KNPC gas stations have started fitting nitrogen air to use for filling your tires up. So is nitrogen air better for your tires? Well firstly to take advantage you’d have to completely empty the air out of your current tires and fill it with nitrogen, but even then you won’t see any benefits according to Tiff from Fifth Gear. Check out his video below.
So regular air or nitrogen air, same same.
20 replies on “Nitrogen Air at Gas Stations”
Regular air is ~80% Nitrogen
yeah but the other 20% is technically the issue which is why Formula 1 cars fill up with 100% nitrogen.
“Formula One tyres are normally filled with a special, nitrogen-rich air mixture, designed to minimise variations in tyre pressure with temperature. The mixture also retains the pressure longer than normal air would.”
https://www.formula1.com/en/championship/inside-f1/understanding-f1-racing/Tyres.html
Unless you are racing at the highest level, and chasing tenths of a second, it won’t make any difference whatsoever.
Nissan GT-R’s tires are nitrogen filled.
its mentioned in the picture”TOKKEN”, are they going to charge for filling it?
thats what i thought as well but when i asked the guy at the pump last night he said its free.
But different…..
But still same
Because racecar
I filled my tyres with nitrogen 8 months ago. All 4 are still at 32psi. During those 8 months the ambient temperature has increased by 35+ degrees.
Fifth Gear is a crap show, and Tiff is the worst. His ‘scientific’ test didn’t examine the tyres after they cooled down. The reason the nitrogen was at higher pressure was because no oxygen molecules escaped the tyre like with the air tyre.
Tiff > keyboard warrior
Tiff is not better!
Personal experience a few weeks back.
We drove home on two Nissan Patrols. One was on Nitrogen, the other, “regular” air.
Approximately the same load, travelled 150kms.
Right after we parked, we tried to get a “feel” temperature-wise on the tires.
The Nitro tires are conaiderably cold, i’d even dare say like it was simply parked and didn’t undergo any stress from travel.
The “regular” tire meanwhile is obviously warm to touch.
there is no way after driving 150km your tire was cold to the touch, even if u had filled up with ice after 150km it would have been hot to touch.
But then again I wouldn’t call this a scientific test and I know u weren’t
It’s up to you Mark, if you want to believe it or not. I’m just stating what we experienced.
Sure, we dont have equipments to “scientifically” measure it, but even babies know how to differentiate hot from cold 🙂
Have a nice day 🙂
My personal experience with Nitrogen (but not in Kuwait).
Most modern Nitrogen Filling equipment now display Nitrogen PURITY in %. You got to look for this little LED display on the filling machine. I have never seen 100% but anywhere between 95 to 99.5%. I don’t pump if it’s not 99% plus.
To deal with the moisture, even a regular AIR filling machine nowadays will have a moisture separator. Probably a little better on the Nitro equipment (assumption)
In the last 3 years of running my car Tires on Nitrogen and I cannot tell the difference in performance between AIR & NITRO for things like Ride Comfort and Braking etc or even tire life.
However the biggest – biggest advantage is RETENTION of Tire Pressure for longer periods. Which is good for me. I never seem to check tire pressure for month or 2 in-spite knowing it’s best to check tire pressure every once in a month at least.
And the disadvantage being the scarcity of finding a tire shop that fills nitrogen. There are times when on long journeys where I had to simply mix & adulterate fully Nitro filled Tires with Regular Air.
Other then that the cost of filling a Tire with first time Nitro is 5 times higher as compared to regular air 🙂
My experience with nitrogen over the years has been good. I don’t have the technical details but I’ve noticed the nitrogen doesn’t expand (increase tire pressure) that much.
I prefer 33 PSI. Below 30 the car feels sluggish and over 35 the ride feels rough/stiff (feels faster though).
So 33 feels good to me and with nitrogen in my tires even after several months, it stays at 33 in all 4 tires. Dry air pressure fluctuates more with temperature.
optimal tire pressure varies from car to car, my lotus for example is 32 in front and 38 in rear or 30 all around on the track.
38 in the rear Wow!
Does the car actually go faster with more tire pressure or it just feels that way?
anyone knows the locations of these gas stations?