My tires filled with Nitrogen

I found a piece of document in the pile of new car papers indicating that my Prius Gen III Model 2 comes with Nitrogen-filled tires. Is that a dealer added thing or it's from Toyota factory? Is that a standard? I did not pay any extra for it.

Ordinary household air is 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen. I doubt the air in your tires is any different. But it's a good joke.

Yep, my Prius came with a tag on my windshield that said the tires were nitrogen filled. Every tire was 33lbs exactly. I've since up the pressure to 36 front 35 rear. I don't know if the dealer did it or if it came that way from the factory.

Hi, GSW,

Did you fill your tires with Nitrogen to 36/35 and where did you fill, dealer?
Thx.

I recall seeing information on some of my car papers for putting nitrogen in tires was $65, so having a large air compressor in the garage, I decided to use some of mother natures free air for the boost.

Oh no, not this topic again! :frusty:

Hopefully you didn't pay anything for it, but most likely it was another way for the dealer to extract a few dollars.

Tom

No way I to pay $65 for Nitrogen for my tires. Not even $10! I shall check with my Toyota service manager and see what he says. I don't remember paying a dime to dealer for Nitrogen tires when I bought the car a week ago.

Before everyone goes ballistic here... SOME dealers (not the factory) are filling the tires with nitrogen as an effort to have you come back to them for service because "they are one of only a few places" to carry nitrogen. I have only seen one dealer charge for the initial fillup.. 49.95 I think. It is a complete and utter waste of money. It is only there to add extra when you do the routine maintenance. May as well fill them with helium and watch your MPG's skyrocket!

Not helium. That will make your Prius top-heavy and contribute to roll overs.

Tom

Yeah, the whole thing makes me giggle. Even if you accept the questionable science behind filling tires with nitrogen, the logic makes no sense.

I believe the idea is that the larger nitrogen molecules will somehow leak out more slowly than the other, lighter gasses. If this were actually true, ALL tires would be filled up with fairly pure nitrogen just by topping them off from time to time, since (as they claim) the lighter gasses leak out, and filling up with air replaces 78% of what's lost with nitrogen, increasing the amount of nitrogen in the tires.

Of course, it's all crap anyway... but it's not even logically consistent crap.

I hadn't considered that fact. There goes my chance at making a quick million with a get rich quick scheme! Back to the drawing board.

I would not call that a fact. I would imagine that if you added Helium to all 4 tires, at a decent pressure level (40 psi), you may end up reducing the weight of the car by 4 or 5 pounds total.

This is the same reason that a large helium tank does not fly away, but rather weighs a few pounds less when full as compared to when empty.

:flypig::flypig::flypig: (Flying Pigs)...LOL

Costco fills all tires with Nitrogen. They use green cap on the valve for that. It is supposed to hold pressure better than just air. I don't know how much difference it really makes. But there is no special charge for nitrogen fill at Costco.

Yeah, I hate the green caps. Better remove your black caps beforehand if you ever go there.

So that's why my old 4Runner's tires (bought from Costco) wears these green caps. But why my LS400 which also runs on Costco tires don't have the green caps? It's nice to know that Costco is doing that. Thank you very much for the info.

I'm going to call mythbusters and have them try this out.

Not to mention it gives the NAV that funny cartoon voice.

FWIW, a filled helium tank would weigh more than an empty one, and the lightest tank would be one with a vacuum.
Nitrogen in a passenger car tire is right up there with intake tornados.
What's the green cap for? Are you not supposed to mix N2 with air? :mod:

LMAO!

Actually, if you sit for just a minute and analyze practically ANYTHING that passes for 'improvements' in car technology you'll find logical inconsistencies in all of them. Anything being promoted has one and only one reason for existence - to make money for the guy promoting it!