never be touched by it. Just something else to "jaw" about.
 
She went for the culture, art culture. She is a professional artist with a Masters from Texas Tech in the subject. Sedona has a lot of pretty things to paint and a lot of pretty painters, and some Rainbow Trout you can catch and cook and eat on site. I see your directed site showed some of the curves my BIL was talking about when talking about his tires leaking.
 

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