Turbosport

I know a couple of ppl who use it, but i've always been hesitant to try since it's a lot easier obviously to find a place to fill with Oxygen in the event that I need to adjust air pressure in the tires...

jkwan

basically, there's no real world performance benefit to filling up with Nitrogen, but it will retain optimal tire pressure for longer than just oxygen.

There are not cons vs. filling with oxygen that I know of.

IMO it's not worth paying extra for, if that's the case.

MP4.2+6.0

also known as free air.

Small compressor in garage and it's always there.

Slave IV

stay more consistent and I think it expands less then oxygen when hot.

rbt

it would seem O2 is less than ideal, as it's more reactive than Nitrogen, or even plain air.

ski ya later

it has less thermal expansion - so it will not increase pressure as much when heating up so a more consistent wear on the tire. If it cost $8 to fill all tires and you have paid at least $400 for the tires and then get 10-15% more wear...that to me is money well spent.

Steve Mac

But there's a lot of misinformation going about. I have yet to see a properly controlled experiment done, with adequately defined variables, so we have to rely on empirical data, that is, "this is what I saw and therefore it's true for everyone under every conditions."

Folks, if you are paying to have your tires filled with nitrogen because you think it will last longer without pressure variation than air will, then it means that you won't bother checking your tires as often as you should. If you think it will keep your tires from rotting from the inside out, just remember that the outside of the tires is constantly bathed in full atmospheric oxygen and they will rot from the outside in as fast or faster. Don't attribute magical characteristics to the gas because the folks selling it say so. Make them prove that your money is better spent on their gas than an air gauge and a few minutes at the air pump every month.

But also don't think that it will hurt anything. Nitrogen is pretty innocuous as long as you're not breathing it without benefit of oxygen. It won't damage your tires or even suffocate your tire repairmen. It may have a slight "carbon footprint" on account of the additional energy used to remove the oxygen, so if you drive a Prius because of your love of the planet (and still read Audiworld?!), don't use the nitrogen pump.

The only real and measurable effect that most will see is a reduction in their personal cash flow. But I like a $2 beer on occasion, so who am I to talk about wasting money on things that do me no measurable good?

Me, I'll go for the beer.

Steve Mac
Chemist of fortune

Audi Junkie

Tire shops claim that N expansion is more predictable? How is air "unpredictble" and how does that actually affect the tire system? It DOESN'T! That's like saying I need NASA to engineer an oil filter because titanium billet is "better", although $2 Frams work just fine. Get back to basics what works, works. The N Scam is a total play to get people dependent on tirs shops to wipe their ***.

My wife's gay friend was over with an SUV, with a half-flat N tire, (which goes againt the whole concept of N leaking) he refused to let me add air because the shop told him to come back to them for pure N. Lol, the shop is 50 miles away and it was a sunday. The shop could just let out the contents of the tire an refill it with precious N. It's a total f'ing joke. How about the tire "filtering" (my word) out the N? It would eventually become 100% N over time! It's just stupid, bad science, scam. fwiw, I have tires that hold air over long storage and service just fine.

Of all the bad and stupid automotivemyths, this one pisses my off the most because it interferes with owners who think they need N and makes them think they now don't need to check their tires because they have N!!!!

Audi Junkie

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Audi Junkie

15% more wear? Drink some more Kool-aid.