The tire shops use nitrogen generators as their source, usually hanging off the side of the tire mounting machine. No ongoing costs once the generator is purchased. Aside from purdy green caps of course..........easily absorbed by fools parting with their money.

 

I drove my Nitrogen filled tire truck to the Low T clinic. After that, I went to get wrapped with a piece of Saran wrap to make my belly smaller. See the pattern.....LOL

 

You can get tire grade N 95% purity machines for <$2k that will support a typical tire shop. A good sales guy can pay off the machine in a short time.

 

"I concur, do you concur? Oh why didn't I concur." from Catch Me if You Can. YUP!

 

I see my tires drop 5 psi due to cold. I would assume most of the people on here don't get cold weather of -20c or colder. While it does not appear to make any difference I do know the stupid pressure warning goes on when its bellow -15 outside.

I have also had my mud and snow tires freeze before and it was like driving over constant speed bumps. My guess was it was -50 as truck did not register it properly. Antifreeze would gel if I idled to much and engine temps would rise. Drive to fast and over cooled the rads and basically had same effect. Ended up putting coveralls over the rad to drive the thing. On top of the cold weather front.

Nitrogen in cold I would guess helps with tread wear and tire sensor lights. In actually cold climates.

 

No, regular air drops in pressure the same as Nitrogen for the same start pressure and temperature. Ideal gas law.

 

Nitrogen in Tires : Information about Nitrogen Tire Inflation News, Benefits, Generator Dealers, Location Finder & More

The above is interesting but you appear to be correct about gas expansion. There is no where it states that nitrogen filled tires will elevate the tpms from triggering low. They do state that the nitrogen is larger thus it should loose less pressure into the environment. Also stated is the nitrogen is moisture and contaminate free which helps.

If in fact nitrogen expands and compresses at same rate as standard air then only advantage I could see is the large molicle leads to less issues with actual low pressure seepage. Having driven fleet trucks we all know everyone babies them and never drives them hard or anything right?

 

That would be a very uneducated guess. Does nitrogen not follow the gas law that every other gas in the universe follows? Other than marketing, what makes nitrogen different from every other gas?

The large molecule is a couple percent larger than oxygen. Nitrogen and oxygen make up 99% of air. The difference in the molecule sizes is so small that it's irrelevant. Nitrogen can diffuse through the rubber almost as fast as the oxygen. Both are slow enough to not be a factor. Again, the only difference here is marketing. Nitrogen has good marketing, air does not.

How does driving it hard make any difference here? It's just as relevant to this conversation as is the color of the truck.

 

When I go deer hunting I always put Nitrogen in my accordion so it plays louder.

See how important it is!

 

Sometimes methane works too. Butt those tunes really stink!

 

Air has pretty good marketing since it's free and the large majority of people are running regular air.