Nitrogen Tire Top Off Kit

The results show nitrogen does reduce pressure
loss over time, but the reduction is only a 1.3 psi difference from air-filled tires. The average loss of air-filled tires was just 3.5 psi from the initial 30 pressure setting. Nitrogen-filled tires lost an average of 2.2 psi from the initial 30 psi setting.

consumer reports was only about pressure loss over time
not pressure changes when hot to cold.

this subject is as about as controversial as Carlos Hathcock's sniper shot!

jyrostng wrote:
Consumer reports

consumer reports wrote:
The use of nitrogen in large truck fleets and the commercial tire industry are well documented and support these claims.

Aren't RV 19.5 and 22" Exactly the same as Fleet truck tires?

Bottom line per the Consumer Reports article:

The results show nitrogen does reduce pressure loss over time, but the reduction is only a 1.3 psi difference from air-filled tires. The average loss of air-filled tires was just 3.5 psi from the initial 30 pressure setting. Nitrogen-filled tires lost an average of 2.2 psi from the initial 30 psi setting.

The original question is about having your own nitrogen filling kit, and not if Nitrogen filling is usefull.

One wrote about carbondioxide ( CO2) he used for filling when first lowered for offroad.
Mayby he can write what such a kit kosts.
Also what it exists of , so how large a cylinder, and if its bought or hired, and what pressure-device atached, and eventual pressure-reduce device.

We could endless argue this like coke or pepsi, who cares, it's his money and what he spends it on is his business, If he fells safer running with N2, that's just fine.

Yes. However, the trucker drivers 200,000 miles per year and the average RVer drives less than 10,000. It's like saying I drive a Ford Focus and the NASCAR driver is driving a Ford Focus. Exactly the same?

Consumer reports

consumer reports wrote:
The use of nitrogen in large truck fleets and the commercial tire industry are well documented and support these claims.

Aren't RV 19.5 and 22" Exactly the same as Fleet truck tires?

I also know that Nitrogen filling is not worth the monney, but it wont hurt to use it also.

But when you would have a Nitrogen cilinder together with a pressure device like you put on a compressor , would be handy in use, and wont fail like a small cheep compressor.
Normal cylinders for nitrogen are filled with 200 bar/2900 psi?.
Sorry I go on in European standard, 5 Liter ( 1.5 gallon??) cilinder then would hold about 1000 liter of Nitrogen at 1 bar/14.5psi.
This would be eanaugh to fill a large trucktire to 10 bar/145psi.
And its only to fill up, so would last the livetime of motorhome, i think.

But this would also go if you filled this cilinder with compressed outside air to 200 bar.

Then the water as humidity , would condens and go to botom of cilinder, and wont come out when you fill tire.
Then you would also have practically dry air in tire, wich to my conclusion is also not needed.

In Holland , where I live ( Europe) , there is a foundation "band op spanning" wich first filled on the road with Nitrogen, but found out also that nitrogen gives no additional benefit, and now uses compressed air in cilinders.

I had contact with the founder , but he wrote me that most cilinders are only for hire, and if for sale, verry expensive.
And then a good compressor is cheaper.

Filling Nitrogen filled tires with normal air is no problem.
Theoretically you chanche the ratio Oxigen/Nitrogen a little, but effect is marginal, and so you dont have to let the tires be refilled with nitrogen at home to get the 100% N2 in it.

Its even impossible to fill a tire with that 100% Nitrogen.
When filled there is already normal air in the empty tire with 80% N2 and 20% O2 at 1 bar/14.5 psi.
Example , tire filled with 9 bar overpressure( as you read from gauge), is in real 10 bar ( 9 bar above the 1 bar outside pressure)
Then Oxigen % becomes 2% instead of 20% in outside air.

Also Nitrogen filling is nowadays often done with a device that is placed on a compressor system , wich only gives 95% Nitrogen.
And probably also then some water in the filled air.

jimduchek wrote:
The biggest advantage to having pure N2 in your tires instead of 'air' is that if you have steel wheels, there can be no internal rusting. And I _have_ had wheels rust enough to cause the bead not to seat properly. Which required some poor kid to spend 2 seconds on them with a grinding wheel -- I don't think I paid extra for that, it was good experience for him anyway :)

With that said I would never pay extra for it, but if the tire shop offers for free, it's better to say yes. It's not worth more than $0.00 for most of us, but if you've got a numbers-stock '57 Corvette and you want to keep those original wheels for the next 50 years, might be worth a couple bucks to put an inert gas in instead of 20% oxygen, but I can't think of any other case.

I sympathize. In the 1960's I had a Sunbeam Tiger. I just "had to have" American Racing Wheels. The model name was Libre. Hideously expensive. When the guy at the delivery point picked one out of the box, he yelled "Whoa!" They were magnesium. Tubes were not an option. American Racing, had sprayed a clear coating on the outside of the rim and it was thick. The aluminum wheels on Quicksilver and the standard steel wheels on my toad are both heavily coated with Rust-O-Leum red oxide primer because commercial tire-fill air commonly sprays out mist.

Nevermind.

The biggest advantage to having pure N2 in your tires instead of 'air' is that if you have steel wheels, there can be no internal rusting. And I _have_ had wheels rust enough to cause the bead not to seat properly. Which required some poor kid to spend 2 seconds on them with a grinding wheel -- I don't think I paid extra for that, it was good experience for him anyway :)

With that said I would never pay extra for it, but if the tire shop offers for free, it's better to say yes. It's not worth more than $0.00 for most of us, but if you've got a numbers-stock '57 Corvette and you want to keep those original wheels for the next 50 years, might be worth a couple bucks to put an inert gas in instead of 20% oxygen, but I can't think of any other case.