Quote:
Originally Posted by Fish
I think that's a huge racket. I had nitrogen in the tires on a truck I bought once, the tire pressure still went up and down.
Then you have to find nitrogen to add if you need it, not so easy to find sometimes.
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Not my experience -at all... in fact I would say nitrogen has been a game changer for me.
Short version:
-a fraction of variance in pressure due to sitting or temperature changes
-significantly longer tire life
Long version:
I have now had nitrogen in my last couple pickups for over 8 years, and my last RV for 3 years. My tires go from -40F at home in winter to over 110F in AZ late spring. I add air maybe once per year to my RV and a couple times per year on the truck. (that's about 10,000 miles per year on the RV, and 25,000 on the truck). This past winter, checked tires on the RV at -35F before the trip south, and after sitting for over 3 months in AZ, checked them again. The pressure had increased by about 2lbs, so a few seconds to bleed off and good to go.
Before nitrogen, I checked air every couple weeks and usually had to air up or air down when temps changed more than about 20 degrees one way or the other. Prior RV had E rated tires, and on 80lbs with straight air, could easily see pressures lose 5lbs or more after sitting a few weeks... or increase by 5lbs+ if ambient temps went way up.
I don't have a TPMS on the trailer, and since going to nitrogen have had no flats. And, again, a normal pretrip is to check all tires, then usually needing to do nothing further. I may go to TPMS on the new Montana, but again nitrogen has been good to me without it.
BTW, I top up with 78% nitrogen from my Viair when on the road, don't worry about adding the "special stuff". I know I'm diluting and eventually would lose the value of paying for the initial nitrogen... but again the need to add air is so rare that in 4 years on the truck and 3 on the last RV I haven't observed tire pressure changes varying more than when first installed.
One last thing; last truck I went over 50,000 miles on the factory Firestone tires, towing about 30,000 miles of that. 3 year old RV tires look new. Both are much better results than units before nitrogen.
So, I'm a fan, and will continue to pay the small price to have it done every time I buy new tires.
Of course, I present a sample size of 1, and YMMV ;-)
Brad