Nitrogen and Air tires on same car.

Nitrogen and Air Tires on the SAME CAR!

Dogs and Cats sleeping together! Apocalypse I tell ya!

I wouldn't worry about it. There are a lot of threads about the rather often overpriced and gimmick like nature of the whole NITROGEN fill reality.

Personally? I don't want to be tied to worrying about filling my tires with NITROGEN so using good ol' mostly Nitrogen air is OK with me.

As long as you're watching the PSI levels of your tires and keeping that balanced? I don't think it matters at all.

 

Just wondering ... what is YOUR theory on why the mpg would/could/should suffer ???

Rolling resistance due to the tire "shape" and deformation is the same (provided the psi is the same). I do not think the rubber cares/knows what keeps it inflated.

The only possible difference is the weight of the tire since it is filled with a different gas ... BUT that would be negligible (I think).

The claimed advantages of nitrogen filled tires are not fuel consumption related.... (again provided that YOU keep the tire pressure constant which the nitrogen helps maintain better "allegedly" ) ...

And the cost of $30 (?) per tire is surely not worth it for me.

 

Consider the source?

"The Get Nitrogen Institute".

Can you say...Sales Pitch?

Do what you wish, and it's minor enough of an issue and expense that I'd say your peace of mind is worth it either choice.

BUT in my opinion, I'd be much more apt to just start filling the Nitrogen tires with regular air, than I would worry about swapping the regular air in one tire out for Nitrogen.

At a regular consumer automobile driving scenario, in the majority of driving environments? I think "air" perfectly viable for keeping the PSI of my tires where they should be.

Any benefits of Nitrogen Fill, immediately get trumped by the benefit of my being able to monitor and fill my tires at home with my own compressor.

As you have discovered being committed to Nitrogen Fill can be a PIA.

 

If you insist on paying for N100 instead of N78, you should at least take the green caps off of the valve stems for a couple of very important reasons:

1. If you take your Prius in for service or a repair, then the green caps are a visual clue that the car's owner is probably pretty gullible.
They're more likely to try to sell you some OTHER stuff that will help your MPG like throttle body cleaning, transmission flushing, etc.
Why else would they make them BRIGHT GREEN???

2. People already make fun of Priuses enough. Black valve stem caps keep people from pointing at your car and snickering when you're parked some place different than Whole Foods or an Apple store.


Two pieces of advice: (Street Value < $0.02)

1. Get and use the black valve stem caps. You don't need to worry about removing or replacing the N100 that is in one of your tires to make it match the N78 that's in the other three.
Trust me.....this will not lead to all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light due to total protonic reversal because....................(wait for it!)............................ because THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE between N78 and N100.

2. The tire shop that repaired your tire?
Use them every time that you need tires or tire repair. They're probably pretty honest for not using the N100 scam AND they didn't laugh at you (while you were there) for asking for it.

 

When it sounds too good to be true, the first instinct is usually correct! The atmosphere is 78.09% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.039% carbon dioxide, and small amounts of other gases. So unless you are driving a Airbus A380, Nitrogen in car tires is a moot point!!

 

.

Yeap that is all true BUT ... NO difference whether or not it is air or nitrogen. What you "could" see with regular air vs nitrogen is that cold tire (weather related) psi and driving psi "when the gas in the tire heats up during driving" has a bigger difference mostly due to water vapor ... (so it is not really the air vs nitrogen but the water in the tire which could accumulate overtime see your legit point below). So if you could ensure that the nitrogen used to fill your tire is really dry you would see "something" (but noone gurantees that ...)

That is right, this is one benefit you would see if you use nitrogen (done correctly see above) however this is NOT related to mpg which was your question .... I believe...

What is debatable ... let see ... I say the rolling resistance of a tire is independent of what gas is keeping it inflated at a certain PSI. You say what ???

Even if you would have thought about it, it is a wash as I said. Nitrogen is 3% lighter than air. So maximum you could lighten your wheels by 3% OF the AIR it is filled with. I am generous here but let say the air in the tire is about 1% of the wheels total weight. See my point ?? ... That's what I called negligible (I would not call it "very interesting").

 

None taken...after all you didn't seem to have been offended by mine....which is good.

If you think that N100 "makes a difference" then more power (or efficiency!) to you.

In my never to be humbled opinion?
It does not.

Good Luck!

 

Shouldn't we be talking about N95, not N100? The tire shop can't suck all the O21 out of the tire before filling with Nxxx. And even if they could, O2 and H2O will start diffusing back in to match the outside partial pressures.

And don't many shops use on-site nitrogen concentrators that produce about N95, rather than use pre-bottled N100?

So any gap gets even more narrow ...

 

To avoid green caps I take the black ones off before going in to Costco. The downside: the gaskets in the ones I'm using are probably getting tired. Maybe I'll try asking if they've got any black caps, next time.

And yeah, my first stop after getting Costco tires with their nitrogen fill is the Chevron station, for a bit of top up. And put the black caps back on.

 

what ? are you saying ?

"... same amount of pounds in the tire ... "

1. if you are referring to "tire pressure" that would be PSI "pound per square inch ". In that case yes you save 3% of weight of the gas in case of nitrogen.
2. if you are referring to the "weight" of the air/nitrogen in the tire, that is perhaps a few ounces !!! (not pounds) ... same weight... but nonsensical ...

and all this supposed to relate to your original question about "compromising mpg/driving" .... guess you are not a big fan of the natural sciences

 

Toyota filled the tires with air so the Prius could roll off the assembly line. So the dealer removed all the air inside the tire then pumped in pure nitrogen and screwed on green caps? If the dealer just swapped the caps how would you know?