Does anybody have an idea if the nitrogen gas worn out the car tires faster than the regular air?
What are the advantage & disadvantage of having a nitrogen gas in your car tires?
It won’t hurt the tires, but it will hurt your wallet.
Air is 78% nitrogen and you can get it for free. Why would you spend money purifying it when you don’t need to?
If you can get it for free then by all means do so. If it’s going to cost you 1 cent more it’s NOT worth it. The advantage is so minascule it’s not worth paying for it.
It is used as either or both a profit maker or a sales gimmick.
It is not a bad thing, but it is just not worth the bother of even asking for it. Air is 78% and the other stuff is not going to rut the tires.
We’ve had many long discussions of this topic on this forum. The conclusion, accepted by just about everyone, is that nitrogen in your tires will do practically nothing for you, neither good nor bad. Professional race drivers claim benefits but that does not mean the owner of a passenger car will see the same benefits.
[b]I laugh at you people. Because you’re ignorant to the facts!
Tester[/b]
Here is a link to a site that talks about “the gas” for us less informed folks.
WARNING, the above website is NOT impartial. It is a sales-oriented page that WANTS you to buy nitrogen for your tires.
Here, read a cartalk question answered by Click-and-clack: http://www.cartalk.com/content/columns/Archive/1997/September/05.html
The site is somewhat biased BK but I thought it presented some interesting facts. Costco appears to have adopted the idea. Since they sell a few sets of tires per year and warranty their products I thought it was interesting at least. I wouldn’t pay to have my tires filled with the gas but if I had the option to put it in I would do that.
I have to agree with Cougar. Although the site is biased, it does provide a good overview of facts.
My position continues to be that using nitrogen in daily driver tires has absolutely no benefit. Tire pressure should be checked periodically anyway as a routine safety act as there are numerous other causes for tire pressure dropping.
Race cars and race tires operate under a narrow band of specific conditions. They’re pressurized to specifically obtain certain characteristics at their operating temperature, the pressure adjusted at each race for different weather and track conditions, and readjusted as the track warms up…or it rains and the track cools down. Even a few laps with the “caution” flag out, driving slowly behind the pace car, causes the tires’ temperature to drop and they have to be heated up again to get the handling back to where they want it. The drivers zig zag to try to keep the tires a bit hotter. Race tires are also very thin and soft and the handling changes far more with changes in temperature and pressure than road tires do. Race tires aren’t made to go 60,000 miles over potholes and gravel, they’re made to last a very short time and provide enormous traction under very specific conditions.
Race car tires may look like road tires, but the tires and the conditions they operate under have about as much in common with those on the family car as the tires on your lawn tractor do. Because nitrogen is used in race tires means absolutely nothing in evaluating its value in the family car tires.
That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.
I use it in my truck, mainly because I bought the tires at COSTCO and that is what they use to fill them. They will refill for nothing and will also rotate for nothing.
Nitrogen is a lot more stable when it comes to temerature changes in comparison to regular compressed air. As far as the ride, It does not feel any different.
Here is PM’s synopsis:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/how_to_central/automotive/1272166.html?page=2