Put some air in those tires!

[DarkStar]

My dealer put Nitrogen in the tires and I'm guessing that's a good thing. Any thoughts about that?

I put nitrogen in my tires as well. At a blend of about 80% I get that for free with my own air compressor. Hopefully your dealer isn't charging extra for that service.

Ditto. I'm rockin' 80% from my air compressor and as long as your dealer doesn't charge extra it's not a bad thing.

[garygid]

The benefit of a "nitrogen" fill is that the gas is (should be) "dry" (water free).

[planet4ever]

I've always put nitrogen in my tires. Actually, a mixture of about 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, and 1% argon.

I had heard that putting in pure nitrogen made the tires lose pressure more slowly, but that must be nonsense, since a molecule of nitrogen has less mass than a molecule of oxygen. If any molecules are going to leak out, surely the nitrogen would be more likely to do it than the oxygen.

Ray

[Smidge204]

I had heard that putting in pure nitrogen made the tires lose pressure more slowly, but that must be nonsense, since a molecule of nitrogen has less mass than a molecule of oxygen.

Mass isn't what's important - molecule size is.

Diatomic nitrogen is 3.16 Angstroms long. Diatomic oxygen is 2.96 Angstroms long. The idea is that, since nitrogen gas is slightly larger, it leaks out slower. If this claim were true, we would expect the air in the tire to eventually become almost pure Nitrogen anyway. Repeated refilling with normal compressed air would, over time, result in relatively pure nitrogen inside the tire as the oxygen leaks out. You would probably need a new tire from wear before you see any benefit.
=Smidge=

[Leaf1]

This morning I used the Easy Fill Tire Alert (page 5-4 of the owners manual) built into the car when filling the tires with air. It works perfectly by signaling when you reach the 36 psi for each tire with a beep from the horn. I was very impressed that it worked so well. Maybe this is a common capability on cars these days but the Leaf is the first car I have had with this. Another nice surprise on a great car.
Is this common on other cars?

[DaveinOlyWA]

This morning I used the Easy Fill Tire Alert (page 5-4 of the owners manual) built into the car when filling the tires with air. It works perfectly by signaling when you reach the 36 psi for each tire with a beep from the horn. I was very impressed that it worked so well. Maybe this is a common capability on cars these days but the Leaf is the first car I have had with this. Another nice surprise on a great car.
Is this common on other cars?

i am sure its that way with other cars just dont know about any of them (above my pay grade...)

[ztanos]

This morning I used the Easy Fill Tire Alert (page 5-4 of the owners manual) built into the car when filling the tires with air. It works perfectly by signaling when you reach the 36 psi for each tire with a beep from the horn. I was very impressed that it worked so well. Maybe this is a common capability on cars these days but the Leaf is the first car I have had with this. Another nice surprise on a great car.
Is this common on other cars?

i am sure its that way with other cars just dont know about any of them (above my pay grade...)

I didn't know the LEAF had this. There is an Altima commercial about this and thought it was neat.

[LEAFfan]

Some anecdotal evidence on the effect of tire pressure:

We have a camper-van that we use for vacations. I purchased new tires for it and for some insane reason, they pumped up the tires the the maximum pressure on the sidewall. I should have checked the pressures myself, but I was in a hurry to get going. It drove just fine around town, but it became terrifying in a crosswind on the highway. Once I set the pressure to the correct values per the manufacturer's recommendations, the cross-wind problem went away. Now I know this is a full size van and not a Leaf, but it was a lesson to me. If the higher tire pressures result in any loss of performance (stability or breaking), its not worth, at least to me, the extra advantage that would be gained in efficiency.

The LRR tires are different from regular tires. If you over inflate regular tires, you lose control and they wear more in the middle. Going 5 lbs. over with LLRs actually helps them wear better and the control / safety is maintained.

[EVDRIVER]

Some anecdotal evidence on the effect of tire pressure:

We have a camper-van that we use for vacations. I purchased new tires for it and for some insane reason, they pumped up the tires the the maximum pressure on the sidewall. I should have checked the pressures myself, but I was in a hurry to get going. It drove just fine around town, but it became terrifying in a crosswind on the highway. Once I set the pressure to the correct values per the manufacturer's recommendations, the cross-wind problem went away. Now I know this is a full size van and not a Leaf, but it was a lesson to me. If the higher tire pressures result in any loss of performance (stability or breaking), its not worth, at least to me, the extra advantage that would be gained in efficiency.

The LRR tires are different from regular tires. If you over inflate regular tires, you lose control and they wear more in the middle. Going 5 lbs. over with LLRs actually helps them wear better and the control / safety is maintained.

Running 50.

[thankyouOB]

Some anecdotal evidence on the effect of tire pressure:

We have a camper-van that we use for vacations. I purchased new tires for it and for some insane reason, they pumped up the tires the the maximum pressure on the sidewall. I should have checked the pressures myself, but I was in a hurry to get going. It drove just fine around town, but it became terrifying in a crosswind on the highway. Once I set the pressure to the correct values per the manufacturer's recommendations, the cross-wind problem went away. Now I know this is a full size van and not a Leaf, but it was a lesson to me. If the higher tire pressures result in any loss of performance (stability or breaking), its not worth, at least to me, the extra advantage that would be gained in efficiency.

The LRR tires are different from regular tires. If you over inflate regular tires, you lose control and they wear more in the middle. Going 5 lbs. over with LLRs actually helps them wear better and the control / safety is maintained.

going 5 pounds OVER what?
the sidewall max or the recommended inflation level?