Geauxbob51

Anyone switch over or are there issues with switching?

2015 c7

Walt White Coupe

No issues other than a waste of time and money.

Kracka

This. Nothing more than a profit driver for tire shops.

BrunoTheMellow

air is 78% nitrogen...

FYREANT

78.08% to be exact.

The question is does 100% nitrogen have any noticeable effect. It does make sense that it -could- as nitrogen molecules are larger than oxygen making it harder to leak out of tires. Plus, air tends to hold a higher temperature then pure nitrogen. This can help with tire wear by keeping the tires slightly cooler. Is it enough to actually make a difference? I dont know for sure.. But I'd like to think it could..

RussM05

I found a article in The Tire Rack that explained why use nitrogen.

Just Google "why use nitrogen to fill tires" and you will find a number of articles. Here is one:
https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...run-flats.html

Bill Dearborn

The biggest advantage with Nitrogen is it is dry. Air out of an air compressor can have a significant amount of moisture in it depending on the humidity. Moisture can cause issues with tire pressure since it's characteristics are different than air. I had a track tire that was running 44 psi hot, I would pit in and a friend would check the pressure and bleed 5 psi out of the tire. I would run a few more laps and the pressure would be back above 40. After doing this three times we took the car to the garage and pulled the valve core out of the valve and let all the air out of the tire and refilled it. After that it behaved properly.

The moisture can also cause problems with tire pressure sensors.

You could get most of the advantages of Nitrogen just by using dry air.

Bill

smurfkiller

Helium works better, its lighter than air so reduces total weight of the car.

meyerweb

If "air" holds a higher temp than nitrogen it's only because of moisture in the "air." Boyle's law applies to Nitrogen just as it does to the mix of gasses we call "air."

Racers run nitrogen because it's dry, so the pressure rise with temperature can be predicted more accurately. The moisture content of POA (Plain old "air") varies with local conditions, and moisture content affects pressure rise.

To the OP: There's no problem with adding nitrogen, but understand that unless the shop evacuates the tires before refilling, your tires will still have about 50% "air" in them. Even if it does evacuate the tires, it can't drop them to zero pressure, so there will always be some "air" in there. If one can get bottled nitrogen for free, great, other than the hassle of having to go somewhere else to add gas when needed. On the street, however, there isn't any real advantage to make it worth paying for.

GTB/ZR-1

But your tires may Hindenburg on you...

juanvaldez

If you switch to nitrogen you can't go back to air or the seals will leak.

RichAshley-Black99

No issues , mine came from the dealer with nitrogen.

juanvaldez

Or green caps.

xp800

That was hydrogen gas... Helium is a noble gas and is relatively inert.

GTB/ZR-1

Touche!

For some reason I thought I read hydrogen--DOH! lol

vettetwo

The nitrogen fill machines achieve only 98% nitrogen. They cannot fill 100% nitrogen.

StreetLegalH2R

See, this is why its so hard to find shops with nitrogen anymore; people foofoo'ing it without any real understanding. Nitrogen doesn't expand and contract with heat as much as plain old atmosphere. I loaded some Duratracs with it before I hauled a car and trailer cross country from FL to LA. My tire temps in the truck and the trailer never varied more than 2 pounds from 100 degrees ambient down to 20f. If you've ever done any hauling, this is an amazing thing. When they put nitrogen in they inflate/deflate several times to get as much of the O2 out as possible. If your application is something that requires consistency or specific pressure, nitrogen is worth every penny.

juanvaldez

The placebo effect at work. Dry air contracts and expands at the same rate as nitrogen.

StreetLegalH2R

More like the 'everybody gets a star education system' at work. Maybe you should stick with coffee Juan. Science clearly ain't your forte.

Google is your friend;

Bill Dearborn

You both said the same thing. If you can get dry air the pressure rise will be very close to the same and about as predictable. It has been 50+ years since I did anything with Boyles Law so won't get into discussions of gas pressure/expansion/temperature but the major impact of using air is its moisture content which doesn't follow the same rules. If you fill your tires with air from your home shop compressor without a dryer on a high humidity day the tire pressure will vary more than if you do it on a low humidity day.

Bill