Not sure how you came to that conclusion. Nitrogen is fine. it's just not worth paying for it, as the claims about it being superior are bogus.
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Nitrogen in stock tires
- Thread starter GasKilla
- Start date
vdiv
Chief Grump
That's a big IF when you live in a state with a near 100% air humidity most of the time. In fact the air compressor at the gas station next door spews condensed water all the time, no one bothers to drain the tank. Getting nitrogen provides some assurance that water is not getting in the tire.
More like it's not worth the effort, perhaps no harm but not a benefit worth the time to drain and fill my tires
A good reason for using your own air compressor and dryer (plus there is a lot else that you can do with your air compressor). Another reason is that tires should be checked cold. Much easier to do when the compressor is at your home.
Lots of good info on this thread ! I'll throw in Tire Rack's take on the issue at this link, which summarizes nearly all the facts covered in the thread....
Registed to react on Nitrogen filling
Call myself tirepressure-specialist nowadays , and the story began when I got hold of the official formula to calculate pressure for a load from European ETRTO, and went running with it.
Dont own a Tesla so to my opinion its useless to introduce myself in a seperate topic.
Now about Nitrogen.
The water as humidity in tires also dont highen up the pressure to much when temperature rises in the tire.
And when it rises extremely so to for instance boiling point of water ( 100 degr C/212degr F) the 1 bar/14,5 psi extra rising when enaugh liquid water inside tire, is sooner an advantage then a disadvantage. It would give lesser deflection so lesser heatproduction of tire and the water is a better coolant then Oxigen or Nitrogen.
Wil give text of a document wich I made in wich I state that normal air is even better.
Try to demith this with valid arguments.
Greatings from a Dutch pigheaded selfdeclared tirepressure-specialist
Filling car tires with normal air is better then with Nitrogen.
A. Oxygen, which makes 21% of normal outside air, in volume absorbs more energy to rise a degree in temperature then Nitrogen.
Difference is only 1% , but in selling argument is sometimes mentioned in energy/ mass so Joule/kg.degr. Kelvin and there Nitrogen wins by 13 % . Tires though are filled with a certain volume so that counts .
This selling argument can be de-myth simply by the fact that its untrue.
B. Water in a tire transports the heat more then dry air or Nitrogen-filling ( which is by its production process free of water).
Not for no reason water is used in central heating and cooling system of cars as main substance.
The tire inside will have lower temperature which is better for cooling down the important spots of the tire wich have to keep a low enough temperature to prevent hardening and damage in next bending of those parts.
When incidentally the tire inside gets hotter ( sunshine on tire or severe braking, or high ambient temperature) more water goes over to gas wich highens the pressure inside the tire more then dry gas. Also then more water as gas in tire so even better cooling.
So advantage of water is 2 ways when needed, better cooling and lesser heat production.
Disadvantages of water as oxidation only happen at outside . Tire specialists will confirm that when they remove a tire of the rim , the rim inside the tire is not corroded.
C. When a Truck, transporting flammable substance, is on fire, the little oxygen in a tire will , when exploding ,probably even kill the fire .
In tunnels experiments where done to kill the fire with air current , and it worked, despite the oxygen in it.
D. A normal car tire up to truck tire is not a race-car tire, for which a constant as high as possible contact area, so best grip , is needed to give half a second better round time.
For that reason they are filled with as dry as possible air or Nitrogen.
That this gives low lifetime is not important, and for a normal car tire it is.
Often blowing tires at racing, is seen there as collateral damage, but we don’t want that for normal car tires.
E. A car tire is also not a airplane- tire in which the water can freeze and when landing this can give misbalance , which can lead to tire-failure or accident, when suddenly going from zero to about 200m/h.
The water in a car tire does not freeze that often, and when it does and the car begins do drive , it begins slow and the misbalance is not a big problem . then pretty soon, certainly when on speed the ice is melted to water and problem will be gone.
F. When filled with normal air the user is aware of checking the tires regularly, which takes better care of a saver tire, because regularly filled up to the right pressure and optical checking of the tire .
The illusion that Nitrogen filling makes the tire to loose almost no pressure, which is often exaggerated to 5 times , while in real a poor 2 times and then only in the very beginning, makes the user less caring .
The tire also looses air when hitting pavement so temporary leak between edge of tire and rim, Filling with whatever gas-combination won’t prevent that.
This idea is even stronger when TMPS is used which is often inaccurate , so the user thinks to maintain the right pressure, while really riding with to low pressure for longer time, which can lead to tire damage. Aftermarket sensors for TMPS when screwed on the valve can give leakage trough hole where valve is placed , because of the bending of the valve by centrifugal forces at speed.
G. Filling with normal air is always possible, even with a bicycle- pump, is only to fill up so won’t take that long. When you keep driving with to low pressure , in order to find a place to fill with Nitrogen, you damage your tires. So just fill up with normal outside air, even when the tire is filled with Nitrogen. Then also you don’t need to have the tire refilled with pure Nitrogen by your tire specialist when at home again, not worth the trouble, and normal air is even better then nitrogen because of the water in it.
Call myself tirepressure-specialist nowadays , and the story began when I got hold of the official formula to calculate pressure for a load from European ETRTO, and went running with it.
Dont own a Tesla so to my opinion its useless to introduce myself in a seperate topic.
Now about Nitrogen.
The water as humidity in tires also dont highen up the pressure to much when temperature rises in the tire.
And when it rises extremely so to for instance boiling point of water ( 100 degr C/212degr F) the 1 bar/14,5 psi extra rising when enaugh liquid water inside tire, is sooner an advantage then a disadvantage. It would give lesser deflection so lesser heatproduction of tire and the water is a better coolant then Oxigen or Nitrogen.
Wil give text of a document wich I made in wich I state that normal air is even better.
Try to demith this with valid arguments.
Greatings from a Dutch pigheaded selfdeclared tirepressure-specialist
Filling car tires with normal air is better then with Nitrogen.
A. Oxygen, which makes 21% of normal outside air, in volume absorbs more energy to rise a degree in temperature then Nitrogen.
Difference is only 1% , but in selling argument is sometimes mentioned in energy/ mass so Joule/kg.degr. Kelvin and there Nitrogen wins by 13 % . Tires though are filled with a certain volume so that counts .
This selling argument can be de-myth simply by the fact that its untrue.
B. Water in a tire transports the heat more then dry air or Nitrogen-filling ( which is by its production process free of water).
Not for no reason water is used in central heating and cooling system of cars as main substance.
The tire inside will have lower temperature which is better for cooling down the important spots of the tire wich have to keep a low enough temperature to prevent hardening and damage in next bending of those parts.
When incidentally the tire inside gets hotter ( sunshine on tire or severe braking, or high ambient temperature) more water goes over to gas wich highens the pressure inside the tire more then dry gas. Also then more water as gas in tire so even better cooling.
So advantage of water is 2 ways when needed, better cooling and lesser heat production.
Disadvantages of water as oxidation only happen at outside . Tire specialists will confirm that when they remove a tire of the rim , the rim inside the tire is not corroded.
C. When a Truck, transporting flammable substance, is on fire, the little oxygen in a tire will , when exploding ,probably even kill the fire .
In tunnels experiments where done to kill the fire with air current , and it worked, despite the oxygen in it.
D. A normal car tire up to truck tire is not a race-car tire, for which a constant as high as possible contact area, so best grip , is needed to give half a second better round time.
For that reason they are filled with as dry as possible air or Nitrogen.
That this gives low lifetime is not important, and for a normal car tire it is.
Often blowing tires at racing, is seen there as collateral damage, but we don’t want that for normal car tires.
E. A car tire is also not a airplane- tire in which the water can freeze and when landing this can give misbalance , which can lead to tire-failure or accident, when suddenly going from zero to about 200m/h.
The water in a car tire does not freeze that often, and when it does and the car begins do drive , it begins slow and the misbalance is not a big problem . then pretty soon, certainly when on speed the ice is melted to water and problem will be gone.
F. When filled with normal air the user is aware of checking the tires regularly, which takes better care of a saver tire, because regularly filled up to the right pressure and optical checking of the tire .
The illusion that Nitrogen filling makes the tire to loose almost no pressure, which is often exaggerated to 5 times , while in real a poor 2 times and then only in the very beginning, makes the user less caring .
The tire also looses air when hitting pavement so temporary leak between edge of tire and rim, Filling with whatever gas-combination won’t prevent that.
This idea is even stronger when TMPS is used which is often inaccurate , so the user thinks to maintain the right pressure, while really riding with to low pressure for longer time, which can lead to tire damage. Aftermarket sensors for TMPS when screwed on the valve can give leakage trough hole where valve is placed , because of the bending of the valve by centrifugal forces at speed.
G. Filling with normal air is always possible, even with a bicycle- pump, is only to fill up so won’t take that long. When you keep driving with to low pressure , in order to find a place to fill with Nitrogen, you damage your tires. So just fill up with normal outside air, even when the tire is filled with Nitrogen. Then also you don’t need to have the tire refilled with pure Nitrogen by your tire specialist when at home again, not worth the trouble, and normal air is even better then nitrogen because of the water in it.
RR Runabout
Member
I travel between 500 ft and 4300 ft with big tempurature changes and the TMPS reports low tire pressure every morning at the high colder altitude, especially under 25 degrees... Once it warms up, the insistent annoying user interface warning goes away..
Will this go away with nitrogen?
Will this go away with nitrogen?
No. Gas expands and contracts with temperature. Nitrogen is close a scam. It does almost none of the things it's supposed to do. What it is useful for is underground vehicles and aircraft because there is no oxygen to support combustion, and for racers trying to get that last 1/100th of a second from suspension tuning because nitrogen is guaranteed to be dry. (water vapour expands more rapidly than gas).
Think about it this way:
1. Heat is the enemy of tires. More heat equals shorter life and lower efficiency.
2. While driving, tires cool from the air flowing across them and build up heat from the flexing. They eventually reach a point where the heat buildup and cooling are equal. This is called thermal equilibrium. Because the water vapour expands more rapidly than pure gas, the tires inflated with air reach thermal equilibrium faster so they run cooler. With nitrogen inflation this takes longer so the tires run hotter.
Just adjust the tires at the cold temperature, and don't worry about it. What I would like to see is a "acknowledge" button that would stop the alert on the instrument cluster (just the ! on the display would show as a reminder). Even if you had to acknowledge every time you got in the car, that would be okay though once in 24 hours would be even better.
Last edited:
RR Runabout
Member
I agree with he "acknowledge" button.... the warning stays on the dashboard is ANNOYING....
Im a EE and although I had to take thermodynamics twice -I do get the math ;-)
[QUOTE="
Just adjust the tires at the cold temperature, and don't worry about it. What I would like to see is a "acknowledge" button that would stop the alert on the instrument cluster (just the ! on the display would show as a reminder). Even if you had to acknowledge every time you got in the car, that would be okay though once in 24 hours would be even better.[/QUOTE]
Im a EE and although I had to take thermodynamics twice -I do get the math ;-)
[QUOTE="
Just adjust the tires at the cold temperature, and don't worry about it. What I would like to see is a "acknowledge" button that would stop the alert on the instrument cluster (just the ! on the display would show as a reminder). Even if you had to acknowledge every time you got in the car, that would be okay though once in 24 hours would be even better.[/QUOTE]
brucet999
Active Member
Why would water vapor expand more rapidly than any other gas as temperature increases?
brucet999
Active Member
The only advantage of nitrogen over dry air is that it does not pass through the tire walls as oxygen will, so over time the 18% of air that is oxygen can leak out of a tire, reducing its pressure. Of course, each time a tire has more air added to restore pressure, 80% of that added volume would be nitrogen, thus reducing the overall oxygen content, eventually to the point of near zero.
brucet999
Active Member
Yes it is. Water can exist in all three states, solid, liquid and gas. When it is in gaseous state it behaves according to Charles' and Boyle's laws.
iwannam3
Active Member
I always though carbon dioxide would be better. A much larger molecule, inert and nonflammable. Easily stored as a liquid at lower pressure than N2.
brucet999
Active Member
Small droplets are mist. Vapor is water that has evaporated - passed into gaseous state.
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