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ssemalone's avatar
ssemalone
Explorer
Mar 21, 2015

Addding nitrogen to tires

Soooo.. I have nitrogen filled tires on my microlite, How do I add more? Where can I get pure nitrogen for the tires????
  • I think the most important thing is to only put dry air into your tires. The nitrogen that is available is typically called dry nitrogen. I have a filter right at my air chuck to remove moisture from the compresses air that I'm shoving into the tire. I put that filter as far away from the compressor as possible so that the air will be cooler and thus more moisture can be removed by the filter.
  • same way that iron combines with oxygen in the air to form iron oxide or rust.
  • There selling point is, Oxygen molecules are smaller, thus they have a greater chance to leak from your tire, that is why you add air to the tires occasionally. Nitrogen molecules are larger than oxygen molecules, thus they do not leak out of tires as rapidly. Aircraft tires are always filled with Nitrogen as they are subject to extreme temperatures swings, thus no water vapor can build up in the tires due to nitrogen being drier than oxygen.
  • Johno02 wrote:
    Most tire stores and dealers now will install nitrogen in your tires for a price. My local tealer will refill mine free if they installed it originally. Otherwise, it costs extra. Purpose of nitrogen si to prevent oxidation of the inside of the tire from the oxygen inside. After an amount of time, the oxygen inside is mostly gone, leaving only nitrogen, and a few small bits of other stuff. The outside of the tires are exposed to high levels of oxygen all the time, and also sunlight which is even worse. So if it makes you feel better, use nitrogen to inflate with, otherwise just use DRY air.


    How does a tire use up the oxygen and leave just nitrogen?
    From what I understand it take a distillation process to separate them.
  • Most tire stores and dealers now will install nitrogen in your tires for a price. My local tealer will refill mine free if they installed it originally. Otherwise, it costs extra. Purpose of nitrogen si to prevent oxidation of the inside of the tire from the oxygen inside. After an amount of time, the oxygen inside is mostly gone, leaving only nitrogen, and a few small bits of other stuff. The outside of the tires are exposed to high levels of oxygen all the time, and also sunlight which is even worse. So if it makes you feel better, use nitrogen to inflate with, otherwise just use DRY air.
  • I think the nitrogen thing is silly...but what I think doesn't matter.
    If you want to fill with nitrogen...Costco pumps it at their tire store.
  • Plane air is about 80% nitrogen, soooooo...
    Nitrogen in RV tires is a waste. There is no, zero, nada real benefit.
  • Good dry air is just as good for that purpose - and it's 78% nitrogen.