Tire Topics – The Air in Your Tires
The air we breathe. The air that’s in your tires.
A tire filled with “plain old air” can lose 1.5 psi in less than a month. With nitrogen, it can take up to six months to lose 1.5psi.
Oxygen reacts and damages inner tire liners and belt packages; nitrogen does not.
Draining water from your air lines every day helps, but unless you have a really efficient air dryer, chances are there’s a lot of water in your compressed air.
The air around us is full of water vapor. It’s called “humidity”. Compressing air concentrates the water in it.
Small bits of corrosion from wheels can prevent valves from seating properly, leading to loss of air pressure.
NASCAR and Indy Car teams use nitrogen because it allows them to more accurately predict tire pressure fluctuation.