Nitrogen In Vehicle Tires?

Diggin It · Dec 7, 2018

The tire stores selling it make it sound great, but does it pan out as they claim?

If one does leak down, what happens if you use a home inflator to bring it back up, mixing normal air into it?

RickB · Dec 7, 2018

Scam. Air is predominantly N to begin with. Moisture in air in tires is not problematic and N being dry is the primary “benefit” touted as an advantage to using N in tires.

oosik · Dec 7, 2018

Its a fad - a way of squeezing extra $$$ out of your pocket when you purchase new tires. The use of nitrogen came to being with race cars where a few pound of pressure variance made a whole lot of difference.

As you surmise - you get those uber fancy new tires - they are filled with nitrogen. Are you going to stop by the dealership every time you need the tire pressure checked. Are you willing to pay to have more nitrogen pumped into those tires - if needed.

If you have just purchased a $2.5 million dollar Bugatti Chiron - then it might be justified.

RSKY · Dec 7, 2018

I worked in manufacturing for General Tire, Continental Tire, and Goodyear Tire. I asked actual 'Tire Engineers' about this in all three companies. They laughed. As I understood it, unless you are involved in something like Formula One racing filling tires with nitrogen is totally worthless.

TractorGuy · Dec 7, 2018

Waste of time and money. I ran it in race tires for a while and had a bottle rigged up to run my air gun. Nitrogen supposedly would have less pressure gain from temperature increases but I couldn't quantify that as a reality. Having a tank of it on the trailer was nice but I was getting a deal on refills. Now that has passed I cannot justify the expense.

TractorNH · Dec 7, 2018

As mentioned above, only relevant for racing tires and the reason it is used in racing tires is because it doesn't expand and contract like air does when a tire goes through the kind of temperature swings a racing tire does. In racing, tire pressure is critical to maintain the optimum contact patch for traction on the track while minimizing rolling resistance. Unless you're pulling 200mph through banked turns with your grocery-getter then nitrogen won't make any difference in your tires.

2LaneCruzer · Dec 7, 2018

TractorNH said:
As mentioned above, only relevant for racing tires and the reason it is used in racing tires is because it doesn't expand and contract like air does when a tire goes through the kind of temperature swings a racing tire does. In racing, tire pressure is critical to maintain the optimum contact patch for traction on the track while minimizing rolling resistance. Unless you're pulling 200mph through banked turns with your grocery-getter then nitrogen won't make any difference in your tires.

You pretty much said it all...

Nitrogen vs Air In Tires - Why Nitrogen in Tires

TractorNH · Dec 7, 2018

I might add, when they fill your tires with N2 are they really just bringing them up to pressure with N2 or are they actually purging all of the "regular" air from the tires as they are filling them? It's a farse anyway.

Now....one time when the weather turned colder we had convinced someone at work that she needed to have the summer air removed from her tires and winter air added. The guy at the garage up the street laughed when she asked but then still did it for her and was happy to collect the $25 for doing it.

k0ua · Dec 7, 2018

I am running Nitrogen in all of my tires. Well 78 percent at least.. Might be some oxygen still in them, and might be a bit of water vapor. But still at LEAST 78 percent Nitrogen. I won't run less than that mix.