Nitrogen Tire Pressure

[gucci]

My tire pressure on my TT is a little low and right now there is nitrogen in them...Can I just add air or do I need to add nitrogen?

[MtnGuy]

You can add air, but that will decrease your nitrogen percentage some. Nitrogen filled tires generally have a concentration of about 95% nitrogen......unless you could somehow completely purge the tire before filling, 100% just don't happen. The air that you put in the tire is 80% nitrogen anyway, so unless the tire is really low, you probably won't decrease the total nitrogen percentage much at all.

[Bill_C]

Originally Posted by gucci

My tire pressure on my TT is a little low and right now there is nitrogen in them...Can I just add air or do I need to add nitrogen?

The oxygen will slowly deplete itself in the tire itself leaving mainly nitrogen. Don't pay for a nitrogen top up. I don't know which tire company came up with this nitrogen only idea but I bet they are making a fortune from trusting customers when they should actually be ashamed of themselves.

[jackhartjr]

Bill, I could spend a lot of time here expousing the very good and real benefits of nitrogen...but your mind is made up...I won't waste my time.
Gucci, a little air won't hurt. My tire guy said he would top mine off free...problem is I only lose about 1 to 2 pounds every three years...and I think that is from checking them.

[SaskCampers]

Originally Posted by jackhartjr

Bill, I could spend a lot of time here expousing the very good and real benefits of nitrogen...but your mind is made up...I won't waste my time.
Gucci, a little air won't hurt. My tire guy said he would top mine off free...problem is I only lose about 1 to 2 pounds every three years...and I think that is from checking them.

Ditto

[F and E Damp]

Unless your TT can get up to 140 mph with a dragging brake, you don't need to pay some rip-off merchant to put nitrogen in the tire.

During my Boeing career, I did quite a bit of research into in-flight tire bursts which occurred after the landing gear was retracted. There was one incident on a USAF C-5A which wrecked the airplane (but without injury to the crew), one on a 727 which blew a big home in the wheelwell pressure bulkhead, and one very sad accident on a Swissair Caravelle that caused the plane to crash and killed 69 people.

In every case, a dragging brake (or a heavy brake application, in the case of the Caravelle) got the wheels so hot, the pressure build-up in the tire after the gear was retracted, caused it to blow apart. In the 727 incident, there was spontaneoius combustion of gases inside the tire, with an estimated peak pressure over 10,000 psi. It's because of that combution risk that nitrogen is used in airplane tires.

There is absolutely no technical or safety justification to inflate the tires on road vehicles with nitrogen.