tires with nitrogen

TPMS works on Pressure, not type of gas. Air is 78% Nitrogen anyway. You had a screw in your tire, it went flat. The dealer fixed it for free, which by the way was very nice of them, thumbs up for that! Nitrogen in your tire neither helped nor made worse the screw in the tire thing.
Unless you are a Airbus A380 or other flying variants, that is when Nitrogen in tires matters, in a car, not so much.!

 

its a sales gimmick, out here only Belle Tire uses Nitrogen, not Discount Tire, Goodyear or anyone else.
For a few bucks you can pick up a Tire Repair Kit by Slime or whomever, you also need to have needle nose pliers, and a razor blade and if the kit doesn't have it you should have rubber cement, buy the kit that has all this is a hard plastic case that can go in the glove box.

lift the car, find the nail, pull it out with pliers, enlargen hole with plunger tool, put the licorice into the insertion tool with rubber cement applied, punch it in, pull out and the licorice will stay in place, cut off the excess sticking out with the razor blade, lower the car and you are on your way. A foot pump is very light and handy to keep in the trunk but most of them are built very poorly, you can also carry a portable 12V air compressor around instead to reinflate a flat tire.

 

Sorry, but I just don't see how you came to that conclusion. I know people that have had screws in their (air filled) tires for weeks before the deflation was particularly noticeable.

When a nail or screw punctures a tire like that it tends to self seal the leak. How well it seals will depend on the exact size/shape/condition of the screw, how and where it penetrates and I'm sure a good element of dumb luck as well. There's no way that you can chalk this up to the nitrogen.

 

Unfortunately those repair are not legal this side of the pond. The only legal repair means taking the tyre off and patching the inside with ether a flat patch or a mushroom patch.

 

That's a shame because they really do work well and hold for years and years, service stations also use the licorice method of repairing a hole, they charge $8-$10, I buy the kit for less than that and I can repair multiple tires, I can then buy the licorice and rubber cement separately when I run out.

I think this is nothing more than an example of European governments making silly laws to make sure someone still has a job repairing holes in tires. Even one of our states, Oregon if I recall, makes it illegal to pump your own gas, to ensure job security for gas pumpers.

I know someone who used to buy Levi's on the cheap here and fill up a suitcase with them and sell them in France at a huge markup, it damn near paid for her trips, I'll have her fill up a suitcase with those tire repair kits to sell on the European black markets

 

Although that may be acceptable as an emergency tire repair method, this is not an approved permanent tire repair by tire manufacturers. The problem with applying a plug from the exterior without bothering to inspect the inside is that you don't know what damage was caused to the interior of the tire and the plug may allow water to seep in, corroding the tire's steel belts or the inner casing. That would potentially result in tire failure in a high speed or other stressful situation.

I personally have a problem with "Slime" as a brand name for anything besides a child's toy, but that's just me...

Tire Tech Information - Flat Tire Repairs

 

yes I know inserting a plug and driving off is not smart, that's why I also use the same rubber cement designed for inner patches. I then give the rubber cement some time to cure for an air (& water) tight seal, than fill the tire with air, I check the air the next day, the day after that, a week later, and then a month later, if its holds that long w/o losing air than I'm satisfied.

new tires have a lot of tread and most nails don't seem to penetrate them in my experience, all my nails have come from older tires with less tread on them, so a repair designed to last a few years as opposed to a decade is just fine with me. I enjoy doing DIY repairs and find nothing wrong with my method, however if someone wants to pay to have their tire removed, patched, installed, balanced & mounted that is also just fine with me as well, there is nothing wrong with paying a little $$ for added peace of mind.

I appreciate the tirerack article and enjoy living in a country that allows me the freedom to pay for a professional repair or do my own repair myself. Perhaps someday they will make a mini umbrella style patch that can be inserted from the outside and it opens up to create both a patch & plug at the same time.

 

"Nitrogen fill" for tyres does one thing and one thing only, it -reduces- the amount of water vapour in the tyre. Then only when they get it in bottles. There are now "nitrogen enhanced" air pumps becoming available. If they are just as lax with water vapour capture in them as with "normal" air pumps they will do nothing.

Please, think a little about it! You take a tyre, let the air out, and refill with nitrogen. Wait, you didn't use a vacuum pump to get all the air out! So there's still some oxygen in that tyre! And some water vapour (probably lots, because much of it will condense when you let the air out as the pressure falls and the temperature drops).

Good luck getting just nitrogen in the tyre! Good luck removing all the water vapour!

It's a nice gimmick to extract money from your wallet though!
Oh, and yup, there will be lots of "anecdotal evidence" "running nitrogen" in your tyres did all sorts of things.
Yet another use of pseudo-science to "prove" whatever!

 

At the temperatures and pressures found in automobile tires, nitrogen behaves as an ideal gas, just like air. Your tire would have gone flat at exactly the same rate if it had been filled with air.

This whole discussion causes me serious concern for the state of science education in our country.

Tom

 

Maybe Nitrogen fill proponents should be mandated to describe it as "oxygen free" fill. As mentioned above, regular air is 4/5 nitrogen already. The other fifth is mostly oxygen.

Another ploy, in Canada: our automotive ads just love describing fuel economy in imperial miles per gallon. Nothing's been sold up here in gallons, imperial or US, since maybe the mid-seventies, but with an imperial gallon being rougly 5/4 of a US gallon...

 

You would need to realize the procedure that is used to replace the regular air/water vapor with nitrogen.

They attach a hose to each tire, then inflate and deflate the tires several times, each time filling them up with nitrogen. So for example the first time you deflate the tire down to 10% of the orginal volume then fill with nitrogen you would of course have 10% air/water vapor and 90% nitrogen.
The next several times you repeat this procedure would take the percentage of the original air/water vapor down to 1% then .1% and on the fourth time you cycle the nitrogen you would have 1/100 or .01% of the total volume of gases being the original air/water vapor and 99.99% nitrogen. Of course since regular air has quite a bit of nitrogen in it, the percentage of nitrogen would be quite a bit higher. And a lot less water vapor.

As far as the debate of whether this helps or not, they don't say always check your tires with regular air in them cold for nothing! And hot air balloons do not have a tremedous temperature difference for the air inside the balloon to expand and thereby become lighter. I myself tend to like having my tire pressure stay the same in the summer or winter!

 

As stated, unless you are driving a A380 Airbus or other Air Vehicle, it's not worth the time or effort. The only way I would do this is if someone would drop off a FREE 60lb tank of N2 and pressure regulator, and supplied a refill tank for life for free! 78% N2 is fine for a Prius!

 

Here in Ohio I had to search to find a tire shop that would "plug" a tire (what you call the "licorice method", as opposed to patching them). Most of them won't do it because it creates a dangerously unstable tire.

In my case, I wasn't too worried about the tire's safety: it was for my lawn tractor.

 

How do you do this without rupturing the bead seal and letting a lot of ambient air flood into the tire?

 

Nitrogen gas follows the same laws of pressure as does oxygen, carbon dioxide - or any mixture of the above. Google "ideal gas law". So regardless of how much you paid to have nitrogen pumped into your tires it will still follow the same laws of physics as does every other gas - imagine that! So your tire pressure will change in the winter just as it does in the summer - regardless of how much extra that you paid.

I am sorry to state - just as others have said here - that the only advantage that having nitrogen pumped into your tires (for regular auto drivers) is that the person who sold you that gas will go home slightly richer this evening.

 

For Science fun, Google "Boyles Law"

 

Come on dianeinreno. Not if you believe, if you truly truly believe that they'll keep more even pressure, then surely this will trump the laws of physics.

I think the claim of more consistent (wrt temperature) pressure is based on the presumption that a nitrogen fill will have less water contamination than the air at the gas station, with the presence of water vapor causing some departure from ideal gas properties. Certainly for dry air there would be no difference, and with only small amounts of water vapor there would still be negligible difference. I think you'd need fairly high amount of water vapor for this to be noticeable.

BTW. Here's a quick tip for anyone that wants to minimize water vapor in their tires. I've noticed a huge difference in the dryness of the air available at different petrol stations here. So before I add air I always pump a full bast straight at the palm of my hand for at least 5 to 10 seconds (on some automated pumps you've got to select the "flat tire" setting to do this). The expanding air cools rapidly and if the air has any significant moisture then you notice your palm gets quite wet. In this case I wont use that service station for air. Over time you get to know which places in your local area have the best dry air. Of course this is easier here because petrol stations in Australia don't charge to use the air.

 

Geez Tom, Why not just insult them even more?

Not everyone knows the Scientific properties of Nitrogen vs. Oxygen... They trust the sales/service advisers that 'sell' the idea that Nitrogen is resistant to temperature fluctuations, therefore it maintains constant tire pressure, as opposed to oxygen that expands and contracts with temperature, constantly increasing and decreasing tire pressure as the tires heat up and cool down with regular driving, as well as tire pressure changing along with atmospheric temperature...

In theory Nitrogen is better, some sales people may take it even further and, surprise, surprise! - Lie.. 'ahem 'sell'... by saying things like the Nitrogen can prevent flat tires, nitrogen can seal small punctures... etc...

Why insult people who just don't know any better? People routinely trust the service adviser's advice. Why not try and inform them and enlighten them so that they understand and can become educated.

Basic properties of Nitrogen and Oxygen:

Name: Nitrogen
Symbol: N
Atomic Number: 7
Atomic Mass: 14.00674 amu
Melting Point: -209.9 °C (63.250008 K, -345.81998 °F)
Boiling Point: -195.8 °C (77.35 K, -320.44 °F)
Number of Protons/Electrons: 7
Number of Neutrons: 7
Classification: Non-metal
Crystal Structure: Hexagonal
Density @ 293 K: 1.2506 g/cm3
Color: colorless

Name: Oxygen
Symbol: O
Atomic Number: 8
Atomic Mass: 15.9994 amu
Melting Point: -218.4 °C (54.750008 K, -361.12 °F)
Boiling Point: -183.0 °C (90.15 K, -297.4 °F)
Number of Protons/Electrons: 8
Number of Neutrons: 8
Classification: Non-metal
Crystal Structure: Cubic
Density @ 293 K: 1.429 g/cm3
Color: colorless

 

If you're going to run N100 in your tires (as opposed to the N78 blend that I use) you should at least use black valve stem caps.
They don't work any better than the lime green ones do, but at least that way people won't roll their eyes and chuckle at your car when they see it in a parking lot.

There's another more serious advantage! If you have other people swing wrenches on your car---it will embolden them to offer you other advanced, cutting edge services including but not limited to:
Air Conditioner Refresh-O-riser,
Engine Flush,
Tornado air intake,
Clamp-on fuel line magnets,
Throttle Body Cleaning in a can (before something like 80K miles---and note that this is sometimes a required maintenance item.)


You get the idea....