Does nitrogen make a difference in tires? - Cars & Trucks

Yes it does and it is important for aircraft tires and tires on higher end race cars but for the average motorist it is complete a waste of money.
It is a means for tire dealers and others to "upsell" customers to a very profitable product that they do not need and will be of very dubious benefit to them. Don't let them con you and here is why if you are interested in reading further.

1. You cannot get pure nitrogen in your car tires unless the tires are completely free of air to begin with and then filled in a vacuum. But they are not. They have air in them when they are filled. Further, unless you test the nitrogen going into your tires from the fill station you have no way of knowing if it is even 100% pure and often it will not be because of quality control issues..

2. Air is about 78% nitrogen in any event. Most of the rest is Oxygen and the remainder other gasses including Co2. Oxygen leaks out through the walls of the tires very slowly over time and what is left is a higher % of nitrogen. Then when you add air to your tires the oxygen in that air will slowly leak out and the cycle continues. So over time, just by adding air to your tires as they slowly lose some pressure, the % nitrogen content will increase as the oxygen will continue to very slowly leak through the fabric of the tire much faster than nitrogen which is very slow.

I saw one independent test which tested the pure nitrogen content of 2 tires, one that had a fresh nitrogen fill and another that had only used air over a couple of years. The tire which had only used air to fill it had a higher nitrogen content. Nitrogen fill = BIG FAIL in that case.

3. If you have paid for a nitrogen fill and you check your tire pressures and find they need topping up are you going to drive around to find a business with nitrogen available or are you going to just top up with air any how? Most people will just add air because they need it now and the gas station is open and convenient.

4. Aircraft and higher end race cars will use nitrogen rather than straight air primarily for one reason:
The pressures in the tires will not increase with heat and decrease when cold. They are stable.
Stable pressures are important for aircraft tires and for race tires(because the handling of the race car can be sensitive at high speeds to small changes in tire pressures. Funnily enough I never used nitrogen in my race car tires and nor did any of my competitors when I was racing. We just did not bother and set our tire pressures knowing how much they would quickly increase after a couple of laps).

But that is not an issue for passenger car tires. You fill them cold at or above the recommended pressure and, when you drive, the tires warm up from friction and the pressure increases by a few pounds which is not a negative issue. When the tires cool, the pressure drops slightly which again is not a problem because you always set your tires pressures cold. When you need to add air you can and you don't have to find a business that can do a nitrogen top up for you.

5. For 15 - 20 dollars you can buy a good tire gauge which you can use to check you tire pressures cold. When you need to add air you can and it is free. Normally I just over pressure the tires by a few pounds at the gas station and adjust them at home with my tire gauge when the tires are cold. It is simple and just check your pressures every 2 weeks or so at home at your leisure with your tire gauge.

Paying a bunch of money for a nitrogen fill and then having to pay again when you need to top them up is ridiculous for a road car. Using Nitrogen is no guarantee against slow leaks in your tires which can occur with a slightly faulty tire valve or a very tiny puncture or a leak under the tire beading where the tire wall contacts the wheel rim. So using Nitrogen does not alleviate the need to regularly check your tire pressures anyhow and to then adjust them when they drop below the recommended pressure or below your preferred higher tire pressure.

6. Finally the proponents of expensive nitrogen tire fills will tell you you need to use nitrogen or your wheels will corrode. They claim that the tiny amount of water vapour in air will cause condensation inside the tire and cause the inner surface of your wheels to corrode. This is complete nonsense. Your car will be dead long before your wheels will corrode from that. Any wheel corrosion that is possible from failure of the layers of paint protection is much more likely from the outside of the wheel which is totally unprotected from the elements, brake dust, scraping the wheels on kerbs and gutters, harsh wheel cleaners etc etc. I am yet to replace a car wheel due to corrosion, let alone corrosion on the inside of the wheel rim protected by the tire. Have you?

Well we know that Air is 78 percent nitrogen, just shy of 21 percent oxygen, and the rest is water vapor, CO2 and little groupings of respectable gasses, for example, neon and argon. We can overlook alternate gasses.
There are a few convincing motivations to utilize immaculate nitrogen in tires.
To start with is that nitrogen is less inclined to move through tire elastic than is oxygen, which implies that your tire weights will stay more steady over the long haul. Racers made sense of before long that tires loaded with nitrogen instead of air likewise show less weight change with temperature swings. That implies more reliable expansion weights amid a race as the tires warmth up. Furthermore, when you're tweaking a race auto's taking care of with half-psi changes, that is imperative.
Traveler autos can likewise profit by the more steady weights. Be that as it may, there's additional: Humidity (water) is a Bad Thing to have inside a tire. Water, present as a vapor or even as a fluid in a tire, causes to a greater extent a weight change with temperature swings than dry air does. It likewise advances erosion of the steel or aluminum edge.
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