I was reading an article about how some places are using nitrogen insted of compressed air to fill tires up. The compressed air is susposto make the tires age faster and can damage the rims it said. My mom took her car in for a rotation and balancing the other day and they used nitrogen in her tires to fill them up. Anyone hear anything about this?

 

Compressed air is full of moisture. Nitrogen is an inert, nobel gas. Some race cars such as Indy etc will use nitrogen because it won't be affected as much with temperature changes. Compressed air in a tire will change pressure. Pressure will increase as the tire heats up and pressure will drop when it gets cold.

If a shop is using nitrogen to fill tires, they must be charging the customer back. Compressed air just takes electricity to make air pressure. You need to buy nitrogen. I use nitrogen to test AC systems since I don't want the water vapor of compressed air inside the AC lines.

Once your tires are filled with nitrogen, how do you intend to top them up when you check pressure once a month? As soon as you add compressed air, you've defeated the purpose of having nitrogen in them.

 

i sell welding supplies gases and cryogenic liquids.nitrogen is the way to go,its cheap too.pm me if u want more info

 

Yeah this happened to my G/F's car recently. They did it for free. They use a green valve stem cap right? I also wondered about topping it off if/when it gets low. The guy said to bring it back and they'll fill it for free.

For my drifting I'm still using the good old compressed air (mainly because my friends shop didnt get nitrogen yet).

 

Ya they put on green caps.

 

most of the advantage is just the dry air. Most of the negative side effects (conversely the advantages with N) are the result of compressed air usually having a lot of water in it.

 

actually it not having fluxuation in tire pressure reguardless of the temps between cold tired and warmed up tires