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Busting the Nitrogen Saves Gas Myth

Using nitrogen as a way to save gas seems to be gaining some popularity. It is used as an alternative to air in filling tires . The simple fact that retailers such as Costco are now offering nitrogen for your tires certainly suggests that the notion is becoming more mainstream. Air is free. Nitrogen costs almost $10 per tire at many retailers. Is nitrogen worth the extra expense? Here are some answers.

Let's start with the most basic principle of all. Take a deep breath. Now let it out. You realize that the breath you took was 78% nitrogen. I'll bet you couldn't tell. Therein lies the biggest problem with the theory that nitrogen is better than air. Air is already 78% nitrogen!

A major claim made by nitrogen advocates is that nitrogen is a larger molecule and will permeate through the tire slower than oxygen. By slowing the seepage out of the tire, nitrogen will allow you to maintain the proper pressure in the tire longer.

This supposition is false. You merely need to know something about physics to realize this. The rate a gas can permeate through a porous substance depends on the mass and the size of it's molecules. Oxygen and nitrogen are literally the same size. As far as the mass or weight is concerned, nitrogen is actually lighter than oxygen. If a gas is going to escape through the tire the nitrogen would do so faster.

Think about this for a minute. If oxygen actually permeated out of a tire faster than nitrogen, then as the tire deflated what would be left in the tire would be mostly nitrogen. Let's say there was 90% nitrogen left in the tire.

Now in order to bring your tire back to the proper pressure, you top off your tires with a small amount of air. You have in effect added a small amount of air which is 78% nitrogen to the residual air in the tire which is 91% nitrogen. The end result is your tire is now filled with an air mixture with a very high concentration of nitrogen.

Assuming that the oxygen continues to leave the tire and the nitrogen remains you would have an even higher percentage of nitrogen in your tires. Maybe 95%. As you repeated this over and over you would eventually have nothing but nitrogen in your tire.

Based on the claim that oxygen would leave the tire faster, you would end up with nitrogen filled tires while filling them with air. If this were the case then what would be the point of filling your tires with nitrogen to begin with?

This is just a common sense answer as to why the claims of nitrogen being a significant factor in reducing gas consumption just don't hold up. There many more specific scientific answers as to why the nitrogen claims are false. Most of them are way to complicated to try and explain in one short article. In the end it seems you are seeing the one law of physics that seems to manifest itself over and over.

As is generally the case there are those who always take advantage of some problem to make a profit. Who gets the benefit of filling your tires with nitrogen? Non other than the manufacturers of the nitrogen producing equipment and the merchants who sell the nitrogen to the public. They make more money. Who ends up paying for those extra profits? That' right, it's you.

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Scott Siegel is the author of a 143 page manual of industry insider information on saving gas and dollars at the pump (beatthegaspump.com). Visit us to discover how you can get better gas mileage. Find out how to increase gas mileage.
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