Thread: Nitrogen infllation of tyres?

Just forget nitrogen. No benefit at all except to the dealer's profit margin.

There is an application for it in some very high performance vehicle applications but not for road cars and especially not 4WDs.

Honestly, tyre dealers...what can you do with them.

Ask them for independent statistics which prove their claim. Just for a larf.

Originally Posted by CraigE

Nitrogen tyre fills have been proven to work, but are only generally usefull in tyres with high temps. Long distance driving and racing especially.
Comparing to nitrogen content in the air is just wrong. Nitrogen placed into tyres is very cold.
[snip]

Craig, I hate to say it but that's absolute BS.

I read this sort of stuff on the 'net all the time, and no reflection on you, but it's a case of if you repeat it often enough it becomes truth.

If you have dry nitrogen and dry air, their pressure/temperature relationship is almost the same for the running temps a tyre sees.

The reason people use nitro is that it's deydrated, ie. dry.
If you dehydrate air after it's compressed, lo and behold, you have a similar pressure increase.
The reason 'normal' compressed air has a larger pressure increase with temp than 'dry' nitrogen is the extra water vapour pressure it has.
Remove the water vapour and the temp increases are damned near identical.

Furthermore, if you have bottled nitrogen (and I have) and you blow a tyre up, if the bottle is at ambient temp so is the nitro going into the tyre.
It isn't 'cold'.

I've run dehydrated air and dry nitrogen in race car tyres, the pressure increases were identical.

Originally Posted by streetlander

........ this is a new one on me for truck tyres!

I used to be a 24 hr roadservice tyrefitter about a decade ago, then elevated to the store manager. We serviced Linfox, Readymix, TDG (now Patricks) among others, and I never put nitogen or water in the tyres.

I did, however, put water in tractor tyres as ballast (weight), back in NZ, and depending on the tyres size, would put 12 liters of metholated spirtits in as well (to act as an anti freeze)

- must be a new thing as I have been out of the loop for a while.

Cant say I'd recommend it for 4x4 tyres.

Logging trucks use water a fair bit.

They use nitrogen in the tyres of Aircraft, for the following reason. It contains no oxygen, so if a brake catches fire it won't me fueled by the oxygen in the tyre when the fuseable over temperature plug lets go and the tyre deflates

Also it has no mosture in it at all. Icing inside tires can cause compliations. With water freezing and thawing out up to every flight it can cause seperation of the layer.

So it seems that it is a complete waste of time and money for people to use nitrogen for the car tyres.

Originally Posted by CraigE

Nitrogen placed into tyres is very cold.

Sorry to break it to you Craig, but T=PV/nR for N2 just the same as it does for a mixture of N2 and O2.

As has been said by others, filling passenger car/4x4 tyres with N2 is BS.

OT - many rock crawler 4x4s use water or steel shot in (at least the front) tyres in order to improve stability and inprove climbing ability.

Originally Posted by StephenF10

Molecular weight of N is 14, O is 16, so N is smaller and more likely to leak. Helium is 2, which would leak REALLY fast!

Stephen.

Just in case the point was missed, i was only joking, it clearly seems to me to be a complete waste of time changing gas in your tyres. Infact i think what i wrote was rather funny and am still laughing everytime i read it

Originally Posted by NomadicD3

Just in case the point was missed, i was only joking, it clearly seems to me to be a complete waste of time changing gas in your tyres. Infact i think what i wrote was rather funny and am still laughing everytime i read it

I got it and I ;-)

Originally Posted by JDNSW

Its major advantage is to separate more money from the customer.

Yes Sir !