I just leased a new Honda Civic and one of the $40 options was Nitrogen. The dealer claimed it was to allow the the tire pressure monitoring system to be more accurate. I just chose to go with regular old air.
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'68 convertible restoration "almost done". See Ol' Rusty's progress at 68Vert.BlogSpot.Com
Ever seen the fitting that fills tractor tires 100% with water? Same concept to
fill with nitrogen.
Ever seen a million bucks cash? Just because you haven't, doesn't mean it
doesn't exist.
Pressure stability in a tire is a benefit of nitrogen.... just because it isn't an
important benefit to everyone doesn't mean it's bogus.....
Not sure if you are serious or sarcastic, but in case serious and for the benefit of others...
When you fill a tractor tire with water the water displces the air and you continue to add water until it comes out the top stem thus having displaced all the air.
When you inject pure N2 into a tire since i is a gas it simply mixes with the atomspheric air and makes a different mixture of mixed gas. In theory the longer you purge pure n2 in the more impurities oud get out. I think when this was tested at the Clemoson Univeristy International Center for Automotive Research (CU-ICAR) it was determined that you could functionally get all the non N2 particles out by continually injecting N2 for around 45 minutes...
I parked my 65 coupe for the past 5 years after my best friend passed away as he and I had been working on it together and every time I touched it brought back too many memories. I am finally ready to get back on it, and found this thread yesterday, I am really sorry that my first three posts have been on this goofy subject.
Err, in my case there were no transmitters. Tire pressure is inferred through the ABS sensors by variations in rotating speeds of individual wheels. FWD cars heavily load and work primarily the front tires hence they run hotter than the rears. With air in the tires the TPMS was constantly fooled into thinking the rear tires were low after a certain travel distance because the front tires expanded more and increased measureably in diameter by comparison. When the air was exchanged for nitrogen the problem went away. Whether or not the theories and textbooks agree, it worked. I suspect the problem may have been aggravated by the low end quality of the tires also.
I think road material affects wear more than anything. When I lived in NJ my tires would last at least to warranty life or more on mostly asphalt roads, since I"ve moved to Texas my tires have barely reached half of the warranty life (makes for cheap tire replacement under warranty, lol) Pavement is all concrete down here.
Don't blame Texas for your driving style! My factory Goodyear Wranglers on my truck made it over 50,000 miles driving all over Texas and to several other states in 4 years.
Constant air pressure, driving style, wear rating, stop and go driving, jack rabbit starts, hard braking all affect tire life as well as vehicle suspension. I've seen strut based cars wear tires more adversely than vehicles with typical SLA suspension.
final statement, btw the N2 is better for TPMS as it is true dry air and you dont have the moisture freeze damage to the small PCB transmitter.
This is the most logical explanation I have heard
When you think about how many shops don't drain their compressor, or the home use guy that is working his baby Craftsman compressor hard in a humid environment, it make perfect sense.
It's not the presence of Nitrogen, the benefit would be the absence of water.
With that being said, compressed gasses come in grades too, how pure is the Nitrogen the tires shops buy? I am sure its better than the changing ambient air, but it is surely not hospital grade kind of pure either.
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Err, in my case there were no transmitters. Tire pressure is inferred through the ABS sensors by variations in rotating speeds of individual wheels. FWD cars heavily load and work primarily the front tires hence they run hotter than the rears. With air in the tires the TPMS was constantly fooled into thinking the rear tires were low after a certain travel distance because the front tires expanded more and increased measureably in diameter by comparison. When the air was exchanged for nitrogen the problem went away. Whether or not the theories and textbooks agree, it worked. I suspect the problem may have been aggravated by the low end quality of the tires also.
Curious what vehicle you are working with.
TPMS are required by NHTSA and if I am not mistaken they stipulate a pressure valve located inside the rim. I will have to dig the law up when I am not on a mobile to be 100%.
Now it is possible you had some "older" vehicle where it was an optional "luxury" feature.., but as far as I know every new car sold in the US has to use the valve stem pressure monitors.
Last I heard both TPMS and iTPMS (roll-radius sensing) met the requirements of the "Tread" law. But keeping up with such stuff surely isn't my area of interest.
Vehicle in question was a FWD Buick Rendezvous and that's about all I recall about it. AFAIK nitrogen isn't/wasn't ever specified by GM for that vehicle. Nitrogen is just what I used to solve a problem I suspect of being caused by the combination of an overly sensitive TPMS and/or crappy tires. A buddy at the Buick dealership said they had run into the same problem and fixed it with a different brand of tire.
There are benefits to using nitrogen. Period. Now whether it's worth our individual time and trouble for any certain car is highly debatable. For what it's worth, I don't personally use it and have no real interest in bothering with it for my personal vehicles.
I'd rather fill all mine with Helium to make the car lighter and get better gas mileage....
I heard the German cars have an option for hydrogen filled tires.
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1970 Fastback (to be finished outside as a Boss 302 clone)
393 Windsor AFR 205 heads with 11.5:1 compression
Tremec TKO 5 Speed
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