Nitorogen filled tyres

D

Dewi

Active member
 A tripe shop doorway somewhere in Lancashire
The tyres on my Z are inflated with nitrogen - they were like that when I bought the car back in Sept last year. Driving the car, it's always annoyed me that the tyres feel very over inflated so I want to get shut of the nitro and return to good old fashioned air from my compressor so that I can adjust the pressures by "feel" and to my liking.

Does anyone know anything about this stuff, is it just a case of letting it all out and re-inflating with conventional air or is there anything else safety related or otherwise I have to do that I've not thought of?
 
Normal air is 78%+ nitrogen, so wouldn't see any issue in just letting it all out.... wouldn't inhale it though ;)
 
Air is 78% nitrogen anyway, just top up with air when needed, the only advantage to using Nitrogen as far as I know is that it has no oxygen in it ....oxygen can go through rubber as it has smaller molecules Nitrogen can't , don't know of any disadvantages to using Nitrogen except the cost.

Aircraft wheels use Nitrogen because it is inert and will not feed a fire and as above doesn't lose pressure through the rubber !
 
fixit man said:
Air is 78% nitrogen anyway, just top up with air when needed, the only advantage to using Nitrogen as far as I know is that it has no oxygen in it ....oxygen can go through rubber as it has smaller molecules Nitrogen can't , don't know of any disadvantages to using Nitrogen except the cost.

Aircraft wheels use Nitrogen because it is inert and will not feed a fire and as above doesn't lose pressure through the rubber !
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It's also a more thermally stable gas and as rule very dry, pressures won't vary nearly so much due to ambient temperature and you won't be putting any water vapour in - Nothing not to like really (Except the price!)

Stu.
 
fixit man said:
Air is 78% nitrogen anyway, just top up with air when needed, the only advantage to using Nitrogen as far as I know is that it has no oxygen in it ....oxygen can go through rubber as it has smaller molecules Nitrogen can't , don't know of any disadvantages to using Nitrogen except the cost.

Aircraft wheels use Nitrogen because it is inert and will not feed a fire and as above doesn't lose pressure through the rubber !
Click to expand...

good chemistry that .... :thumbsup:

nothing to do with nitrogen being inert and not an readily oxidising agent?
 
domsz4 said:
fixit man said:
Air is 78% nitrogen anyway, just top up with air when needed, the only advantage to using Nitrogen as far as I know is that it has no oxygen in it ....oxygen can go through rubber as it has smaller molecules Nitrogen can't , don't know of any disadvantages to using Nitrogen except the cost.

Aircraft wheels use Nitrogen because it is inert and will not feed a fire and as above doesn't lose pressure through the rubber !
Click to expand...

good chemistry that .... :thumbsup:

nothing to do with nitrogen being inert and not an readily oxidising agent?
Click to expand...

Yeah not in cars but in aircraft yes :thumbsup:
 
Sounds like they are just over inflated. Have you tried letting some air out?

I wouldn't worry about adding normal air to the nitrogen fill if you let too much out and need to top up.
 
In the good old USA it can actually be cheaper to buy Nitrogen in a bottle than it is to compress their own air.

any as someone just said, just let a little N2 out and then top up with air when necessary :thumbsup:
 
Thanks peeps, I'll let some pressure out and re-inflate to slightly lower than they are now. They're actually bang on spec according to the gauge on my inflator but they still feel hard - could just be the run flats I suppose, they may feel a bit better minus a few pounds. There will be new non run flat tyres going on in Spring, but just curious for now to see what effect losing a few psi will have. My MX5 tramlined a bit with new Conti 3 Sports fitted, a few pounds less 'til they'd softened up a bit sorted it.
 
thinking of going nitrogen myself - assumed it was a bit of a waste but the way the pressures seem to fluctuate with the weather here drives me nuts.
 
It has it's uses in extreme situations (i.e. huge temp changes, high-end motorsport, etc.), but will do nothing for a normal road car.

If it's free then go for it, if they want to charge for it then ask for air.

Linky
 
Jaw said:
thinking of going nitrogen myself - assumed it was a bit of a waste but the way the pressures seem to fluctuate with the weather here drives me nuts.
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That's thermodynamics and there will be very little difference between air and nitrogen wrt to changes in volume/pressure due to temperature, certainly no noticable difference.

Unless of course you go extreme and eliminate all moisture from the tyre/wheel during the assembly process, i.e. a racing wheel, as there's absolutely no point in replacing the wet air from your existing wheel with 99.8% dry N2
 
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