Green Color Tire Valve Caps

[amd2800barton]

Sounds like Bill Nye The Science Guy here just let the air out of this myth.

Heh. Chemical engineer here. Sometimes it shows... A lot. Now if only I could pull off that sweet bow tie.

 

[Tier1Terrier]

So my neighbor just pointed out to me that my newly delivered 2017 XLT has nitrogen filled tires. I had no idea and I'm not really sure if I should be annoyed or thrilled. On one hand, I'm like "hey this is GREAT because of all these different things I've read" but on the other hand I'm like "wait a sec. So now I have to go someplace everytime I want/need to add a little air in my tires?!?!" I have my own compressor and enjoy that I've always been able to monitor & fill/add air to my tires from my home garage on the once in a while occasion they needed it. I have a wife and 2 children and like for their tires to always be filled precisely for their safety and ocassionally do a tire pressure check in the morning and especially before any reasonably long drive. So now I have to go somewhere to do this?!?

If when I begin to see a decrease in tire pressure, do I need to add nitrogen or can I just use compressed air and just replenish the air the old fashioned way as needed?

 

[JAPeterson]

You can use just good old air from your compressor in the tires.

 

[Halwg]

By volume, dry air contains 78.09% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.039% carbon dioxide, and small amounts of other gases. So if you want to pay for 22% nitrogen (which I doubt is 100% nitrogen), I'm sure the dealer will smile all the way to the bank!

 

[xlt03]

In California, Costco fills your tires with nitrogen when you buy new tires. They also have the nitrogen fill hoses just inside of the service bay doors for you to use. When the tires are mounted on the rims, the air hose with nitrogen are hooked up to valve stem to seat the bead. Effectively, you have a combination of ambient air in the tire prior to seating the bead with nitrogen. Tires filled with nitrogen maintains pressure longer than ambient (oxygen) air. And the green valve stem caps indicates nitrogen filled. Regular compressed air can be mixed with nitrogen filled tires. My 2016 Ex Sport's TPMS displays the pressure of each wheel on the left display. Your 2017 should be the same.