Nitrogen in tires

[Tractorhauler]

I am wondering if anyone uses Nitrogen gas to fill tires with. We live in a climate that can vary as much as 150 degrees in a 6 month period so psi can vary widely from month to month. Nitrogen is supposed to stop(or slow) the psi variations. Does anyone know about this?

Mark

[jbplock]

Mark,

Here's a snip from TSB 05-03-10-020

"General Motors does not oppose the use of purified nitrogen as an inflation gas for tires. We expect the theoretical benefits to be reduced in practical use due to the lack of an existing infrastructure to continuously facilitate inflating tires with nearly pure nitrogen. Even occasional inflation with compressed atmospheric air will negate many of the theoretical benefits. Given those theoretical benefits, practical limitations, and the robust design of GM original equipment TPC tires, the realized benefits to our customer of inflating their tires with purified nitrogen are expected to be minimal.
The Promise of Nitrogen: Under Controlled Conditions
Recently, nitrogen gas (for use in inflating tires) has become available to the general consumer through some retailers. The use of nitrogen gas to inflate tires is a technology used in automobile racing. The following benefits under controlled conditions are attributed to nitrogen gas and its unique properties:
^A reduction in the expected loss of Tire Pressure over time. ^A reduction in the variance of Tire Pressures with temperature changes due to reduction of water vapor concentration. ^A reduction of long term rubber degradation due to a decrease in oxygen concentrations."

[MikeC]

Isn't the atmosphere we live in already about 79% nitrogen?

Can changing 1/5 of gas used to pressurize to nitrogen and lowering the moisture content really have a great enough effect that Mr. or Ms. daily auto driver will benefit from the change?

Just wondering?

Mike

[mark45678]

the Nascar boys have been doing it for years , I think its a good idea due to the fact you have less leakage and its more stable = less air pressure gains at higher temps..... I would not pay more then 2~3 dollars per tire to have it done , its a snake oil thing but it does work.

[Colorado Kid]

Costco put N2 in my new LTX M/S tires and gave me their propoganda. I haven't needed to add any yet (maybe its working, then again the tires are only 2 months old). When I do I'm going to use dry air available in my garage rather than driving back to Costco. They encourage me to return as soon as possible to have the nitrogen replaced if I contaminate it with air! Air has been working pretty good in tires for a long time, and it's what the tire manufacturer expected you would fill it with. The supposed benefits are hard to verify (which is always true for snake-oil). My tires tend to be replaced because they are smooth at the circumference, not because they weathered out from the inside! If they do weather it's on the outside where (OMG!) they're still exposed to atmosheric air.

I wouldn't pay a penny to have nitrogen put in my tires, but I'm convinced it won't hurt anything.

[SoTxPollock]

Racers have been doing it for years but you really don't need nitrogen in most cases, even yours if the air is dry air when its put in, now if its a high humidity day and you fill your tires with hot air from a system that hasn't been drained in a while it could conceivably be a problem, water is not compressible compared to air, but you can't fill your tires with water pressure like we did with the tractor tires when I was growing up. Besides as cold as It gets there, I wouldn't want much moisture in the tires at all. Nitrogen definately won't hurt the tires. It's an inert gas, noncombustible, etc.