Tire Inflators

Tire Inflators in plain terms

Correct tyre pressure is worth a few per cent of fuel economy and a good deal of tyre life, and it drifts by roughly one PSI a month on its own, faster in cold weather. The reason most cars run under-inflated is not ignorance, it is that the garage air line involves a detour, a queue and a gauge of unknown honesty. A preset inflator removes all three: you set the figure the door pillar asks for, connect it, and it stops on its own.

Nearly every model shares that behaviour, along with four presets for car, bicycle, motorcycle and sports, and four pressure units covering door pillars, bicycle sidewalls and charts from either side of the Atlantic. So the specification that actually varies is the battery, and it decides two things: how many tyres you get per charge and how long each one takes. The dual-cell units are glovebox-sized, the triple and quad-cell units run a full set and keep going, and the 12000 mAh twin-cylinder model is a different class of tool.

That top model is the one to understand before comparing prices. Twin cylinders and a high-torque motor take a car tyre from 30 to 35 PSI in about twenty seconds rather than the fifty-five the compact units need, it is rated for SUV, truck and trailer tyres, it charges at 45 W both ways so it doubles as a power bank, and it runs from 12 V DC if the battery is flat. One model goes the other way entirely: a 1.2-pound unit aimed at bicycle tyres, sixteen seconds from 39 to 45 PSI, small enough to live in a saddlebag.

Common questions