Originally Posted By: SirTanon
This has been covered here many times, and has supporters on both sides.
The bottom line here is, for most shops, this is purely a cash-grab / profit channel. For the vast majority of consumers, 'nitrogen-filled tires' are of no real world benefit.
Why? For starters, the air that we breathe, and for that matter put in our tires using 'normal' methods is already about 78% nitrogen. What does moving up the ladder to close to 100% nitrogen really do for us that 80% doesn't?
The real advantage that proper nitrogen fill would impart is dry air. I say proper because quite a few of these nitrogen fill places use a cheap method to get nitrogen, and thus leave lots of moisture in the nitrogen fill that they use. If done properly, the nitrogen that goes into the tire has been properly 'dried' and thus there is no residual moisture left inside the tire. The moisture is the greater problem here.
The take here is, for most of us, filling with regular air from a standard compressor, is not going to hurt anything and your overall savings over the life of the tire is minimal, at least for the vast majority of us.
Why is dry air so important? Last I looked, the outside of my tires are exposed to regular air and lots of rain and they seem to hold up just fine until I wear off the tread. BTW, I was more interested in the humor of the article than what or what not N2 will do.
