Rep Power: 0

I saw a ad in the local news paper about filling up your tires with nitrogen, does anyone know anything about this?

 
Rep Power: 0

yeah in racing cars, so the tires don't heat up as much as oxygen.... thats what i heard

 
Rep Power: 365

^^ yes and a few other reasons too

http://www.macerite.com/archives/cat_ideas.html
explains it pretty well

 
Rep Power: 424

It doesn't EXPAND as much as air. The tires still get just as hot. That and nitrogen is generally dryer (less water content) so it doesn't degrade the rubber as quickly.

 
Rep Power: 348

thatz crazy

 
Rep Power: 365

they use it in race cars because in air compressors (air contains moisture) you cant get all the moisture out of the compressor, so when you put that air in a high pressure tire, the water expands quite a bit when it becomes a vapor which can drastically change the handling characteristics of the tire when it heats up, thus reducing a cars handling... nitrogen from container contains no moisture and so makes for a consistent ride

 
Rep Power: 0

1- Nitrogen molecues are larger than air molecules=less normal air loss.
2- No moisture in nitrogen=less rim corrosion along the beads.
3- Nitrogen doesn't expand as much when heated as air does (less psi fluctuation).
My tires are filled 98.5% nitrogen... I didn't notice any difference in handling or fuel economy, I check my psi regularly and run a bit of rust check along my beads now and then. I think it's way overkill. I just used it because I work in a tire center and it's readily available. I would never pay for it. Also to be effective you need the volume of your tires to be above 95% nitrogen which takes a bit of time to do. I don't think many tire guys getting paid per job will take the time to fill, purge then fill again. When I just fill an average sized tire with nitro it's about 92% pure (our machine is 99% plus the air already inside the tire). To get my tires to 98.5% I had to fill up, let ALMOST all the air out, refill, repeat. There's more info but I can't remember now.

 
Rep Power: 0

must be very expensive to fill tires up with that stuff .. nitrous out here runs for 3.80-4.00 dollars a pound.. better make a huge difference if u guna drop that much money

 
Rep Power: 0

Cool thanks for the input now i have an idea of whats going on.

 
Rep Power: 0

Nitrous oxide is not the same as nitrogen gas. They are very different chemically. Nitrogen gas is very cheap. It's the equipment required to fill tires with it which is somewhat costly. However, it is cheap enough that a lot of the tire shops in Vancouver BC are changing over and providing it for free as part of their service or sales of tires.

 
Rep Power: 0

That's very interesting article. Learning something new everyday.

7Gnoob, since you are working for tire shop, how much does it cost to fill the tires with nitrogen?

 
Rep Power: 0

Yeah, I never knew the proper way to dispose of the American flag was to BURN IT
Learn something new everyday

 
Rep Power: 0

TSSCivic, it's free.

 
Rep Power: 0

nice... I never knew...

 
Rep Power: 289

hmm wish we had that here lol. even if its not a big gain u could say your ridding on nitro.. have the lil ricers goin.. "wuh"