A few local tire dealers promote nitrogen for tire inflation. Has any one used it? I admit to being ignorant here...

Curious:
- Benefits
- Costs
- Any other impact on driving / economy?
- Where can you get it? What happens if I am a few pounds low??

Thanks a lot, all...

Lansing

 

There are lots of promoted benefits of pure nitrogen. Separating the truth from the snake oil is difficult.

To be clear, what you're getting is "more nitrogen". The normal air you pump in is 78% nitrogen. What those services really offer is getting out the water vapor and oxygen.

Nitrogen passes through tires at a slightly lower rate than oxygen so your tires should stay inflated slightly longer. Of course, when they are low you'll either have to add regular air (no problem) or go back to the service station.

More importantly, you won't have any water in there so the tires will heat more evenly which *should* improve their life span.

The other benefits I'm aware of are more noticeable in race applications where getting 1% better response is the difference between 1st and 2nd place. Hopefully that doesn't apply to your daily driving.

 

Pure snake oil. The only place nitrogen fill matters is on the race track. If they're doing it for free, great, but don't pay for it.

 

There is some information on nitrogen inflation down near the bottom of the page here: http://www.carbibles.com/tyre_bible_pg2.html

Nope that helps. Snake-oil. Pure snake-oil.

 

Agree with the snake-oil diagnosis. If you were using N2 in a race car, that would be a little different, since small variations in pressure will sometimes make big differences in handling. The pressure differences come from the small amount of water vapor in regular air.

 

If you have a home compressor, get a dryer for it -- same thing.

 

something else to think about is the tpms sensors cars are starting to carry instead of valve stems. inherently nitrogen with less oxygen carries less moisture from condensation...

im a tech at a honda dealer and have had to replace lots of tpms sensors due to moisture in tires damaging the circuitry in the sensors. also as someone mentioned small leaks stay smaller with nitrogen but the perfect answer was if your tires are inflated with nitrogen they have to stay that way or its a waste of your time.


good post guys

 

Another supporting argument to own (and use) a tire pressure gauge.

 

What is this dryer that you speak of and where does one get such a thing?

 

http://www.autobodytoolmart.com/pc-1...er-ds1000.aspx