Fill Your Tires With Nitrogen?

ScottyBoy · March 11, 2008

A local tire retailer is now advertising that they can fill your tires with nitrogen rather than regular ol' air. They claim that this will result in both better gas mileage and long treadwear/tire mileage. Anyone ever heard of this? Do you think there is remotely any truth to this?

alaska511 · March 11, 2008

Yep, been around for quite some time. Nitrogen is an inert gas and is not affected by temperature, therefore the pressure remains constant. I have it in most of my tires.

Huntervh · March 11, 2008

Dealer in the next town over has a large banner on display for this, $50. For that price I will stick with air.

alaska511 · March 11, 2008

Dealer in the next town over has a large banner on display for this, $50. For that price I will stick with air.

I don't blame you. Mine was free.

hoorders · March 11, 2008

Yep, been around for quite some time. Nitrogen is an inert gas and is not affected by temperature, therefore the pressure remains constant. I have it in most of my tires.

'alaskaLTZ'.....is right..........been around for a while...........most tire shops, or I guess alot of tire shops, are now filling with Nitrogen......around here they replace your valve stem caps with green ones to indicate there is Nitrogen in the tires.

asilverblazer · March 11, 2008

I've never heard those claims with adding nitrogen, I wouldn't count on better gas mileage or tread life. 35PSI is 35PSI, doesn't matter what gas is providing it.

Regular air is naturally 78% nitrogen anyways.

Wow, they are using 100% pure nitorgen vs. 80% natural. If you aren't getting this nitrogen fill service free, you're getting bent over the bottle.

Unless they fill the tire in a vacuum it will never even be 100% nitrogen in the tire anyways.

Another money making scheme.

MallCrawler · March 11, 2008

yeah, i know a tirediscounters chain that does it all the time. free. Don't ever pay for it!

I have it in 3 1/2 of my tires.

vranasaurus · March 11, 2008

Air is 80% nitrogen as it is.

Rocco715 · March 11, 2008

Yeah, Nitrogen has been around for a long time but is essentially useless unless you maintain your vehicle well. The theory behind Nitrogen is that it's molecules are much larger than that of plain air making it more difficult to escape your tires therefore always having optimum pressure resulting in better MPG and handling, supposedly....

Rocco715 · March 11, 2008

Unless they fill the tire in a vacuum it will never even be 100% nitrogen in the tire anyways.

The tires are filled with a vacuum. When I had my H2 and was at the dealership one day I saw an H3 receiving a nitrogen fill and all 4 tires were hooked up to the machine at once and I probably was staring at the truck for about 15 minutes and it still wasn't done. Seemed like a lengthy process but other shops might do it differently

hubbycap · March 11, 2008

Filling w/nitrogen and depressurizing and refilling 3 times is what I have heard the procedure is. This produces 95% nitrogen in the tire. I can't imagine that concentration having a measurable performance over a 79% nitrogen atmosphere. I guess with the atomic mass of nitrogen being less that that of oxygen, you would have less unsprung weight.

Headlight fluid.

asilverblazer · March 11, 2008

Unless they fill the tire in a vacuum it will never even be 100% nitrogen in the tire anyways.

The tires are filled with a vacuum. When I had my H2 and was at the dealership one day I saw an H3 receiving a nitrogen fill and all 4 tires were hooked up to the machine at once and I probably was staring at the truck for about 15 minutes and it still wasn't done. Seemed like a lengthy process but other shops might do it differently

So they suck all the old air out, then put new in?

If the bead is loose, atmosphere air, goes in, then they add nitrogen to that... I've never seen it done it just seems hard for a tire shop to take the old out and insure no regular air leaks in prior to filling with nitrogen.

tfeyerabend · March 11, 2008

We use nitrogen in kart racing. Pressure will increase much less with nitrogen due to heat. If you have air in your tires at 10psi and go out for 10 laps on a 75 degree day, the pressure may increase to 14-15 psi. That changes the characteristics of a race tire alot, which in turn will change the handling quite a bit from the start of the race. Nitrogen might increase it to 11-11.5psi. that helps us when tuning the chassis.

hubbycap · March 11, 2008

We use nitrogen in kart racing. Pressure will increase much less with nitrogen due to heat. If you have air in your tires at 10psi and go out for 10 laps on a 75 degree day, the pressure may increase to 14-15 psi. That changes the characteristics of a race tire alot, which in turn will change the handling quite a bit from the start of the race. Nitrogen might increase it to 11-11.5psi. that helps us when tuning the chassis.

Well there you go. I see that in a high performance environment or maybe the space shuttle it would be a consideration. Otherwise I don't think my Americraps will handle any better.

Norseman · March 11, 2008

A local tire retailer is now advertising that they can fill your tires with nitrogen rather than regular ol' air. They claim that this will result in both better gas mileage and long treadwear/tire mileage. Anyone ever heard of this? Do you think there is remotely any truth to this?

Here is what GM has to say about it.

NitrogenInTires.pdf