What are the advantages of filling your tires with nitrogen instead of just air?
None…
If you can add a charge for Nitrogen or if you can convince the car owner that you are doing him a really great favor, then it would be an advantage to the dealer.
As for you, [b] Rod[/b] summed it up well.
There are several advantages, but the real life benefits are just not worth the bother of going across the street for it, unless you are racing professionally.
There is no down side to the car owner, IF they are not paying something special for it. Air is 78% Nitrogen.I agree with the previous posts. If you pay for the nitrogen you are just paying for something you already have for the most part.
Yep, nada, zip, zero benefit for cars. Here’s a great link thats tells you in detail why it’s worthless:
Thanks for the posts. I knew that air was mostly nitrogen but a technician at an oil change place mentioned to me today that the tires on my company truck were filled with nitrogen and that I shouldn’t mix this with regular air then offered to change it for me. As I said I knew the atmosphere is mostly nitrogen and opted not to have him change the air in my tires. I just wondered if there was any advantage at all the 100% nitrogen. This truck in rarely taken over 75mph.
No problems mixing it, no need to ‘change it’. That’s another BIG problem with using nitrogen: people then don’t want to put ‘plain’ air in the tire, and drive along with low tires, or they believe the BS and think they don’t need to check anymore. It’s a lose/lose/lose proposition.
Bottled gas has no moisture in it. This may help the TPMS by minimizing corrosion.
I can see one advantage. I just bought a new vehicle that had the tires filled with nitrogen. Because I “purchased” the nitrogen fill through Nitro Fill, I was able to register for a year of 24 hour roadside assistance through the company for free. Once that year is up, I won’t renew, but I guess you can count that as one perk. I am well aware that nitrogen is no better than plain old air, but I will definitely use them for a free year of road side assistance.
You get some fancy green caps for the valve stems!
My car insurance has Roadside Assistance for free as well. Why double-up?
Yes, you certainly do.
It’s a company owned truck and will be sold within 3 years. as for my personal vehicles, they don’t have TPMS.
Because it didn’t cost me anything. Like I said, I won’t be renewing anything once it’s up and I won’t be paying them for nitrogen in the tires. It was already there when I bought the truck so why not use them for the assistance if needed?
This kind of stuff makes me laugh. A friend of mine has a car that handles like a pig on stilts, and he raves about how much better his car drives with nitrogen in the tires. It is like using $100 monster cable to hook up the speakers on a cheap portable stereo.
Sounds like your friend is highly influenced by the placebo affect. I love the “pig on stilts” analogy.
In this particular case, I think it has more to do with trying to impress me with knowledge that he does not posses. You probably know one of these guys. I knew another fella (very young guy) who claimed to be a field computer troubleshooter for a large electronic store chain. He would tell me “Yeah, I go around and fix problems that idiots create in their computers”. When I actually started to engage him in a conversation about computers, it was quickly obvious that he didn’t know Microsoft Windows from the windows that he was using to see outside. I honestly don’t think he knew a PC from a Mac!
I would use helium, boost your mileage.
That should work. I think I’ll try it out on my Sebring and my Crown Vic too.