Nitrogen In My Tyres!

[bluesky4me]

I saw a post about tyre pressure the other day and it remided me to go and get nitrogen put in my tyres.

I had it done at Bob Jane..it cost $20..I have had it in my cars before.There are a few benifits to be had by using Nitrogen rather than standard old air. Nitrogen is a denser gas.You dont need to check your pressure as it remains constant as it is not as affected by temp changes.Being more dense it may give slighly better ride and handleing ..... to me..the car feels more solid with the Nitrogen but not hard like it does if you put a lot of pressure in with air....with any luck it will help with fuel economy cos thats the only thing that I dont like about my Stagea...anyway if you dont change your pressures much you may want to give it a try...oh yeh having nitrogen in the tyres also seems to stop the tyes from flatening on the bottoms which tends to happen if you dont drive the car a lot.

Scott.

One more thing.. cos I know somone will ask..yes you can mix air with the nitrogen if you need to.

[Ska]

Great Info Scott, might try it out soonish when I get my new tyres!

[raz0r$harP.UK]

I think the benefits are largely inconclusive for regular street driven cars, nothing that regular maintenance and checking with compressed air can't prevent. Compressed air is about 80% nitrogen anyway.

http://www.toyo.com.au/tech_info11.html

http://www.bridgestone.com.au/tyres/produc...re/nitrogen.asp

http://www.racq.com.au/cps/rde/xchg/racq_c...es_ENA_HTML.htm

[Richmond98]

any other places that do it. my local bob jane store can be shifty at times. No doubt they would just fill it with air.

[sy300]

I wouldn't think the benefits would be worth $20.

As you say, nitrogen has less expansion/contraction with temp, but with the small volume in a car tyre, it wouldn't be that noticable.

They use nitrogen in aircraft tyres because they have a much larger volume and it is at a higher pressure. Also air contains oxygen, so if it is used in an aircraft tyre, it can be bad if a brake fire occurs.

If you can get nitrogen for free, go for it. But I wouldn't pay $20 for it. The main advantages of it are lost on road cars.

[mr manfringinsen]

The usage of nitrogen in tyres on race cars that I have heard of is to allow the use of a cold pressure reading as a starting point to achieve a desired hot running pressure. The pressure of the tyre can vary between 3 and 4 pounds between cold to hot due to the water in the air. This is alluded to in the toyo link above when they talk of `dry air'. Thus the use of nitrogen eliminates this aspect of variation in race preparation so that grey matter can be spent elsewhere.

[pixel8r]

raz0r was correct, air is made up of ~80% nitrogen anyway. Then there's something like ~18% oxygen and a couple other gases.

So whilst there is a difference, the difference between pure nitrogen and normal air probably isn't as much as it sounds.

[Roy]

Compresses air isnt compressed air but is compressed air. The compressed air you buy from BOC isnt the same as the air that comes out of the gun of the little compressor.receiver you have at home.

So its difficult to make a comparison

[oxford1327]

Compresses air isnt compressed air but is compressed air.

that sure as hell made it as clear as mud. what the? is it supposed to be as follows?

compressed air isn't compressed OXYGEN but is compressed air?

that would make more sense don't ya think?

[Beer Baron]

have used nitrogen in race cars i have worked on for a number of years now. we take a big bottle of it to race meets instead of the compressor. Yes it is a little more stable than air so less pressure change from cold tyre to hot tyre but there is still a change. we even use it in the on board jack system. we find it's small advantage is a slightly more stable tyre pressue over many laps. for $20 a fill I wouldn't bother.