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-   -   Inflating tyres with dry nitrogen (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/technical-stuff/1753-inflating-tyres-dry-nitrogen-43.html)

I wish people would stick to scientific reasoning as to why nitrogen is better than dry air.

Thad: I will be renewing my acquaintance with in about 30 hours!

The air around the house or near the filling station does not need to be saturated! Condensate is always formed when air (with whatever normal moisture it may contain) is compressed and then cooled.
How does your little pump manage to give dry air?

I'd also like to know what size tyres you fill up on the trot without having to turn off the compressor to allow it to cool down. What kind of filling up or topping up are we talking about?

I do not know about the science or the art of it. The plain fact is, one morning I went to check the tyre pressure and saw this Nitrogen filler. I filled and the ride was different, supple without being soft and the tyres seemed to stick to the road more.

It might be attributable to the lack of water vapour or merely the fact that the pressure gauge was caliberated perfectly. The only fact that is relevant to me is that it made a difference in the car. It would make no difference to me whether they called it Nitrogen or Dry Air or even charged the premium for merely caliberating their meter correctly as long as my tyres like it, I like it.

Cheers,

have used nirogen in my safari for last 5 months no top up was needed the steering felt lighter ride is much smoother and the fe has marginally increased but now the local tyrewalla claims that the tyres harden faster with the yse of nitrogen is this true

i suppose the next thing to come will be helium, it can make the vehicles more lighter and give more fuel efficiency

This has been discussed in this thread already!

They went overboard with the helium thing and made Blimps until one burst and killed some people.

The nitrogen placebo is as big as that blimp, we need to wait for it to explode.

My friend made a small experiment after his father, who is a very careful and passionate driver asked him about Nitrogen in his first gen Maruti 800. The father being a banker all his life now retired wasn't very sure about the technical bits. He used to ask his son almost everyday for filling up the car tyres with nitrogen.

While conversing I asked him to quietly go to a nitrogen filling center and fill all tyres with Nitrogen without his father knowing about it. He did just that and handed the car back to his dad, without he knowing about the Nitrogen in his tyres.

Till today, almost a week later. His father still asks him about nitrogen in his tyres.

I had filled Nitrogen in my old Matiz and improvement in ride quality was immediately noticeable. I could not continue with Nitrogen as the filling centre was way off my route.

But now I will get my Altis tyres filled with Notrogen. And sticking to one pump may also solve my problem of getting different readings from inaccurate pressure gauges.

@Spitfire: Well Nitrogen bubble has not not exploded so far. Even F1 cars use Nitrogen, so rest assured it is a better option.

@sierrakamat: No. I dont think that Nitrogen will make tyres harder. In fact it should save the insides of tyres from oxidation.

You are lucky you drive a F1 car. I drive a 72.5 bhp, 1.5 ton Bolero and normal air does equally well.

F1 cars and airplanes use nitrogen (non inflammable gas) for just one reason - its non-inflammable properties.

Should things go wrong, a wheel fire is less likely - To quote from this Boeing publication AERO : Wheel and Tire Servicing

"In addition, Boeing has received reports of three confirmed cases and other suspected cases in which a wheel/tire assembly exploded when the oxygen in air-filled tires combined with volatile gases given off by a severely overheated tire. In one case, the tire became overheated as a result of a dragging brake, and the wheel/tire assembly exploded when it reached the auto-ignition temperature. In another case, a wheel/tire assembly explosion in the wheel well during flight was suspected in the catastrophic loss of one airplane. A similar explosion caused severe damage to two others."

Such extreme temperatures are never reached in the average car. Hence Nitrogen has very little benefits for the average car's tyres.

Despite all this high feelings and the claim if you actually notice, all don't fill nitrogen fully. the tyre is always having large volume of air once deflated. it dosen't become empty. to empty it you have to vacuum it out and then fill in nitrogen which is not practically.
So actually there is quite an amount of air. before nitrogen comes it.
All said and done if it feels good, then nothing like it. there is no disadvantages though.

This is exactly what I have been wondering all the time and which prevented me from giving it a try!

Try it, it costs less than a visit to the petrol pump. Look at it this way - filling N2 in one tyre costs a little less than filling 1 litre of petrol, we fill petrol all our lives. Why not try N2 once.

Cheers,

Ok! I have read pages after pages of both sides of the argument. Here's my experience.

Assuming I am your typical brain-dead modern guy who is taken in by all the hype and so I am dreaming of improvement in ride quality and so on.

I can't quantify the fact that my tyres have run cooler on long drives because I have never been able to test within the same conditions. Maybe I am imagining all that up due to the Placebo effect!

The single biggest difference I have found after filling Nitrogen is that I lose about 4-5 PSI in 30-45 days, depending on how much I drive. With normal air, I was losing 4-5 PSI in 10 days. And, let me add that all air pressure (and even fuel, for that matter) was filled to exact 32 PSI at the same pump, and re-checked by my Tyre Pressure Gauge on the spot.

Perhaps this is because of the fact that filling Nitrogen has removed water vapour from inside the tyre. I leave all this for the scientifically inclined amongst all of you to figure out, but none of the arguments on either sides can change this fact.

P.S. If you fill up at the pump at 9.00 PM on Sunday evenings when the air pressure pump has shut down, then you will love Nitrogen fillings. Besides the fact that I don't have to fill up immediately after leaving home to get the right TP on cold tyres.

P.P.S. I will also stick to spelling them as "tyres". I hope this doesn't indicate me taking any sides :)