Nitrogen tires
 

I have seen claims that filling your tires with nitrogen will net you up to +20% MPG and some how the pressure doesn't change with temperature and it some how doesn't leak down like air (ha!). As if nitrogen is some how exempt from Boyle's law.

Back in 2006 I tested it and saw no improvements in fuel economy and charted pressure and temperature changes on par with air. Who would have thought since nitrogen only makes up 78% of air?

"Nitrogen filled tires" deserves the place of shame at the bottom of the wiki mod list page.

maybe use the search function.
there was just a thread on this topic.


geeez

Well, to be fair, N2 filled tires will generally experience less of a pressure fluctuation than air-filled tires, and that's because they use dry N2 for tire-filling. Air, on the other hand, contains water vapor which may condense out inside the tire, causing tire pressure to fall. If the pressure is bumped up, and then the vehicle is driven on those tires, the condensed water vapor will evaporate again due to tire heat buildup, and tire pressure will go up.

You could get the same performance of N2 if you took out all of the water vapor from the pressurized air. However, nobody in their right minds (?) would pay extra merely for "dry air" tire filling.

I'm certainly not going to rush out anytime soon to replace the air in my tires. They're good enough for now.

I agree, the claims are ridiculous. And the slight measurable differences are most certainly due to the water content, not the lack of CO2 and O2 in the tire fluid.

I call BS.

I have seen claims that filling your tires with nitrogen will net you up to +20% MPG and some how the pressure doesn't change with temperature and it some how doesn't leak down like air (ha!). As if nitrogen is some how exempt from Boyle's law.

Back in 2006 I tested it and saw no improvements in fuel economy and charted pressure and temperature changes on par with air. Who would have thought since nitrogen only makes up 78% of air?

I just ran 36,452 miles on Kuhmo 255/45/18 w/ nitro. Having just run 3 sets before on 02 for 120,000 miles.
The psi never fluctuated with the nitro. with the 02 there was always fluctuation.
and it was very easy to tell.........
The Q45 has psi sensor sytem that displays the exact psi on the screen.

show me in PRINT where some one claims the nitro doesn't 'leak' out? An idiot knows that a leak is a leak. nitro doesn't fluctuate.

Most of the modest benefits come from having no water (vapor) in the tyre as this causes most of the pressure variations.

The pressure will fluctuate with heat no matter what gas is used.
There's no way around physics.

Normally its the snake oil sales men at the point of sale that will tell you about how nitrogen will defeat laws of nature.

You can search and find web sites claiming that nitrogen in your tires will cause pressure to bleed off 40% to 60% slower. The standard time frame they use is "between oil changes" so I take that as every 3 to 6 months. It should be checked every month.
I think figures like that and the snake oil sales men at point of sale give people false security.

This is what you need to know. There are something to the tune of 8,000 wrecks caused by tire failure each year and hundreds of deaths.
I tried to search to find the DOT figures but all I get is traffic lawyers and stuff about ford explorers rolling over with firestone tires.
People shouldn't be putting nitrogen in there tires and be under the impression they can forget about checking them.

FWIW, our 2011 Cruze came from the dealership with green valve-stem caps bearing the letters "N2" on them...the dealership never mentioned whether they actually had put N2 gas into the tires or not.

...regardless, I just use regular "air" (78% N2, 21% O2) from the gas-station.

Even though the spring rate of regular air is 6.3 m/sec and Nitrogen is 6.25 m/sec???? And don't forget, the regular air has as much as 2% H20....This substance has been proven to be a gas, or, a solid, when it isn't being a liquid:(....highly dependent on the ambient air temperature.

Yer taking some chances here. :confused: Good luck to you.

..."regular" AIR has been used since the 1900's with great success, why change now?

tell me your kidding????????:eek::eek::eek:

So, just following your thought pattern.........do you ramdomly put in desiel when the filler cap says gasoline????????

Why do you think the dealer needed to tell you?
it had N2 caps on it???????

good news though, now you can claim that N2 doesn't work!!!

really.........:o

There is so much that can be said about that mentality.


Why do you even bother to buy new cars?????

what are you rambling about????
So it's the fault of nitrogen that all these crashes happen?????

And people (100% ) checked their tires BEFORE nitrogen??????

If your not smart enough to know how to edit wiki then your obviously not smart enough to post there.

...OK, you caught me! Actually, I put regular "air" into the tires before I noticed or realized the green value-caps had lettering on them, so I didn't think anything 'more' about it at our first gas tank fillup when I bumped the tire pressure up to 40 psi.

...however, by the third tank fillup, I took the time to actually "look" at the little green valve-caps and that's *when* I noticed the "N2" lettering...but, by then it was too late.

...PLUS, the facts that (a) none of the gas stations I buy fuel from have N2 available and (b) I, personally, don't belief N2 is worth the cost--any cost--except in aircraft tires with magnesium (flammable) wheels!

...from my view point, N2 is more a "...snake gas..." rather than a "...snake oil..."

You do realize I was completely unserious in my last post,:p spring rates are just BS numbers I made up...as if........If N2 is free, (Costco) they can put it in, I don't care what is in my tire, but I bump up the PSI with normal air meself, cause as previously stated, I don't care.

Dealership ?
Wouldn't they have been filled with N2 on the production line as a greenwashing feature ?

Apparently Unicorn Breath reduces the LRR of your tyres to that of the type used on Tour De France stylee racing bikes.

Fill them with Unicorn "wind" and have your car fly like Luke Skywalker's speedster...

Q: What's the difference between Unicorn Breath and Unicorn Wind?

A: Intake and exhaust = temperature and composition (or is that compost?)

Go stand in the corral.

...UP wind or DOWN wind in the corral?

Depends on whether its a fruit or cereal day for the herd.

Hahahahaha!!

Unicorn wind blows opposite of normal wind.;)

That was funny, you have to admit. I think I hurt myself laughing.:rolleyes:

One word: Snowed.:thumbup:

Somebody's done some good advertising!

look, since the op never replied to the BS call on his post, there are no facts in is rant.

I didn't invent N2. I didn't pay to have it put in my tires. Radial Tires of Sacramento (probably the largest Michilin dealer on the west coast) put it in for free. Only claim was that i wouldn't see the psi fluctuations that I see with o2. I drive 30-40k a yr, back and forth to tx from ca 2-3 times.
The infiniti has a psi sytem. it works. And I can tell you factually that the psi in the N2 tires never fluctuated more that 1psi at 46psi.
the o2 would fluctuate 3-4psi.
Now if Im not having to screw with psi at the gas station then there is a small improvement in mpg because. I don't claim it though.

Now the moron in the wh said that if everybody would just check their airpressure we could save gas. he said alot of people are under inflated.


I can tell you, with n2, I was NEVER underinflated. period.

So, stop the bs with this law and that law.

Run it for 10,000 miles and document you bs claims........otherwise your the unicorn because you never ran a test.

I said that earlier. Do you not know how to search google?

Here is the #1 google pick, top of the page:
Nitrogen in Tires : Information about Nitrogen Tire Inflation News, Benefits, Generator Dealers, Location Finder & More
That is one of the many links that will come up claiming reduced pressure drop over time and increased fuel economy.



Also I remembered I saved some of my really old data collection via an email folder when talking about varrious things with my engineer friend.

Here is some of what I saved toward the end of the tests:

The car will not be driven, maybe at then end of the day I might take it for a spin to warm up the tires for one last measurement.
So far as of [Jan 13, 2007], 0913 eastern time my temp and pressure measurements look like this.
Both tires adjusted to 33psi.
Left Rear temps:
Tread, 56.4'F
Side, 59.9'F
Rim, 56.5'F
Right rear temps:
Tread, 56.3'F
Side, 58.9'F
Rim, 55.5'F

Now we wait for Boyle's LAW to do the rest.

As of 1115 EST
Left Rear (in the sun)
PSI 34.5
Tread 72.2'F
Side wall 96.6'F
rim 75.2'F

Right rear (shade)
PSI 34
Tread 67.2'F
side 67.5'F
rim 64.5 'F

1212 EST

Left rear (still in the sun)
PSI 35
Tread 73.9'F
Side 97.7'F
Rim 77.1

Right rear
PSI 34.5
Tread 70.4
Side 74.2
Rim 67.7

1735 EST

Left rear (after a 4 mile drive)
PSI 36

Right rear
PSI 36

That is a sample of the most complete and detailed data I managed to save. We did this on and off for months. Turns out I didn't save very many of those emails.
He ran the same test on his truck, with out the detailed temperature readings and saw almost the same result.

Then on August 21, 2006 I completed a 1,200 mile road trip:

Well I just got back form that 1200mi trip this weekend. Ended up going form NewportNews VA to NY,PA border then to Roanoke, VA then back to NewportNews.
I had the [updated: now exwife] + 100's of pounds of s*** she had to have + K-9 = about 400 more Lb's then normal.
I got 24mpg.
also brought the craftsmen temp gun to do the tires.
Tires were normally 20'F (for side wall) to 25'F (for tread) hotter then the road and over 30'F hotter then the air temp.
I don't think it makes your tires run any cooler.
I took readings 8 or 9 times, and it was hoter then the normal for air tires.
I'm glad I didn't pay for getting the tires filled with nitrogen.
---

On a side note that was a really horrible trip and was one of prime factors that helped put the x in exwife and I had all but forgotten it till now. Thanks....


Most of the emails were about unchanged fuel milage, my tire with a slow leak. I can say for sure the tests when from late june, 2006, when the first email was sent telling my friend I was gathering a data set for an Air Vs. Nitrogen tire test. The first day of nitrogen tire tests started August 2, 2006. Some time that november the test expanded when I took his truck into work and nitrogen purged and filled his tires for free also. And we ended anything that resembled data collection Feb 27, 2007 when we concludeded that putting nitrogen in tires wasn't going to do you any good so long as you replaced your tires every 4 to 6 years.
He logged almost 15,000 miles from november (thanksgiving if I remember right) to Feb 27, his were nearly all high way miles.
I logged less than 5,000 from August 2006 to Feb 2007, all city miles but for the one road trip.

I still use nitrogen in tires since I log so few miles I could keep a set of tire for longer than 6 years.

Here is the original post detailing the nitrogen tire filler I built out of a paintball tank.
I had to come up with a way to refill my tires with nitrogen to keep the test consistant.
The content and pictures of the post are gone, but notice the date and user name.
Built my cordless N2 tire filler to day. - Diesel Place : Chevrolet and GMC Diesel Truck Forums
Note the date of the last post: 09-16-2006 11:07 PM and my user name.

If you cant view anything from the link above with out logging in, here is the forum page it can be found on or near. Right now its page 419, they add about a page a week so it could be further back depending on when you check.
http://www.dieselplace.com/forum/for...ne=-1&page=419
Any one can view the see the date and time I created it and any one should be able to see a fly over summary of my original post that is now a ghost.

You want to say anything else?

If anything thanks for the trip down memory lane.

I have been putting regular air in my tires for years... and I have, on occassion, been 100% nitro for some of those years, with brand new tires.

First off, nitro benefits are more felt if the conditions when the first load of nitro went in were also pretty dry... perhaps in some sealed laboratory where the atmosphere is 100% nitro and workers in oxygen masks fit the tire to the rim?

Because I've had some brand new tires on nitro lose pressure very, very slowly... and others lose it just as quickly as "regular" air.

Other tires, I've had "regular" air and the psi drop over time was minimal to non-existent.

After several changes on three different vehicles mucking around with nitro and not feeling any cost-benefit out of it, especially since there's no place but the tire shop to get it and I had to check pressures every morning, anyway, I finally dropped it and resigned myself to putting in air every time I put in gas.

Works for me.

I check tyres on every 3-4 trips for fuel based on these strict, scientific measures :

1. It has been 3-4 trips since last time, or I can't remember
2. There isn't someone already using it
3. The machine isn't one that charges.
4. There isn't someone who isn't using it who has parked in front of it whilst they buy sweets or whatever other shopping is now available at what should be a normal petrol station.

Otherwise I inflate at home with a machine I got free for joining the AA years ago, and check with a good old fashioned tyre pressure gauge.

I would like to test Helium inflation when I get back to the states on my car.
The test would be to see if Helium makes tires run cooler since helium transfers heat something like 6 times faster than air or nitrogen. Fuel economy would be a secondary test with no result expected.
A worth while positive cooling result would be employed for use on my work truck and trailer tires.

If the rate of leakage of oxygen is significantly greater than nitrogen then after a few fills most people will end up at 95+% nitrogen anyway provided they don't let their tires drop more than a few PSI, and if they're letting their pressure drop more than a few PSI anyway they shouldn't be worrying about what they're putting in their tires.

Link.

Okay - this is going directly into unicorn territory here. I very severely doubt that the tires themselves are somehow acting as oxygen sieves.

...ah-h-h, but atomic-level molecules are sneaky...the little ones sneak "in & out" faster than the big ones:

AIR = 100.00%.....28.966 MW
_N2 = 78.084%.....28.013 MW
_O2 = 20.946%.....31.999 MW
_Ar = _0.934%.....39.948 MW
H20 = _0.400%.....18.020 MW (water vapor)
_He = _0.000524%.._4.000 MW
_H2 = _0.000055%.._2.020 MW

Yep. You want to see a sieve at work, a previous poster suggested helium. I bet a tire is great for leaking helium.

Or hydrogen, just make sure to keep it someplace it can't do any damage. Anyway, if the nitrogen leaks slower than the oxygen then refills will automagically increase the amount of nitrogen and decrease the overall leakage rate, and if they both leak at about the same rate it's a moot point to begin with.

Heck, let's just go for broke - let's test using HHO or Brown's Gas or something...

The point of using H2, or any smaller gas, is that you could measure the leakage rate and quantitatively show that different gases or gas mixtures leak out at different rates.

My point was that I wanted to see something explode.

Heh.

Accordingly, at the end of a few years of leakage, we'll have a tire full of Argon and Oxygen? Cool! Helium would be interesting if it weren't prone to leaking out of tires... they fill some bicycle frames with it. Maybe they can cure some of the weight problems of run-flats with helium... reduce weight by 0.01 pounds a corner...

I've just realised this is the reason I have such bad results when drafting them.