trogen filled tires

[Threepoint]

When a tire place fills a tire with nitrogen, if they don't remove all the air first, there is still oxygen in the tire.
[snip]

Bruce

True, but the air in the tire prior to fill is not compressed, so it will end up being a small fraction of the total volume after the tire is brought to operating pressure with pure nitrogen. I wonder if that might account for the 7 percent that the Edmunds article refers to when it says the mix must be 93 percent nitrogen to get its benefit.

A year or so ago, my mother-in-law asked a gas station attendant to check her tire pressure. He did, and said they were a bit low, but that he wasn't allowed add air from his compressor because the green valve caps showed they were filled with nitrogen. That was a new one on me.

 

[SPIKER]

If you want you can use propane which has larger atom so less leaks thru the pores of the rubber, it also keeps it exciting for guys changing your tires while smoking a cig!

I dont fall for the Nitrogen either, 78% is good for me!~ You can probably use one of the CO2 canisters to fill at a loser costs if ya want to do a bit of fab to make up a hose/filler assy.

Mark

 

[SPYDERLK]

Good to prevent corrosion in water filled tires.

 

[tractortom55]

I have a theory. If the tire has air loss over time and the nitrogen is larger than the other 21% then after you top off tires several times then at some point (because the nitrogen don't leak out) you should have mostly nitrogen in them and won't have to top off as often.

 

[kc5dlo]

Nitrogen has larger molecules than oxygen and should leak out of tire slower. The benefit of nitrogen is if you do not check tire pressure as recommended.

My thought is if I load in 78 percent nitrogen, the other 22 percent is the part that leaks out faster so as time goes, my tires must be getting rid of bad stuff with out any help or cost.

 

[nybirdman]

On another note about tires;I happened to park next to "The air charge station" at a local mini-mart.ONE Dollar to run it.............I must be old I remember when it was "free".

 

[GreenYellow]

Airplanes, especially jets, are required to use nitrogen in tires because of the DRYNESS of it. Because of the wild temperature swings during flight (-50 F at altitude) condensation inside the tire would be a problem. At altitude, the condensation would freeze at the bottom of the tire. If it didn't thaw upon decent, there would be a block of ice inside the tire at touchdown, causing a severely imbalanced tire.

Not much correlation to cars -- but there's some useless trivia for the day.

 

[SPYDERLK]

Airplanes, especially jets, are required to use nitrogen in tires because of the DRYNESS of it. Because of the wild temperature swings during flight (-50 F at altitude) condensation inside the tire would be a problem. At altitude, the condensation would freeze at the bottom of the tire. If it didn't thaw upon decent, there would be a block of ice inside the tire at touchdown, causing a severely imbalanced tire.

Not much correlation to cars -- but there's some useless trivia for the day.

Good point on condensation. Hardly a "block" tho. Unless, by some occurrence there was a buildup. Dry N2 prevents the chance.

 

[GreenYellow]

Good point on condensation. Hardly a "block" tho. Unless, by some occurrence there was a buildup. Dry N2 prevents the chance.

Ha! Well of course, not a literal cube. But the volume of ice/condensation could be substantial.

Take a 747 tire for instance. It's about 46" tall, 16" wide, and nearly 200psi. Let's say it were inflated with a compressor in...say... Florida. The amount of moisture in that amount of (warm humid) air would produce a VERY significant amount of condensation at a cold temperature. it would likely be enough to create a "puddle" at the lowest point of the tire. (in this case, the sidewall, while in flight)

While maybe not a "block", it would be enough to form a large solid formation of ice -- whatever form/shape you want to call it.

 

[KennyG]

A year or so ago, my mother-in-law asked a gas station attendant to check her tire pressure. He did, and said they were a bit low, but that he wasn't allowed add air from his compressor because the green valve caps showed they were filled with nitrogen. That was a new one on me.

That's a new one. When I had tires replaced on one of my cars a year or two ago they put green caps on it. I didn't pay anything extra and just thought they wanted my car to look silly.