No. It's not. Not in theory. Not in reality. Not. It is better for the person who sold you that bill of goods I will grant you that. There is no advantage to putting nitrogen in your car. None. Bupkiss. Nada. Zilch. Nein. But if you truly believe that to be so then I highly encourage you to paypal me $100 and I will send you some gas that will increase your mileage over 20%, reduce water contamination in your tires and increase your endurance in bed. Just send the $100.
Clamp on fuel magnets ... can;t get enough of them! If you spray them with nitrogen they work even better! Everything works better with nitrogen.
Bring along some Liquid Nitrogen and you can make instant Ice Cream! Mix the Ice Cream Base, with all flavors chunks etc. Pour in the Liquid Nitrogen, stir rapidly for about 20 secs until the Nitrogen boils off and leaves you with delicious Ice Cream. Why waste the Nitrogen in a tasteless tire!
+1 So true, Patrick. The irony is now days MANY autos DO come with a can of SLIME (type substance) that can seal many flats - and NO spare tire at all. You don't know what's going on inside the SLIME repaired tire? Well you do ... you just wasted a perfectly good tire pressure sensor - as the SLIME not only sealed your flat (maybe just temporarily) it kills your tire sensor ... and you have to buy a new one, if you ever want pressure readouts from that tire. Maybe that's supposed to motivate you to pull the tire off and check for internal damage ... because you have to replace the sensor anyway. That's our disposable society I guess. .
Don't tempt me. I've written several fairly long posts on the non-benefits of nitrogen, yet threads like these continue to pop up. In addition to not knowing high school science, people don't know how to search either. No, in theory nitrogen is not better. The fact that you and others say things like this is proof that basic science was not properly taught in high school, or if it was, it wasn't retained. I don't expect people to be scientists or engineers, but I do expect them to have a nodding acquaintance with classical physics. Lack of basic knowledge makes people easy marks for charlatans, and the service advisors selling nitronized air take full advantage of this. It doesn't stop with the ideal gas law. Unsuspecting people also waste good money buying magnets to put on gas lines, magnets to wear as bracelets, and pyramid shaped cases to keep razor blades sharp. Shame on people for selling junk like this, but an even bigger shame on people for buying it. We should know better. Almost all scams are based on greed or lack of knowledge. Being a basic human vice, greed is hard to eliminate, but knowledge is something that can be gained. We need to do a better job, especially in the area of the sciences. Tom
A hot air balloon filled with dry nitrogen will work just as well as one filled with air. Nitrogen expands with temperature at the same rate as air. I too would like to have my tires stay at the same pressure in summer and winter. Unfortunately this is not possible with pneumatic tires. All gas filled tires will change pressure with temperature, regardless of the gas. Perhaps you have switched to solid tires? Tom
Bump, Ouch, ow, owww, ouch...Bump, Ouch, ow, owww, ouch...Bump, Ouch, ow, owww, ouch...Bump, Ouch, ow, owww, ouch...Bump, Ouch, ow, owww, ouch... ! Sounds like solid tires are fun!!!
Slime. Another problem with slime is that it makes a gooey mess inside your tires. So it the repair guy needs to put a patch on your tire, he/she needs to clean out that gooey mess. They often charge a hefty fee to clean out that goop. Nitrogen. The main benefit to the consumer is that nitrogen leaks from your tires slower than air. Or more specifically, Oxygen(O2) leaks through the rubber faster than Nitrogen(N2). Althought the molecular weight of Oxygen is higher than Nitrogen, the Nitrogen molecule is larger than the Oxygen molecule due to some properties of the molecular bonding. The advocates also mention a reduction in Oxidation of the rubber. http://www.getnitrogen.org/pdf/graham.pdf Another issue that some shops use Nitrogen (Costco) is because they feel it is better than air, plus they dont have to maintain any air compressors for inflating tires.
I understand nitrogen filled tires hold pressure a bit better. That said, I'm not going to pay for nitrogen, and if I happen to get tires that were initially filled with nitrogen (from Costco for example) I will make no effort to maintain that status. The one time I've gone through that scenario, I pulled out of Costco, and into a gas station within a kilometer or two, to raise pressures above placard, with straight air. And ditched the green valve caps for the old black ones I'd retained.
+1 If O2 leaked out of tires significantly faster the N2, tires would all only have N2 in them after a few top off cycles.
I disagree. It takes several days for helium (a far far smaller and more diffusable molecule) to noticeably diffuse from a latex balloon that is perhaps 100 to 200 microns thick. How much longer will it take for Oxygen or Nitrogen (far far less diffusable molecules) to noticably diffuse from a rubber tire that is perhaps a hundred thousand times thicker than a balloon skin? Months? Years?? You are far more likely to be losing pressure from tire-to-rim seal micro-leaks which occur as the tire gets bounced along on the road. If you are claiming that over a period of a year or two that you will lose one PSI less by using N as opposed to air I might be inclined to agree but I hardly consider that a "benefit". Additionally, considering that air is 78% Nitrogen to begin with you can't compare N to O at all because air is mostly N to begin with - hence little to no advantage over the two in any case. This is all high school science. There is no advantage for ordinary cars in putting N in your tires. None.
Tom, you appear to be limiting yourself to the scientific definition of theory, when "theory = any old hair brained idea" is the more common use of the word.
We could mine Prius tires and sell the resulting gas to the fertilizer industry - we could be rich - rich I tell you! Seriously I am beginning to think that some people would lose their faith in god before they lost faith in the extra forty bucks they spent to put nitrogen in their tires.
This part is true. Classic theory would suggest a slightly lower diffusion rate for oxygen, but molecules are tricky little buggers and often behave in odd ways. Testing seems to show that nitrogen actually has a slightly lower diffusion rate than oxygen. Note that I say slightly. Neither diffuses quickly through tire rubber, which isn't surprising, since tires are designed to hold air. It takes a ridiculously long time to diffuse a meaningful amount of oxygen through a tire, so with nitrogen it takes ridiculous + 1 amount of time - the difference isn't important. Furthermore, as others have pointed out, air is mostly nitrogen. If oxygen did diffuse quickly, after a few fills of air a tire would contain almost pure nitrogen; it would be self-nitronizing. It doesn't do this, because the diffusion rates are essentially equal. The supposed benefit of lower oxidation is also specious. Perhaps if one were to drive their car in a nitrogen atmosphere it might help, but Earth's atmosphere contains oxygen. If oxidation is going to be a problem, it's going to happen from the outside in. Internal oxidation would be self-limiting, due to the finite amount of oxygen inside a tire. Note that this oxidation process would also bind the internal oxygen, once again making a tire self-nitronizing. It doesn't do this. Tom
:thumb: I'll echo your question which I also have asked before in several other threads. To my knowledge having read all those threads, the pro nitrogen boys have never explained how you achieve 100% nitrogen without having a vacuum chamber in which to fill the tire.
When I lived in North Dakota my tire place filled tires with nitrogen for free (if you bought the tire from them, or had them install a tire). I never believed it made a difference. I let them put the nitrogen in. Then whenever I had to add air, I just used regular air. But I once saw an action movie where the bad guys chased the good guy off the road and into a river or something, and then stood over the spot ready to shoot him with machine guns if he surfaced. So he took the valve cap off and survived under water for ten minutes (IIRC) by breathing from the tire. By that time the bad guys figured he was dead and they went away ('because bad guys never think of things like he might be still inside the car breathing the air trapped in the car). Now, if the good guy's tires had been filled with nitrogen he'd have had to come up right away and the bad guys would have gotten him. So the moral is, if you really want to be safe, have your tires filled with pure oxygen, so if you're ever in that situation, you'll be able to breathe from your tires. (Note: However, never breathe pure oxygen if you are deeper than about 13 feet. Oxygen becomes toxic above a partial pressure of 1.4 atmospheres. If you fill your tires with 50% oxygen and 50% nitrogen you will be able to breathe from your tires down to a depth of about 60 feet, assuming you had enough pressure in the tires to still get any air out at that depth, which you probably don't. Don't forget to exhale all the way up, however, to avoid a fatal embolism when your lungs burst as the air inside them expands.)
Oh, no, you don't want to fill your tires with pure oxygen for that very reason. If the bad guys shoot your tires, there will be an earth-shattering kaboom.
Filling tires with Nitrogen won't help but Hydrogen is much lighter which will reduce weight & increase FE! (Helium will work too but not as well.)
It would help if you added either Acetylene or Hydrogen, your choice, in a 2 to 1 ratio. Sure to impress the neighbors, and Homeland Security!
