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Nitrogen Filled Tires
Is anybody running Nitrogen in their tires? If so do you think its made a difference or worth it? I took the FRS in for a tire rotation and man were they pushing me to fill all the tires with nitrogen. It was expensive so said no for now but i left curious about the benefits. I got shown all these charts and stuff and they made me feel like putting regular air in my tires is a no no on this car. I call BS on that.
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I think they busted this on Fifth Gear. It's no better than regular air...
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I run nitrogen in my tires. I like it because once I get my pressure set I don't have to keep playing with it as tires heat up on the track.
I carry a bottle of Nitrogen in my trailer if I need to ever top them off. I would never go back to air for track tires myself. But see no benifit for street only tires. |
I had nitro fill on my Genesis tires. It was great because they never lost pressure with temperature changes. No reason to do it with the BRZ since I swap tires for winter.
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I had a set of tires filled with nitrogen a few years ago on an old car. The tires went at least 2 years without needing pressure adjustment. Nitrogen is drier than most air fill, in addition to being a mostly larger and more uniform molecule. Moisture in the air really affects how the pressure responds to changes in temperature. When needed, you can top off the nitrogen filled tire with normal air, as the small amount will not affect it that much, as long as the air is reasonably dry at the time. I also really like nitrogen fill for tires that see track use, as they seem to keep more consistent pressure as the tires heat up.
What price were they asking you to pay for nitrogen fill? I just had a new set of snow tires mounted and had them filled with nitrogen for $5 per tire. I felt that it was worth it based on my past experience. |
When you get new tires at Costco , they fill them with nitrogen at no additional charge. I did not notice any difference.
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I'll sell you my very own special blend of Tire Air.
It is 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, and a special blend of trace gases. It's cheap and I will ship it to you in canisters. |
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do you offer blinker fluid as well? |
We use nitrogen in all the aircraft in the navy, and we check and adjust pressure daily. The advantage comes from the lack of moisture.
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tirete...jsp?techid=191 |
The ONLY advantage to using dry nitrogen in aircraft instead of dry air is that the N2 is non combustible which is important in aircraft, not cars.
And as for the "my pressure changes less due to temperature changes with the Nitrogen": Bullshit! Last time I checked PV-nRT applies to all gases which means that the Pressure change due to temperature is the same for Nitrogen as it is for "Air" especially since '"Air" is already 80% Nitrogen. The ONLY difference it makes is that less moisture can translate to more consistent pressure to temperature variation. That is because the presence of a phase change material (water) in the tire can make the pressure vs temp profile non-linear and NOT follow the ideal gas law. So if you use an air dryer on your compressor, you will see no difference between dry air and Nitrogen. But hey .... It's your money. |
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My winters were put into storage last year - I just put them on the car 3 days ago. Exactly the same PSI as when I put them away (34). From my compressor. It's snake oil for a street car. |
Got my tires filled with nitrogen after the Georgia winter and fluctuating temperatures had me going to the air fill up almost every two days. My Subaru dealership offered it to me for free and I haven't seen my tpms light go off since. It was worth it for me especially since it was free.
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Don't the cars come stock with nitrogen-filled tires, or is it just based on the dealership?
My tires have the green cap on them which I thought indicates that the tires are filled with, and only should be filled with nitrogen - I've had my car for over a year now, and I've never had to refill them outside of when the dealership checks them during my oil changes. |
I fill mine with helium!
My car is .0000000000001 pounds lighter now! |
I use an approximately 78% concentration of nitrogen with 20% oxygen and some other proprietary compounds.
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The supposed other advantage is that the tires won't oxidize from the inside out... Dunno how much I believe of that, but if I was given the option to use nitrogen for free/cheap, I'd probably do it as a "why not?"
I'm sure we do dumber things to our cars that has no real function... |
Waste of money for street driving and the track day regulars (imo), unless you're chasing ten tenths competitively.
Ran it once to trial out it's characteristics on track and wasn't blown away, finished the day and refilled tires with "regular" air... because its free... |
I thought we get it for free.. well at least for me.
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Mitsu salesguy tried that line when I was looking at Evos. Said as soon as you put air under pressure the oxygen level sky rockets and destroys the tires from the inside. I laughed so much I almost puked right in the showroom. The great part was when I asked if they would change the air in my Lancer GT tires to nitrogen (as a joke) he said they couldn't do it there as they didn't have a tank. |
the only reason is to limit the fluctuation in pressures due to temperature changes.
that is the only reason. regular driving you probably wont notice any difference (except around this time of year as temps cool off) on the track it is much more stable. anyone that says it doesnt do anything is wrong. |
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AIR is 80% Nitrogen AND ~20% Oxygen. Nitrogen & Oxygen are RIGHT NEXT TO EACH OTHER on the periodic table Therefore a cylinder filled with 100% Nitrogen will experience EXACTLY the same change in pressure with temp as a cylinder filled with 80% nitrogen & 20% oxygen. Quote:
SCIENCE Bitches! |
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You're right with your idea but in the real world "air" in your tires is whatever "air" your compressor pumps in... not dry. I'm not wrong. |
I fill my tires with used coolant so the pressure doesn't change at all.
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Just put my winter air in as the summer stuff just wasn't cutting it anymore! |
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I will rephrase: "There is no difference between using dry air versus Nitrogen to fill your tires. Anyone who says otherwise is wrong" Quote:
IF you could find a phase change liquid that evaporates right at the final target temp of the tires at race temps, then you could have MORE STABLE temps than anyone experiences right now. The liquid would work as a tire balancer (like the little beads that some use) and would evaporate to keep the tire temps stable. I have never heard of that before. We use some interesting liquids at work as cooling fluid. It evaporates at 70F and leaves NOTHING behind. I used it in my ultrasonic cleaner to clean some carb parts. It was cool - pour in fluid, turn on cleaner with heat. Come back in 20 minutes and parts are clean, dry, and there is now dry-dirt at the bottom of the cleaner. It is similar to dry cleaning fluid. |
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As the tire reaches 100C, the temps would stabilize at 100 until all of the water is converted to vapor even as more heat is added. Once all the water boils off the temps will start to rise again. So water in the tire is actually a good thing for racing, but likely drives pit crews crazy trying to get consistent tire temps. (I am one of them as I have taken thousands of tire temp measurements with my clip-board & tire probes :-) Differing amounts of water would give you varying results on a day-by-day or race-by-race comparison. And actually since water vapor is a better themal conductor than dry-air/nitrogen, the heat from the tires would move to the wheel more efficiently than just dry air or nitrogen both by convection and conduction.:D |
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Either way, the gaseous state and the liquid state would need to take up the same amount of volume in order to maintain pressure, right? If the fluid converts to gas and tries to take up more space, pressure will rise just from that. |
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If only looking at a small volume of liquid probably not a factor but anything in any quantity is adding some weight. We had several military vehicles that had glycol filled tires to provide traction and balance and those puppies were heavy! |
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Plus, liquids like water aren't known for being especially compressible, so the ride would suffer since you no longer have the tire absorbing impact. Quote:
Crisp winter air makes for crisp handling. It's right in the name, so you know it's true. |
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edit: And keys to the jet. And making the new guy do a 365-day rivet check on the horizontal stabilizer. Ah, good times... |
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I think you're missing my point. My point being, when I go to autocross and my tire pressuresclimb 6psi in a few minutes, then I drive home and have to put air back in them because they fall back below 30 (or whatever it is) and trigger the tpms code, this could all be avoided with nitrogen. I feel like I'm coming off as a huge advocate for nitrogen filled tires and I'mnot. Just making statements. |
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I think you're missing my point. My point being, when I go to autocross and my tire pressuresclimb 6psi in a few minutes, then I drive home and have to put air back in them because they fall back below 30 (or whatever it is) and trigger the tpms code, this could all be avoided with nitrogen. I feel like I'm coming off as a huge advocate for nitrogen filled tires and I'mnot. Just making statements. Edit: you're other points are interesting |
Lots of opinions on the subject but good input. So I got them to do all my tires for free. After about a week on stock suspension, wheels, and tires i pretty much see zero difference. Initially they wanted $9 per tire but my savy eye spotted an old coupon from them stating "free nitrogen tire fill up" Some old promotion they had but hey the coupon was still good.
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