Which types of tires are best for vehicles Nitrogen or normal tires?
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Rubber tires are your best choice.
Fill with air or fill with nitrogen is a personal preference and if the wheels are steel and you live in a humid area nitrogen would be my choice.
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I can afford both options. Affordability is a relative term, based on your ability to pay. Obviously air is less expensive tha nitrogen up front, but if your tire lasts more miles
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5,601 Posts
The "idea" is nitrogen molecules are larger than "air" and thus won't deflate as quickly....
"First is that nitrogen is less likely to migrate through tire rubber than is oxygen, which means that your tire pressures will remain more stable over the long term. Racers figured out pretty quickly that tires filled with nitrogen rather than air also exhibit less pressure change with temperature swings."
Nitrogen costs more, and unless you have a bottle at home the first time you top up your tire with air you've already stated defeating the potential benefits.
You should be checking the pressure on your tires regularly anyways as a best practice, even if your bike has a TPMS.
"First is that nitrogen is less likely to migrate through tire rubber than is oxygen, which means that your tire pressures will remain more stable over the long term. Racers figured out pretty quickly that tires filled with nitrogen rather than air also exhibit less pressure change with temperature swings."
Nitrogen costs more, and unless you have a bottle at home the first time you top up your tire with air you've already stated defeating the potential benefits.
You should be checking the pressure on your tires regularly anyways as a best practice, even if your bike has a TPMS.
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8,826 Posts
The size difference in the two molecules is only 2.6 %. Consumer Reports did a test and after 1 year of sitting, the tires with nitrogen had leaked less....a whole 1.3psi less. But, since the "air" is already 78% nitrogen, the 2.6% advantage is only on that remaining 21.0% . The advantage (???) OK, there is some advantage, but it does not have much to do with the material, itself. If you waned a real "no leak" advantage, you would have to use argon. Thats too expensive.
By the time Nitrogen is put into a bottle, it contains very little moisture. For that reason you wont see as much pressure fluctuation as we do with compressed air. Most air compressors don't eliminate the moisture like bottled nitrogen.
If the place you are going to have a Nitrogen filter, forget it. The system a tire shop can afford is not worth the power it takes to run it...unless you have suckers willing to pay @ 8.00, per tire, to use it. Despite their advertisements, those systems really wont get much below 5% Oxygen so you would be paying the 8.00 to reduce Oxygen content from 12% to 5%....BFD,
By the time Nitrogen is put into a bottle, it contains very little moisture. For that reason you wont see as much pressure fluctuation as we do with compressed air. Most air compressors don't eliminate the moisture like bottled nitrogen.
If the place you are going to have a Nitrogen filter, forget it. The system a tire shop can afford is not worth the power it takes to run it...unless you have suckers willing to pay @ 8.00, per tire, to use it. Despite their advertisements, those systems really wont get much below 5% Oxygen so you would be paying the 8.00 to reduce Oxygen content from 12% to 5%....BFD,
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10,350 Posts
Yep, it is the reduction in moisture that is the real benefit here in the deep south. Even if the tire doesn't leak any air, the change in pressure between summer and winter is a few PSI.
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