Inflating tyres with inert gases: myths and reality

Vehicle owners who regularly visit their service stations couldn't have missed the heavy advertising around inflating tyres with nitrogen and a whole range of other inert gases. Offers to use this service reach car owners both from managers at shops servicing foreign cars and from companies posting information about themselves across the online space. Now anyone whose summer tyres need topping up faces a choice: fill them "the old way," with air, or join the ranks of "advanced" citizens who've decided to fill the wheels of their "swift steeds" the scientific way.

It's quite clear that pumping tyres with inert gases isn't done out of charity. The cost of this service is several times higher than the familiar procedure of filling tyres with air. So what do service station staff have to say about it? In their view, filling tyres with nitrogen makes it possible to maintain pressure inside the tyre in an optimal way. This, they say, considerably improves the vehicle's handling, shortens braking distance, and reduces the noise generated when the tyre meets the road surface. On top of that, promotional posters (based on data about the chemical properties of nitrogen and the other gases used to fill tyres — argon, neon and helium) flatly claim that a tyre filled with such a wonder mix becomes not only lighter but softer too. When it heats up, summer rubber is supposedly less prone to bursting, since inert gases keep a more stable environment. The main argument put forward by service centre staff, however, is that inert gas mixtures don't degrade the inside of the tyre, which means the rubber lasts longer.

The arguments given are, in fact, fairly persuasive. If that's really how it all works, then why not spend money on pumping the inner tubes with a mix of inert gases, why not extend the tyre's service life? Especially since doing so supposedly improves such important factors as vehicle handling and shortens the distance the car covers while braking?

Strange as it may seem, however, there is still no serious research on the actual benefits. One thing is certain: it doesn't harm the tyre. But can a driver actually feel all the benefits from switching to this new way of filling tyres, will he genuinely notice all the advertised advantages?

Staff at serious research institutions are fairly blunt about this. They are unanimous in the opinion that the widespread rollout of inert gas mixtures is nothing more than a marketing gimmick. It's known that the net profit a service station earns from offering this service to drivers runs from 500 to 3,000 percent.

As for how long a tyre lasts, it's worth noting that the main negative factor here is wear from contact with the road surface. Aggressive elements simply don't have time to do much of anything to destroy the rubber's structure from the inside (a tyre lasts, on average, no more than 2-3 years anyway).

The claim that the tyre becomes softer is also in doubt. The stiffness of the gases is practically identical, and inflating a tyre with nitrogen won't affect its operating characteristics in any way.

The argument that switching to inert mixtures would significantly reduce the tyre's weight also doesn't hold up under scrutiny. What you can realistically count on is "shedding" 2-3 grams, which is hardly going to have any serious effect on the vehicle's driving characteristics.