I've had Donovan now for about 4 months with almost 4,500 miles. After only 1,500 miles I got the "low tire" indcator light come on. I got the nitrogen fill, by the way. I called the dealer and they said that is very common that the nitrogen has a break in period to seat into the tires. So I fill them with regular air to the right pressure and get it to the dealer to have them drain all four tires and refill with nitrogen.

Now, after another 3,000 miles, the indicator is back on again. I'd like to know if anyone else out there has the nitrogen fill in their tires and did they/do they keep getting the low tire pressure indicator. If so, are they getting the same "break in" speech from their SA?

Luckily I'm only 10 miles away from the dealer, otherwise, this would be awfully annoying to have to get the nitro refilled each time!

Thanks for the feedback.

 

Has the air temps dropped a bit recently in your area?

 

No, we've been pretty steady in the 70's. South Florida doesn't have much temp swing. The first time it went off was back in September when we were pretty much in the upper 80's all the time. No big swings in temps.

 

Sounds like a total load of crap to me; N is inert. Both N and "regular" air will permeate tire rubber, only N does it more slowly. I'd simply disprove their "theory" by refilling all tires with air only - when the TPMS indicator still comes on, well... shame on them again.

http://www.nitrogendirect.com/N2Info.htm

Greg

 

If the nirtogen fill is free I would go for it. Right now my tires have 78% nitrogen. That is how much nitrogen is in the air we breath. I would doubt that another 22% would make up that much of a difference. As for the warning light comming on, I would check your tire pressure. I would say one tire is probably not sealing that well and has a very slow leak.

 

Uhmm..... I think your dealer is, ahh, blowing you full of smoke. About 77-78+ percent of the air we breathe is nitrogen, add 21% oxygen,and some noble/inert gasses and you have "air".
Nitrogen is #7 on the periodic table,and Oxygen is #8. The helium and hydrogen atoms are smaller than N2 or O2, the rest are bigger.
The dealer needs to reseat the bead on the rim, more than likely the N2 fill regulator lacked sufficient CFM@ pressure to seat the bead. Tell them to try again.
Unless you're getting 5.0, or 5.5 gas, N2 is pretty cheap.

 

The real reason for true nitrogen fill is that you don't get potential moisture (water) from compressed air. In racing, not having a little water sloshing around could make a very slight advantage. Plus if you had steel rims water could cause rust.
That being said, I have gotten a TPMS error message on my 08 MCS about 4 times in the last month. I checked the air pressure and all the tires were always set properly. But it has always been in the mornings when the temperature has been in the 30's. Twice I had to reset the TPMS but the other two times it reset on its own. My Service rep said that there wasn't anything they could do and that probably everything was OK.

 

So...did you actually check the tire pressures with a tire gauge? Were they indeed low?

--Dan
Mach V
FastMINI.net

 

The TPMS coming on after 3000 miles doesn't surprise me, if you don't check your tire air pressure on a regular basis. But it depends on how long it takes to put 3000 miles on your car (a week or 6 months). It's a good idea to check the pressure at least monthly.

I don't buy into this nitrogen thing. Yes, it's used in aircraft and the space shuttle. I don't use my Mini to go from 35,000 feet to ground level in a half hours time, yet alone go into orbit. But hey, if you want it, it's not going to hurt anything but in 40 years of driving, I found regular old "air" and a tire pressure gauge works fine.

 

The tire pressure monitor doesn't know what's filling your tire. It senses pressure and that's it. You could fill it with hydrogen, helium, oxygen, any gas, and the result would be the same.

Check your pressure with a gauge