Recently, most stations Maintenance(STO) and tire changers offer a service for inflating tires with nitrogen, instead of the air familiar to many drivers. According to workers in tire shops, this gas has almost miraculous properties, which should certainly delight every car owner. Is it really? Let's try to figure it out.
Arguments of businessmen - we figure out if there is any truth in them
To begin with, it would be nice to recall that air is a mixture of various gases, 78% of which are nitrogen. The composition produced by nitrogen generators in the service station contains a little more, namely 95-97%. Obviously, there is a difference, but is it noticeable in real operating conditions? And how can you check the percentage of nitrogen? After all, if ordinary air is pumped in instead of it, then an ordinary motorist will not be able to determine this. On the other hand, the question arises, what is the advantage of pumping tires with a gas mixture that contains even 99% nitrogen? Let's consider the main arguments of the businessmen and determine whether they correspond to the truth.
Stable wheel pressure
According to the sellers of the service in question, a change in tire temperature while driving does not in any way affect the pressure level in the chamber, since the expansion coefficient of nitrogen (thermal) is significantly lower than that of air.
The presented statement does not correspond to the truth, because it contradicts the Mendeleev-Clapeyron law, which proves a clear connection between temperature, volume and pressure, which is expressed by the formula P * V / T = const. Admirers of the innovation argue that nitrogen is not an ideal gas, and therefore behaves differently. When it is under pressure, gas laws cannot be applied to it at all. To this, a person versed in physics will answer that the behavior of nitrogen, determined by the above equation, will noticeably differ from the parameters of an ideal gas only when the pressure rises to tens of atmospheres. In other words, the motorist will not be able to feel the effect, because the tire will simply burst.
Note also that nitrogen has a volume expansion coefficient of 0.003372 (1 / K), while for air this parameter is 0.003665 (1 / K). In a standard wheel, when the temperature changes, the pressure difference will be in the 4th decimal place. And the advantage will be in the air! However, this cannot be recorded with an ordinary pressure gauge.
No gas leakage
You can often hear the saying that oxygen escapes from the wheel faster than nitrogen, and therefore the pressure in it decreases much faster, and the wheels have to be pumped up more often.
Nitrogen molecules are actually larger, that's a fact. However, their diameter differs from oxygen molecules by only 6% (0.32 nm for nitrogen versus 0.30 nm for oxygen). And the air, as you know, is 99% composed of a mixture of these gases. This means that if a tire inflated with nitrogen loses exactly 1 atmosphere of pressure, then its analogue with air will lose 1.012 atmospheres in the same period of time. Can you sense, notice or measure this difference?
On the other hand, if oxygen completely evaporates from the chamber, then practically "pure" nitrogen will remain inside, which you will receive absolutely free!
Reducing the aging of tires
The statement is very plausible and realistic that, unlike the oxygen contained in the air mixture, nitrogen does not age the rubber, and also does not oxidize the steel cord of the tire.
The question to be asked is, how many drivers have changed worn tires due to corroded cord? It is also very curious what the tire service workers or the carpool locksmith will answer to this? In any case, it is enough to inspect the inner surface of tires that have served their purpose and have not seen a special newfangled pumping. You can't tell right away whether the rubber has aged from the inside.
Reducing wheel weight
Car tires inflated with nitrogen make it possible to reduce the unsprung mass of the suspension as a whole, since the specific gravity of this gas is lower than that of air. It is difficult to argue with the facts. However, what does it look like in practice?
So, the density of nitrogen is 1.25 kilograms per cubic meter, and for air, the same parameter is 1.29 kg / m3. Let's take a standard wheel, the chamber volume of which is 0.05 m3, and the operating gas pressure is 2 kgf / cm2. Having carried out simple mathematical calculations, we get a difference of six grams, which is simply not capable of playing any role, or affecting the safety of the suspension, with an average wheel weighing about 13-15 kilograms.
The tire does not overheat
Often in favor of nitrogen, one can hear the opinion that the tire inflated by it does not overheat, since this gas removes heat more efficiently than air.
From the point of view of scientific facts, this opinion is complete nonsense. The thermal conductivity coefficient of nitrogen is 0.0261 W / (m * K), and of oxygen - 0.0269 W / (m * K). Obviously, the difference in indicators, albeit insignificant, is there. At the same time, she speaks in favor of air, which contains oxygen, which promotes better gear heat and more efficient cooling.
The heat capacity of nitrogen is 13% higher than that of oxygen. However, do not forget that the latter is only about 21% of the air. Consequently, in the tire, the heat storage capacity of nitrogen is simply leveled out.
Enhanced security
Service station workers who offer to inflate tires with nitrogen claim that such a wheel cannot explode in case of fire, since this gas does not burn.
It should be said here that if the car catches fire, then 50 grams of oxygen in each tire will not make the difference. And rubber with nitrogen will suffer no less than an analogue with air inside.
Conclusion
As a conclusion, here are three more popular arguments provided by fans of the newfangled pumping.
- Tires with air need to be inflated, and using nitrogen, this problem disappears. Most likely, the matter is in the new tires, and not in the gas with which it is filled. A wheel without damage should keep the given pressure for many months. Otherwise, it is defective.
- A car with tires pumped with nitrogen runs smoother and vibration and noise levels are noticeably lower. This "phenomenon" has a banal explanation. When filling the tire chamber with nitrogen, in most cases, the wheels are not pumped to 0.2-0.3 atmospheres. This creates a feeling of increased smoothness and comfort. However, nitrogen in this context has absolutely nothing to do with it.
- In Formula 1 races, tires are pumped exclusively with nitrogen. This is a known fact, which is regulated by paragraph 12.7.1 of the rules of these races, which states that the tires of cars can only be filled with nitrogen or air. Here the emphasis can be made on the alliance “or”, which indicates that there is no difference between the considered gas compositions for high-speed fireballs that can withstand colossal overloads.
In any case, everyone decides for himself how and how to pump up his wheels. vehicle... Nitrogen will not bring any benefit or harm to the car, which cannot be said about the driver's wallet, because pumping tires with nitrogen costs 10-20 times more. So who is “cheating” whom in the end?
Why did this topic turn out to be so tenacious at all? On the one hand, "it is obvious to any adequate person" that this is a divorce - they joked and forgot. But on the other hand, there is motorsport. Where a car is built by dozens of engineers who know everything about physics. And where "the wheels are pumped with nitrogen."
The man laid out the essence well. He even remembers the laws of Charles and Gay-Lussac. And he concludes: “In Formula 1, nitrogen is pumped into tires ONLY! for fire safety. Pure nitrogen, if the wheel is damaged, coming out of the tire really does not contribute to combustion. "... This statement is incorrect.
Now to the point. In motorsport, the wheels are really pumped with nitrogen. I'll tell you why.
Firstly, it is not always nitrogen, it can be a mixture of similar gases or simply dry air. Specifically, in Formula 1, it is now forbidden by the regulations to pump something other than air, so they pump air - the key word - dried. (By the way, as you can see, the danger of fires :) did not prevent this point from being included in the regulations.)
A simple Google search finds us interviewed by Paul Hembri, CEO of Pirelli Motorsport, with the answer to this question.
- What gas do you use to inflate tires?
- Previously, the use of special gases was allowed, but now it is prohibited and we inflate the tires with dry air - the moisture is removed to ensure the necessary stability.
But from the link above, we read:
Statement 1. Improving the stability of the tire pressure.
- This statement contradicts the laws of physics, namely Charles's law (gas pressure in a constant volume is directly proportional to temperature) and Gay-Lussac's law (the coefficient of volumetric expansion of all gases is the same), which we passed in the 9th grade of a comprehensive school.
Wasn't the head of Pirelli Motorsport in ninth grade? Paul Hembri, Charles with Gay-Lussac, and a respected Dviv citizen - I suggest you make a bet right now, which of them "is not catching up with something." :)
In fact, everything is simple. The essence of the problem is the moisture contained in the gas.
Indeed, "the gas pressure in a constant volume is directly proportional to the temperature" (Charles's law itself sounds like P (gas pressure) / T (temperature) = const and is true for an ideal gas, which, with a very high degree of accuracy, is also air with nitrogen in the tire) ... That is, in this case, the higher the temperature inside the tire, the higher the pressure. Therefore, when the car starts to move and its wheels start to heat up, the pressure in the tires increases. Two-four-tenths of the atmosphere, even a tire already warmed up before the start, gains easily. Nitrogen is absolutely no exception to this law - even if you pump up the wheels with nitrogen, the tire will pick up the same two to four tens of pressure as in “normal air”.
No need to explain how important wheel pressure is for racing car... Moreover, it is the pressure “on the hot” that is important. What is the pressure in a cold wheel - it does not matter, it should be correct, when the wheel starts running, it heats up and starts working. And the essence of the problem is that if humid air is pumped into the wheels, then when the wheel cools and heats up, the amount of gas in the tire will start to change arbitrarily - and the pressure will start to jump arbitrarily.
In practice, it looks very simple - before the start (during collection), the same pressure is set in the wheels of the car, say, 2.0 atm. The car drives several laps (or - in the rally - additional), the pressure is measured, and it turns out that the pressure in one wheel is 2.2, in the other - 2.4. (At this point, the mechanics who assembled the wheels are given the brains - the procedure for collecting the wheels has been violated.)
Why it happens? There is such a thing - dew point. This is the temperature to which the air must be cooled in order for the water vapor contained in it to reach saturation and begin to condense. The dew point is determined by the relative humidity of the air - the higher the relative humidity, the higher the dew point and closer to the actual air temperature. If the relative humidity is 100%, then the dew point is the same as the actual temperature.
That is, 100% air humidity means that there can be no more water vapor in a given volume of gas - then it will begin to condense. When we pump such air into the tire, that is, we raise its pressure, and then let the wheel cool down, then water vapor condenses inside the tire into water droplets. Checking the pressure in such a wheel, we will see, for example, 2 atmospheres. When the car starts to move and the wheel starts to heat up, some of these water droplets will begin to evaporate, adding additional gas to the tire. The added amount of gas will add pressure (see "partial pressure" - the total pressure of the gas mixture is the sum of the partial pressures of its components). It is impossible to predict how much water will evaporate (how much of it got into the wheel during inflation?), So the pressure will cease to linearly depend on temperature. And when the car starts moving, there may be 2.2 atm and 2.4 atm.
For a race car, this pressure difference is dramatic.
Therefore, in big sport, wheels are assembled according to a certain procedure. And indeed, many people pump it with nitrogen. Other teams use compressors that dry the air.
In a time attack, where more than half of the participants do not have their own team of mechanics, and the wheels are assembled and pumped up with a regular pump, often even without a dryer (or with a simple one), you just have to check the pressure after each session and, accordingly, deflate / inflate the tires, setting the optimal pressure until it "settles" at the desired level. If "civilian" tire fitting provides the service of "pumping tires with nitrogen", then it should also be used "carefully". In order to pump up the wheel with nitrogen, you first need to blow it off. When the gas is blown off, that is, the pressure decreases, it cools, which can also lead to condensation of some of the moisture inside the tire. Therefore, in big sports, to minimize the presence of moisture inside the wheel, it is left "open" for several hours, then pumped with dry air (nitrogen) and left for several hours, again to equalize the temperature, and then the final pressure is set. With this procedure, you can already count on the fact that when driving, the pressure in the wheel will increase linearly, in direct proportion to the temperature, and this increase can be predicted.
Well, in conclusion - does all this have to do with a civilian car? Virtually none. The tires of a civilian vehicle hardly get warm while driving. (By the way, many people think that the tires get hotter from friction on the road, but in fact they first of all heat up from the brakes through the discs, friction on the road is already the second factor even for a racing car, and for a civilian wheel the second most important factor - internal friction in the tire, which arises from deformation during the rolling of the wheel).
The only case when the temperature changes perceptibly, and, accordingly, the pressure in the civilian wheel is if you inflated the wheel in the spring at +5 and did not check the pressure until the summer, when it became + 30 ... and even left the wheels in the direct sun. Then, indeed, some kind of pressure spread can turn out in the wheels (although it will not be critical for civilian driving anyway). But it's easier to just check the tire pressure once a week than to bother with nitrogen or dehumidification.
Date of publication: 19.04.2006.
Recently, many clients of Pokryshka.ru, before visiting a tire fitting shop, ask us questions: “What is the best way to pump: with air or nitrogen? Does pumping tires with nitrogen do anything? Is it worth spending the extra money on this procedure? And can you really notice the difference on an ordinary car? "
We will try to help you understand these seemingly not very simple questions.
This service appeared relatively recently in tire shops and, according to the sellers of this service, after the injection of nitrogen, important specifications tires (tire pressure stability, reduced explosion hazard, delayed tire aging, etc.). In order to understand how true these statements are, let us turn to physics and analyze each point separately.
First for reference:
Air itself is 78% nitrogen and about 21% oxygen. And nitrogen in tires, used in tire fitting, contains about 95% nitrogen and 5% oxygen. Those. in our tires, inflated "the old fashioned", and so almost eighty percent of nitrogen, and talk about any cardiac changes in tires after pumping 95% nitrogen is not necessary.
But let's start in order:
Statement 1. Improving the stability of the tire pressure. The thermal expansion coefficient of nitrogen is much lower than that of air, and therefore, when the tire heats up, the pressure practically does not change.
This statement contradicts the laws of physics, namely: Charles's law (gas pressure in a constant volume is directly proportional to temperature) and Gay-Lussac's law (the coefficient of volumetric expansion of all gases is the same), which we passed in the 9th grade of a comprehensive school.
Physicists can be trusted, which means that "service sellers" cannot be trusted.
Statement 2. You can check the tire pressure three times less often. Due to the fact that there are more nitrogen molecules than oxygen molecules, the wheel is lowered more slowly.
The nitrogen molecule is 3.1x10 ^ - 8 cm, and the oxygen molecule is 2.9x10 ^ - 8 cm. an oxygen molecule is 6% smaller than a nitrogen molecule. And given that there is only about 21% oxygen in the air around us, and the remaining 78% nitrogen, it turns out that the difference in leakage is very insignificant (about one percent).
In fact, modern ones (if they are in good working order) hold pressure for years. And if there is a problem in the bus, i.e. it is leaking, it does not matter whether the nitrogen is injected into the tire or with oxygen impurities - the tire will still deflate.
In addition, point 2 contradicts the rules for operating a car: the tire pressure must be checked regularly!
Statement 3. Reducing the likelihood of tire explosion. Nitrogen is an inert gas and does not support combustion.
The tire does not "explode", as we imagine it, but bursts. Those. the sound we hear is a sudden loss of pressure in the tire, usually caused by a vehicle hitting a foreign object or the destruction of the tire itself. In Formula 1, nitrogen is pumped into tires primarily for fire safety. Pure nitrogen when a wheel is damaged, coming out of the tire, really does not contribute to combustion.
Statement 4. Prevention of tire aging and wheel corrosion. there are no moisture, oil, dust, particles that reduce the durability of the wheel.
Tire aging mainly occurs outside the tire, because in addition to oxygen, the tire is exposed to solar radiation and other harmful effects(reagents, bitumen, etc.). Rim corrosion from the inside is actually reduced thanks to the less oxygen in the tire. But it is worth noting that tires and wheels still mostly deteriorate from the outside, although some of the benefits of using nitrogen are present.
There are other dubious statements, many of which contradict the laws of physics, but there is little point in commenting on them. Therefore, summing up, we can say: most of the theses that are advertised are not consistent. And some are just outright deception.
Although there is also a psychological factor - people who spent their money and pumped up tires with nitrogen often say that the car has become noticeably softer, quieter and better controlled ...
And if you want to check the laws of physics at your own expense, then please, you can pump up the winter ones or with nitrogen. But still there is one really positive moment in this procedure, and this can be said for sure - it will not get worse!
Turning to a service station for a particular service, the driver may be faced with a situation of imposing additional services. When working with a car, it is beneficial for craftsmen to get the highest possible check, even if the driver wants to repair or replace a specific part. When contacting service center to change summer tires for the winter, the driver may face a situation of imposing services.
Recently, drivers in tire shops are often asked to pump up their tires with nitrogen. This service appeared on Russian market relatively recently, and drivers who know little about technical nuances of the car, they often agree to use it, as a result of which their check in case of "re-shoes" increases. In the article, we will consider whether there are advantages to pumping nitrogen into tires, or whether this service is nothing more than a marketing ploy.
Table of contents:Tire nitrogen: pros and cons
If you look at car forums, you can come across conflicting opinions about whether to inject nitrogen into winter or summer tires. Some drivers unequivocally say that this is necessary, others argue that they do not feel the difference when using rubber with nitrogen or ordinary air.
Among the main advantages that nitrogen advocates cite are:
- Reducing the risk of a wheel "explosion" as there is no oxygen in it;
- The wheel becomes lighter, as a result of which, fuel costs are lower;
- The movement on wheels, pumped with nitrogen, is stable and does not depend on the heating of the tire;
- Even if such a wheel is punctured, you can still ride it safely. Due to this, drivers do not have to worry about tire pressure and check it less often;
- The tire lasts much longer and does not rot.
As for drivers who are against nitrogen, most often they have only one argument regarding efficiency. new technology... According to them, the difference between "clean" nitrogen and air, which is usually pumped, is minimal. There is some truth in this if you look at the compositions.
As you know, the air that is pumped into the wheel, on average, consists of 78-80% nitrogen and 18-20% oxygen and about 1% carbon dioxide. The nitrogen that tire services promise to pump into the wheels is about 95% nitrogen and 5% oxygen. As you can see, the difference in nitrogen percentage is not very high - about 15-20%.
Please note: All nitrogen and oxygen percentages above are average values. For example, some services may use "nitrogen", which is 85-90% nitrogen and the rest is oxygen.
It turns out that the driver should receive all the advantages indicated above due to an additional 15-20% of nitrogen, while paying a fairly significant amount for this.
Let's look at each of the points that drivers put on the plus side of the use of a higher nitrogen content, separately.
Reduced risk of wheel explosion
Due to the lack of oxygen, which is known to burn, drivers assume that the tire has a minimal chance of exploding if it is fully inflated with nitrogen. However, the fact is that tires do not explode by themselves. So it is customary to say, but in fact, no explosion occurs in them.
Please note: This refers to normal vehicle use. For example, when drifting, due to overheating of the wheels, they can really explode.
When they talk about an explosion of a wheel, they most often mean that they burst, but here the fact of the presence of oxygen does not affect in any way. The fact that nitrogen is pumped inside can prevent a wheel from igniting after it bursts, but on city cars, bursting wheels usually do not ignite (with rare exceptions).
Bottom Line: Reducing the risk of wheel explosion and ignition is not something that would attract nitrogen drivers to normal city cars.
Nitrogen wheel is lighter
Fuel is something that drivers always want to save, whether they use petrol or diesel engine... The prospect of spending 500-1000 rubles for injecting nitrogen into tires, so that afterwards "beat off" several thousand rubles for this season, due to the reduced weight of tires, can attract drivers.
But in order to estimate the savings, it is better to look at the real figures for the weight of air and nitrogen, and then subtract the difference and determine the savings. The mass of a cubic meter of air is about 1.29 kg, and the mass of pure nitrogen (note, it is pure) about 1.25 kg. One wheel with a diameter of 14-15 holds about 0.0774 kg of clean air or 0.075 kg of nitrogen. Accordingly, from 4 wheels, the economy when pumping nitrogen instead of air by weight comes out about 10 grams.
Bottom line: 10 grams in the total weight of the car is the equivalent of the word "nothing". The accumulated dirt weighs much more. Accordingly, by pumping up the tires with nitrogen, it will not be possible to save on fuel.
Stability of movement
Every driver knows that in the cold season, when the car is moving from a parking lot, its "behavior" will be very different from how it will behave with a warm engine and tires. This is due to the fact that when the tires rub against the asphalt, they heat up, as a result of which the pressure changes.
In workshops where they offer to pump nitrogen into the tires, experts say that the pressure will always be constant, due to the lack of oxygen. In their opinion, this will allow the car to always behave the same.
But if we turn to the laws of physics, namely, to Charles's law and Gay-Lussac's law, we can conclude that the gas pressure in the tire during heating will in any case increase.
Bottom line: It makes no difference whether you use air or nitrogen, the pressure will "jump" anyway.
You don't need to check your tire pressure
Please note: Before starting a discussion of this point, we will give a recommendation - be sure to check the tire pressure before driving, especially in winter.
Drivers who don't want to check their tire pressures may decide to pay to pump nitrogen into their tires to help them feel at ease. However, this point is not entirely correct. If we turn to the physics of the process, most often the release of pressure occurs through microcracks.
Oxygen molecules are 0.000000029 cm in size, and nitrogen molecules are 0.000000031 cm. As you can see, the difference is not very significant. Accordingly, if the tires are inflated with nitrogen, then the likelihood of pressure relief through microcracks will not decrease significantly. In addition, modern tubeless tires can hold pressure for years if there are no serious "holes". Even if the tire is punctured, the driver has the opportunity to get to the car service.
Bottom line: This advantage is nothing more than a "fairy tale for the lazy" who do not want to check the tire pressure constantly.
Long tire life and reduced disc corrosion
Perhaps one of the points that can really be substantiated. Proponents of nitrogen argue that when it is used instead of air, the disc does not rust inside, and the rubber itself is consumed less actively. Since oxygen is one of the main catalysts for oxidation, in the absence of oxygen, there is less chance of rusting inside the wheel. However, this plus is doubtful, since oxygen and an even more aggressive environment - dirt, snow, rain, dust, and so on - are still acting on the wheel from the outside.
Please note: Modern discs “age” for a very long time, because they are made of an alloy of aluminum and magnesium.
Many motorists are probably wondering if it is worth inflating tires with nitrogen. Indeed, today on the Internet and in real life there are many conflicting opinions about this event. Flat wheels, or, on the contrary, too "pumped up" violate the control and handling of the car, as well as negatively affect the fuel consumption of the car. We will devote today's material to one of the types of solutions to such problems, or more precisely, the main character of the article will be the pumping of tires with nitrogen. We will call physics or even chemistry for help and we will understand the situation from the point of view of truth.
History of using nitrogen injection technology
Tire inflation with nitrogen- one of those cases when technology comes to our region with extreme delay. It seems that we have known about this method of refueling tires for a long time, but you will not find a developed infrastructure with an adequate level of service, especially in cities with a population of less than a million, during the day with fire. Typically, "nitrogen refills" are located in large commercial workshops and serve mainly premium and sports cars... Since about 2012, the active development of this technology began, and since then, tanks with nitrogen can now be found at many service stations, gas stations and other large transport facilities.
For the first time, this technique was used during the races of the most famous automobile competition - Formula 1. Taking advantage of a loophole in the tournament regulations, one of the teams used nitrogen filling of their car tires.
Although, one should make a reservation and add that at that time there was no nitrogen of such purity in the mass industry. Instead, a nitrogen-air mixture was used. But even the use of such a mix brought the popularity of nitrogen refueling, and general interest from other companies and firms to the mixture itself.
Benefits of pumping tires with nitrogen - physics versus myths
Along with the widespread popularity of this method, the nitrogen filling of tires has ardent opponents. In total, there are 4 myths about the benefits of nitrogen in car tires, on some resources there may be more of them, on others less, but we will consider the main "advantages".
Constant (stable) tire pressure
They say that if there is nitrogen in the tires, then it jumps much less. If the tire heats up, the pressure in it will exceed the norm, and if it cools down, it will drop. It is not good. Nitrogen, too, will not be able to provide the desired 2 atmospheres in any temperature conditions (usually the wheels passenger car pumped up to 2 atm). A physics textbook will confirm this - at least a couple of "gas" laws:
- gay-lussac law- every gas has the same coefficient of volumetric expansion;
- Charles's law or Gay-Lussac's second law- the gas pressure indicator in a constant volume is directly proportional to the temperature.
Tires can confidently be inflated with any gas - the pressure will still jump, and it will need to be checked as regularly as the pressure of ordinary air.
On a note: while driving a car, the pressure in a heated wheel can increase by 0.4 - 0.8 atmospheres. This is due to the effect of a heated surface on the wheel, as well as the effect of kinetic energy from rotation. This deviation from the norm can lead to uneven wear or deformation of the tires.
Wheels deflate less
Nitrogen molecules are said to be larger than oxygen molecules, so it is difficult for them to crawl into the micro-holes and cracks of the rubber structure. The nitrogen molecule is 0.000000031 cm. (3.1x10 -8 degrees) versus 0.000000029 cm. (2.9x10 -8 degrees) oxygen - not such a big difference. If the wheel is punctured even by some super-thin needle, it will still deflate.
Modern tubeless tires are deflated very slowly, so you can almost always reach for tire fitting, especially if there is a working compressor in the trunk that can pump the tire along the way. Various types of tire pressure can be used to monitor the tire pressure of a vehicle.
Less fuel consumption
They also say that pumping tires with nitrogen leads to a lighter tire due to the fact that nitrogen is lighter than air, and therefore fuel consumption will decrease if the tires are filled with this gas. So, a cubic meter of air weighs 1.29 kg, and nitrogen - 1.25 kg. When the wheel is inflated, the weight difference is only a few grams. A piece of dirt that sticks to the wheel, or dust accumulated on the tire will weigh significantly more.
Less corrosion of rubber and discs
And it is true! Do not forget that, unlike oxygen, which enters into chemical reactions even at an insufficiently high temperature, nitrogen is more stable. In practice, this is explained by the fact that oxygen actively enters the oxidation process (it is an oxidizing agent), but nitrogen does not. This is manifested by a decrease in the rate of corrosion and aging of the metal of the wheel and rubber.
On a note: Nowadays, cars with ordinary metal rims are rare; they came to be replaced alloy wheels made of light alloy metal, which are much less susceptible to corrosion.
Nitrogen inflation and its disadvantages
Apart from the inflated price tag, there is no shortage of nitrogen injection into the tires. However, as well as advantages. Benefits such as "lower nitrogen tire weight" appear in 7-10 grams per wheel. In Formula 1, perhaps this indicator is significant, since everything is measured there to the utmost accuracy, and each gram is worth its weight in gold. But is this quality important for daily travel? The answer to this question must be given yourself.
And these were just the main myths that we covered in our article. There are materials where other parameters are considered, but we have already led you to the fact that pumping tires with nitrogen is a completely useless event. It will only help by bringing additional profit to the service where this service is offered to you.
