12 volt tire inflator

[Dave Lehnert]

Want a 12 volt compressor to keep in the car if I need to inflate a tire away from home.
Any recommendations?

[Tom Stenzel]

I got one of these for Christmas:

http://www.sears.com/craftsman-12v-portable-inflator-w-digital-tire-pressure/p-02875114000P

So far I've used it twice, once to touch up the tires on my car and once to pump up a flat on the Wife's van. I didn't use it to pump it up the flat all the way, just enough to get it off the rim and finish the job with my (ahem) real air compressor.

The good: the cord is long enough to reach all the tires on my Saturn. If my Wife's long wheelbase minivan didn't have a power port by the rear hatch the rear tires would be out of luck. But it does so all is OK.

The auto shutoff does work. When pumping the digital gauge reads about 2 PSI higher than what's in the tire so set the auto shutoff pressure at the desired pressure plus 2.

When the 12V power is disconnected the auto shutoff resets to 30 PSI but is easily reset to whatever you want when plugged back in.

It's small and compact, easy for me to carry.

Downside: It's as slow as any of them. Pumping a large tire from a complete flat would take all day and probably burn it up. It's for touching up low tires.

I *think* it's 15 minutes run time-15 minutes rest time for duty cycle.

The holder for the basketball pin and the other adapter is useless and will drop the pin and adapter. Somewhere in the snow. DAMHINT. I'll look for them in the spring!

The digital gauge comes off to be used as a hand held tire gauge. Nice but you have to have the plastic screw-on adapter which has has no on-board storage. Which means that if you really wanted to use it as a gauge the adapter will never, ever be found. Also when I tried following the instructions to remove the gauge the plastic started bending and flexing. I gave the idea up before I had a handful of plastic shards. Clipping the hose on the tire will give the reading anyway.

Wrapping the cord up into the holder is tedious. Or maybe the 15 deg temp was a factor in my patience?

But it does work and that's all I was looking for.

-Tom

[Bert Kemp]

Yea I have one from wally world made by Slime
Slime COMP06 Pro Power Heavy-Duty 12-Volt Tire Inflatorworks pretty good so far , I use it when I go out in the back country I deflate my tires to 20psi and use this when I get out to re inflate to 34psi follow the instruction I let it cool down a few mins between tires.

[Mike Lassiter]

I got one of these for Christmas:

http://www.sears.com/craftsman-12v-portable-inflator-w-digital-tire-pressure/p-02875114000P

So far I've used it twice, once to touch up the tires on my car and once to pump up a flat on the Wife's van. I didn't use it to pump it up the flat all the way, just enough to get it off the rim and finish the job with my (ahem) real air compressor.

The good: the cord is long enough to reach all the tires on my Saturn. If my Wife's long wheelbase minivan didn't have a power port by the rear hatch the rear tires would be out of luck. But it does so all is OK.

The auto shutoff does work. When pumping the digital gauge reads about 2 PSI higher than what's in the tire so set the auto shutoff pressure at the desired pressure plus 2.

When the 12V power is disconnected the auto shutoff resets to 30 PSI but is easily reset to whatever you want when plugged back in.

It's small and compact, easy for me to carry.

Downside: It's as slow as any of them. Pumping a large tire from a complete flat would take all day and probably burn it up. It's for touching up low tires.

I *think* it's 15 minutes run time-15 minutes rest time for duty cycle.

The holder for the basketball pin and the other adapter is useless and will drop the pin and adapter. Somewhere in the snow. DAMHINT. I'll look for them in the spring!

The digital gauge comes off to be used as a hand held tire gauge. Nice but you have to have the plastic screw-on adapter which has has no on-board storage. Which means that if you really wanted to use it as a gauge the adapter will never, ever be found. Also when I tried following the instructions to remove the gauge the plastic started bending and flexing. I gave the idea up before I had a handful of plastic shards. Clipping the hose on the tire will give the reading anyway.

Wrapping the cord up into the holder is tedious. Or maybe the 15 deg temp was a factor in my patience?

But it does work and that's all I was looking for.

-Tom

I have the exact same compressor myself. It says it is a 250 psi compressor, which it may well be but I don't know of anything anyone would have that they would be trying to inflate with a 12 volt compressor that needs that much air pressure in it.
Now with that said, I have used mine several times over the years and it works just fine. I keep it in the Town and Country van we have and the power cord is long enough to reach all the tires front and rear while using the power plug in the dash. Of course you have to go out the side you are airing up tires on - it will not go all the way around the rear from one side to another.
I agree it is somewhat slow to inflate very low tires. I just used mine to air up tires on a car that has been parked for almost 2 years and 3 of the 4 were very low, in fact one showed 2.5 psi with the digital gauge on the compressor. It has a little bag under the red part of the top that I think has a needle for airing up balls (and not sure of anything else).
I have had mine maybe 3 years and have been pleased with it for what it is intended to be used for.

[Dave Lehnert]

Never gave the Sears Craftsman a thought, Looks like a good size to tuck away in the car.

[Dan Hintz]

I picked up a Ryobi air pump at a "going out of business" sale several years back for about $5. Worked great until the batteries themselves started giving up the ghost. Pretty compact and good pressure, so I'd consider getting another one if I needed it.

[Lee Schierer]

I purchased a Car Portable Kobalt 120-PSI Electric Air Compressor from Lowes. It has a gauge that you can remove from the unit and use it to check tire pressures. The nice feature about this one is that it is digital and you can set a pressure you want and it will pump until it gets to that pressure and stop. As I recall it cost less than $40.
305061

[Jerome Stanek]

I purchased a Car Portable Kobalt 120-PSI Electric Air Compressor from Lowes. It has a gauge that you can remove from the unit and use it to check tire pressures. The nice feature about this one is that it is digital and you can set a pressure you want and it will pump until it gets to that pressure and stop. As I recall it cost less than $40.
305061

My son bought that one and is happy with it I used it when I was working on my DIL's car and it worked very well