Ntrogen in tires

Gimmick of the year, at least you're only out $20 Bob

At least one take on it:

In case you're interested, the air you're breathing (or putting into a tire) is composed of Nitrogen 78.084% and Oxygen 20.946%, and miscellaneous other stuff :) I've read the "explananations" why putting pure N2 into the tires instead of almost 80% N2 is supposedly beneficial, but the all statements _I_ could find are, to nobody's surprise, made by tire shops.

I say bullshit. The only reason nitrogen is used to fill race car and aircraft tires is due to its relatively flat line of thermal expansion. That doesn't mean they run cooler, it means they don't fluctuate as much as in volume as tires filled with air. Gases increase and decrease their volume in dependance of their temperature. The difference in volume fluctuation between air (N2 80%, O2 20%) and Nitrogen (N2 99%) is so small as to be negligible. Shouldn't be a problem if you keep your tire pressure at the factory-recommended values and your speed under 350 mph.

5 bucks per tire for having them filled with N2 = pure snake oil, and a giggling shop manager.

I used to laugh at the nitrogen tire posts too. Guess I still do as I use an air pump. But there are several large tire stores here that use nitrogen almost exclusively and don't charge customers extra for the service. They also don't hype it or even advertise it. I have not noticed any race cars in their lots either. So at least a few people feel the advantages are great enough to invest capital into when delivering a competitive product as tires are.

Particularly when the advantage they gain by investing that capital is an increased customer base that buys into the latest fad.

To say that they wouldn't invest the capital if it did not provide customer benefit is naive. If they can create a customer *perception* of benefit, they can still ring the register.

To me, this has not yet been proven. If I was going to a shop anyway, I would not complain if they put it in my tires, but I certainly would not go out of my way to get it or choose a shop on that basis.

Don't be so hasty. It's not bull. Compared to plain old "air", nitrogen is DRY, so it won't change pressure nearly as much as "air" does with changing temperature. It's the water vapor that causes most of the pressure change with changing temps. Nitrogen also doesn't leak out thru the sidewalls as quickly as "air" so you are less likely to wind up with low tire pressures if you forget to check them regularly. Is that worth $20 for people driving normal cars and small trucks? Maybe, that's certainly for each individual to decide, but there are those benefits and I know a lot of people are out there driving around on under-inflated tires in the winter due to the colder temps and lack of checking of pressure.

For Large over the road truckers driving semi's, there are major benefits to the use of nitrogen. In addition to the above benefits, there is also a BIG benefit in reduced deterioration of the tire carcass caused by oxidation. Since there is no oxygen in the nitrogen (whereas there would be 20% O in air), there is no oxygen permeating the sidewalls as the "air" slowly leaks out, only nitrogen. That means the tire carcass won't deteriorate from oxidation and can be re treaded more times before it's unusable. That's money in their pockets. Many of these large trucking companies use retreads regularly on the trailers and retreads are a lot cheaper then new tires. If they can retread a carcass 4 times instead of 2 times, that's a big savings.

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Put water traps into the compressed air equipment.

I would settle for those air pump device thingies they have at every gas station in Germany.

UV will get the tire before O2 does.

Ick. Re-treading tires is just plain ick. And as far as those evil oxygen molecules permeating through and rotting the tires, puh-leese...

Not necessarily. It depends on how the tire is used:

Tell that to the trucking industry.

Race cars have been using nitrogen for many years but their needs are much more critical. But for the normal user nitrogen probably is not worthwhile. The normal user probably doesn't bother to even check his tires until they begin to look flat and they don't try to get 100,000 miles out of a tire or try to drive them at over 100 mph for a long time.

Costco tires now come filled with nitrogen.

Actually oxygen is a larger molecule so the nitrogen will permeate or leak through the tire faster than the oxygen.

Tire compunding for years has had anti-oxidants added to prevent ovidation degradation. Most of the tires degradation comes from UV attack from sunlight.

If you forget to check your tire pressure you would probably forget to drive back to the tire store offering nitro in order to correct the tire pressure. Then I'm wondering how long you would need to wait for them to check and refill all the tires. At what additional cost are nitro re-fills? All of this so it's _less_ likely that your tire will be under inflated?

Actually, there is still about 8% oxygen inside the tire. I've found no mention that a tire can be re-treaded more times if filled with nitro.

Simple solution, load them babies up with R134A.

Rita

That is not what the trucking industry has found.:

There are lots of sites on the web that discuss this. Their arguement is that if a tire oxidizes it can't be retreaded.

Probably not important for the normal car owner. I doubt that most pay much attention to their tire pressure anyway. Just take a look at tires as you walk through a parking lot. Many are low and some are almost flat or they are driving around on their doughnut spare!!

All else aside, you can hardly compare the trucking industry to the average car / light truck.

and why the heck not?

actually, the researcher does provide information for comparison (the effects of mass/volume on oxidation), to whit:

" One reason that truck tires can run 250,000 miles with the original tread while passenger tires can only go 50 to 60,000 miles lies in the relative bulk of the 2 different tire bodies. The bulkier the body the longer it takes for the oxygen to work its way into the tread. Unfortunately the bulkier the body the higher is the heat buildup and the faster is the rate of oxidation of the available double bonds. Once the tire body is all oxidized the tire is dead no matter how much tread remains on it. The thinner the tire body the lower the running temperature and the slower the rate of oxidation with a correspondingly longer life. ".

I'm not sure what it demonstrates since low mass tires (for example the speedrange "V" tires that come on high performance European Sedans - rated based on low-to-no heat buildup for 24 hrs at 166 mph) should perform well, as should a high mass load range 'F' - LT tire on your pickup truck despite the potential for temperature buildup but thanks to all that extra material in the tire body.

I own and run both and don't see a temp problem in either one. My 10:00x20 tires on 5 tons NEVER deliver the kind of performance which the researcher describes, in fact giving service no better than the high grade LT tires.

So, why would you saty such a thing?

Ummm... different usage patterns? Different tire construction? Greater proportion of "go" miles to "stop and go" miles? Lower miles over a longer period of time?

Tell me why you think they are the same.

Exactly. Also different engineering, different design, all kinds of reason why what MAY make sense for the trucking industry does not necessarily for the average car / light truck owner.