Do I have Nitrogen in my tires?

Looking at my Toyota owners app, the first service history record shows all the pre-delivery items as well as "Replace air in tires with nitrogen". Well my tires to not have the green valve covers so I'm not sure if this is true or not.

My pressure seems to be around 28 cold on the monitor display. I have yet to check with an actual gauge. About to go on a road trip and wanted to top them off but not sure what's in there.

 

You can add regular air. The nitrogen thing is snake oil anyway

 

air is almost 80% nitrogen so id assume you definitely have nitrogen inside your tires.

 

Yeah, I know. I just didn't know if it was OK to put regular air in my tires if they were filled with nitrogen. I also thought if they had already done the nitrogen that I would just continue on with it.

I didn't pay any extra for it. The guy through some stuff in before I picked the truck up like vehicle protection package or whatever they call it. I would not doubt if he had them do nitrogen as well but I assumed they would have used the green caps.

 

The whole Nitrogen nonsense was created supposedly to reduce the breakdown of the rubber inside the tires by reducing the oxygen content, therefore slowing oxidation of the rubber.
Also, it was thought that the loss of pressure by molecular migration of the air molecules through the rubber would be slowed(!)
Any real difference in the life of the tires would be so negligible that the costs involved would basically be wasted money. Just use compressed air, which is mostly nitrogen anyway, and check your tire pressure regularly.

 

just saying, the difference between "nitrogen filled" tires and regular air is like 80% vs 99%. you wont do any hurt going with regular air especially in texas. think the most benefit would be in northern states. even then the difference is negligable

 

Does anyone really think dealers go around to their incoming vehicles, pull the valve stems, let all the "normal" air out of the tires, then refill them with N2? With all of the penny pinching shit that dealers do they are going to pay someone just to do this all day? Not fucking likely.

 

so here is a theory, if the nitrogen atom is larger than the oxygen atom(or any any other gas that's in the soup we call air), as the smaller atoms migrate out of the tire would that not eventually leave just nitrogen in the tire? Just thinking out loud.

 

Theoretically, but the process would be so slow that the tires would wear out before the nitrogen content would be significantly higher then it is normally, due to the tires having to be aired up to keep the pressure correct.

 

well I didn't give a timeline so.....

 

Yup. It's just snake oil anyway...

 

I agree

 

Unless you fill the tires in a vacuum, you are starting with the majority of the tire filed with air to begin with. You top if off to the set psi with Nitrogen. I'd assume you maybe end up with a 50/50 mix of original air to nitrogen by volume.

And my understanding is that the Nitrogen changes volume less based on temperatures, thus you maintain the cold pressure setting after driving. This is the benefit for nitrogen filled tires in racing. That and the cool green valve stems.

 

Nitrogen (N2) is great for all telephone cables with paper insulated conductors that are located in wet locations/under water, i.e., it contains no moisture so it won't damage the insulation causing cross talk/cable failures; it inhibits H2O from getting into the cable through any cracks/cuts/pin holes in the sheathing by leaking out through the crack/cut/hole; it allows repair techs to locate and repair the damage by looking for 'bubbles' in the water.

Tires are another thing altogether!

 

Rotate the air in your tires at 3k and you'll be good

 

The Chevy dealer I work at uses an $11,000 dollar machine that removes the air from all four tires and refills them with Nitrogen automatically. We then charge our customers $79.00 for this complete waste. I don't mind having the Nitrogen fill in my tires, but I wouldn't pay 79 cents for it.

 

if I remember correctly there is no benefit for regular day to day vehicles to have nitrogen. the only things that really benefit is airplane tires (for landings), race cars (extreme temp differentials) and large equipment tires.

also from what I remember also, best case is roughly 93-95% nitrogen in a tire since you really cant achieve 100% since tires are not a air tight container.

 

For an additional $5 per tire you can add the optional cinnamon or mint smell to the nitrogen/air in the tires as well.

 

Its even funnier than that, because whenever you take a tire off a vehicle, the inside is always still clean and still has that new tire oilyness on it. The only significant chemical deterioration that tires experience is on the outside, and mostly due to UV light cooking them.