Tire Inflation: Nitrogen vs Air

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Jons340Dart

Jons340Dart

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Okay guys what's your opinion on using nitrogen versus straight up air in your tires... street versus strip. Supposedly the volume of nitrogen remains more constant under varying temprature than air.... so what's your thoughts...

A local tire shop charged some poor gal in my office here $4.50 a tire to fill her new tires up with nitrogen....
 
Hi in aviation we use nitrogen all the time, the reason is that there in no moisture in it. This means that we do not run into freezing problems. Air from a shop supply will have moisture in it unless you are using a dry air system.

So to me you will probable get more consistant pressures with nitrogen, but for a street car I would not bother spending the money to use it.
 
Used to use nitrogen in tires of all Gulfstreams (aircraft) to keep tires from blowing up due to sudden temp changes.

Might consider using nitrogen in racing tires. It would marginally benefit street tires used agressively. Personally, would not because of expense and inability to maintain when away from nitrogen supply.
 
What I've heard , every seller charges average of 5.00 per tire for nitrogen fill.
Nitrogen doesn't migrate through the soft sidewalls of todays radials so it stays in the tire better than compressed air.
 
IMO, unless you have a temperature sensitive environment, aircraft, roadracing, etc. it's a waste of money.

If you are on the road and need to fill your tires in an emergency, what's the chances you'll have a nitrogen station handy?
 
Bull****.

I would NEVER spend the money for a street tire to inflate it with nitrogen.

As someone stated, it does not penetrate the rubber as easliy, therefore you have less leakage. (All tires leak a little. That is why you check your pressure)

I have heard all the stories. It is NOT worth the extra expense. And what do you do when it leaks or needs some air? I can tell you the local 7/11 aint going to have a nitrogen tank for you!

I see this as a scam. Nothing but a moneymaker for some dealers. It is the tire shop version of "would you like fries with that?"

But, like anything else, you will have some that swears it got them an extra 100,000 miles on their tires. LOL

Save your money. Spend it on your girl. At least that will have some type of payoff.

BTW, while I am at it. The only TRUE tire pressure monitoring system is a freaking AIR GAUGE!!

Get your lazy *** out of the car and check your tires. It should be part of the driving test. And, if you fail it, you should get a bus pass.
 
We race an Arca style Super Late Model and some guys use air some guys use nitrogen. we use air, we we're out testing the other day and the tires grew to 33 psi from 24 on the right side of the car, now note that tire on the right side front sees no lower then 200 degrees F, if your street tire is seeing temps like that your having issues and the tires will fail faster then normal. the left side tires that hit about 150 degrees F and they grew from 20 psi to about 24. but again you shouldn't be seeing temps like that on street tires.
 
custom100 said:
Hi in aviation we use nitrogen all the time, the reason is that there in no moisture in it. This means that we do not run into freezing problems. Air from a shop supply will have moisture in it unless you are using a dry air system.
Click to expand...
We had to replace the wheels on my wife's car due to the factory chrome-plating flaking away around the bead surface due to moisture and the resulting rust. It was cheaper to replace all four wheels with new aluminum wheels than to replace a single chrome-plated factory wheel that might do the same thing all over again.
Living in SoCal, I never considered the freezing issue. Don't know if I'd want to drive around in Minnesota with ice cubes in my tires half the year. LOL.
 
Well ,I pretty much agree with everyone else here.... I work for Cooper Tires and they try to push this stuff on us when we get new tires..... I did read an article where they took two four like tires put nitrogen in two of them and air in the other two, laid them outside and came back a year later and checked the PSI.... The nitrogen tires did have more psi than the air ones but........ Is it worth it ?????? Up to you...
 
i got nitrogen in my new tires on my ram (free fill but $800 tires) and i found that when the seasons changed the pressure would change. first warm day this spring/summer wondered why the truck felt funny? because there was 44psi in all of the tires, had 35 psi @ 25*f. never had that happen with plain old air. jmo
 
At work I don't have to worry about tires, but we do use it in the hydraulic accumulators. The pressure in these is checked every 500hr and when the seasons change. We have a chart that we work off to set the pressures.

I don't any advantage in running Nitrogen in my car, even when I was living in Northern BC, where the temps got as low as -40. The wheels were square for a bit but you just lived with it. I don't think nitrogen filled tires would have changed that.

But it's your money
 
It makes no sense to put in nitrogen unless you can somehow bleed out all the air in the tire after it's been mounted. Regardless if you pull out the schrader valve and put a full vacuum on it you will collapse the tire and break it off the bead before it would be completely void of outside air. People need to pull their head out. The part that causes pressure variance is temp induced on the moisture in the air. Fully filter and dry the air before putting it in and the pressure won't change just like nitrogen. Chances of someone buying good quality air driers just to fill car tires is non existent. Better chance of going and using a scuba tank that has filtered and dried air. Next thing you'll hear about people using helium to lighten their car. Buying a small tank and opening it inside the car with the windows closed to make the car lighter. It rates up there next the electric supercharger for your motor.
 
Nitrogen - 78.0842%
Oxygen - 20.9463%
water vapor - about 1%
Argon - 0.9342%
Carbon dioxide - 0.0384%
Other - 0.0020%

That's the make up of our atmosphere. Notice it's mostly nitrogen. So in essence you are attempting to displace the other ~22%. If they aren't putting the wheel and tire combo in a completely sealed chamber, pulling a vacuum and filling it with nitrogen, the tires aren't going to be filled completely with nitrogen.
 
Here is the math to figure changes in pressure and volume due to changes in Temp or vise versa.
(New Temp in Rankin)x (Old pressure)/(Old Temp in Rankin)=New Pressure
P2xT1/P1xT2 if that is simpler

Exp (110*F+460)x28Psi/82*F+460)=29.44psi, Your tires were 82*F@28Psi and you warmed up to 110*F the tire by driving it you would have a 1.44Psi increase in temp.

Exp- you want a optimal tire pressure of 25psi and it is 85*F out and after your burn out you get a tire temp of 128*F what would be the starting pressure you would need to get the 25psi after the burn out for the run?
(87+460)x25/(128+460)=23.25psi
Very handy if you are into drag racing and want to get eveything down to a exact sceince or you just get board like me.
 
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