New buzz in the tire industry is filling tires with nitrogen instead of compressed air. Inert gas and large molecule does not penetrate the side wall and leak out of the tire. Maintains more constant pressure during storage and also dissipates heat faster, therefore nitrogen-filled tires run cooler. This in turn prolongs tire life and extends fuel mileage.

Also does not transfer oxygen radicals into the steel cords and sidewall, lessing effects of dry-rot.

Nascar runs it in all tires. When they change pressures one or two pounds, the tires stay at that pressure even when hot.

Anyone have experience with this? Just changed my F-350 over ... will have to look at mileage results.

I been doing it on race cars for 10 years myself (i have the big cylinder with a regulator for filling snowmobile shocks that we use) BUT-thought never crossed my mind until now,IT WOULD BE THE ULTIMATE THING TO PUT IN MY BOAT TRAILER TIRES TO PREVENT OVERHEATING!!!!!Like Iv'e said before,sometimes the easiset,most obvious things are right in front of you,thanks,Smitty
P.s. I used to run a oxygen/nitrogen distillation plant in my "other life" ,we filled aircraft tires with the nitrogen to control exspansion

Hey Smitty,

How you doing?

Exactly! Used extensively for commercial airline tires, race tires, tractor-trailers, industrial equipment, etc. Now being introduced into the passenger tire industry. Didn't know if this was just BS hype or a scam, but it makes sense.

I would like to have a tank in the shop just to "top off" my tires. Got a diagram with suggested parts so I could put one together?

How much would a large cylinder of nitrogen cost?

Chris

The big tall bottle i have had a deposit of 175$ or so,its only around 20$ to get filled afterwards though. It starts out at 2200 psi, when expanded you can fill quite a few tires before it go's below 100 psi,Smitty

What do you use to regulate the pressure and what type of hose do you use?

Interesting, I've never heard that before. If we still have a full tank at work I think I'll fill my truck tires and see what happens.

I use a standard nitrogen regulator(they sell them at same place that leases/sell cylinders). It has 1/4 inch threads so i have a 25 ft 1/4 inch coiled air hose with quick connects like you use on a shop air compressor. We been using it to fill my buddys slicks on his drag car,they don''t lose/change pressure as they get hot due to the fact n2 is inert(no oxygen molecules to get hot and expand). We also used it to fill the circle track cars i used to sponsor tires to control growth/pressure as factory stock classes don't allow the pressure control valves on the tires. I don't believe anyones going to see a mileage gain from running nitrogen compared to a properly inflated tire but in a trailer tire thats on the verge of being overloaded or a auto tire that is ran at high speeds it may prevent overheating/blowouts.Smitty

used to run it in my sprint car.....great when you have a dry slick track with alot of tire spin

Yep, lots of race cars and even some of the larger construction equipment tires use N for inflation. It's inert, doesn't change pressure as drastically when there's a change in temp, doesn't leak as much, and won't support rubber degredation or wheel corrosion.

I can give you the perspective of someone who sells and installs compressed air systems to commercial fleet service shops.

Nitrogen does have some theoretical and practical benefits. Unfortunately, many of those benefits really aren't beneficial to folks like us.

The first benefit of nitrogen is that the nitrogen molecules are larger than O2 molecules. O2 molecules are able to leak through the rubber in your tires (over an extended period) whereas the larger nitrogen molecules have a much more difficult time. This means your air pressure is less likely to decrease over time. Nitrogen by itself will not contribute to the prevention of heat buildup in your tires- that's purely a load/inflation issue.

Second, it is true that if you fill your tires with unfiltered air, you will get atmospheric moisture in them which gan cause corrosion of the rim. Nitrogen from a bottle will not have water present- neither will one of these nitrogen separator/compressor setups that the tire stores are adopting (they're not using bottled nitrogen). The very same can be said for installing a moisture filtering/separation device on your compressor at home. In the end, when is the last time you had a tire losing pressure and needed to have the rim cleaned?

Remember, nitrogen makes up roughly 80% of our atmosphere. The new nitrogen systems the tire dealers are installing only reduce the O2 content by 13 points. Is going from 80% to 93% going to be a dramatic difference? Unlikely.

Some of the nitrogen manufacturers are claiming that the aggressive oxidization charachteristics of O2 are eliminated by filling with nitrogen. If so, what about the O2 on the outside? When is the last time you saw a tire dried and cracked on the inside? Another touts that removing the oxygen from the inside of the tire lessens the possibility of combustion of the tire from heat buildup. While I can't tell you the temperature at which vulcanized rubber spontaneously combusts, I'm guessing it's pretty high. I'd also guess that the tire would likely fail before it took on that much heat. If it didn't, it would still have O2 on the outside of it to support combustion.

Interestingly enough, 2 doors down from me lives the chief chemist for the largest tire manufacturer in the world. He's been at this 42 years and holds 3 PhD's. We had this same discussion last Saturday night at our neighborhood block party.

I could go on but I think you get the idea. We have suppliers who are hot on these systems right now but when you pose the points I've made above to them, they all reluctantly will agree. We're staying away from the systems until our customers demand to have them. Most of our customers are pleased to save the $$ when they hear the facts.

If we're talking about a world where even the most remote possibility of failure can mean the lives of many people (aviation tires) then nitrogen makes sense. Keep in mind though that in the world of commercial aviation, you have tires that are built to dramatically tighter tolerances, then x-rayed. The wheels must be regularly x-rayed and re-certified. In this world, the nitrogen is just a tiny piece of the puzzle. If you're worried about tire failures on your trailer, have your wheels and tires x-rayed.

Want your tires to last a long time and not fail? Buy a pressure gauge and use it. Regularly!