You’re done shopping,you go out to your car and lo and behold you have a nearly flat tire.Great, now what do you do?The tire is too low to safely drive to the nearest gas station and calling a tow truck is too expensive. So you bite the bullet,get the jack out and change the tire with your spare.But what if your spare is low as well?Or what if you are physically not able to change the tire or not willing to get your hands and clothes dirty?
This is when a 12volt air compressor comes in handy.Simply remove the air pump from your trunk,plug it into the power port in your dashboard.Connect the air hose to your tire,turn on the pump and away you go.Most air pumps will fill nearly flat tires in minutes.The day has been saved. In researching 12v air compressors I noticed two distinct types.The first are what most people think of when they look for compressors.Small light weight and portable.These units are designed to be tucked away in your vehicle and taken out when needed. Some pumps are cordless and operate off of replaceable or rechargeable internal batteries.Now this sounds great until you realize that if you are like me, you tend to forget to check the charge in the batteries and you end up with a flat tire and dead batteries. Luckily most 12 v air compressors that are rechargeable also have the ability to take power directly from your vehicles battery by plugging into the cigarette lighter or power port in your dash board.Quite a few 12 volt air pumps even have ac adapters so that you can plug them into a wall socket at home. Being able to use 12 v air compressor away from home is to me the real benefit.Aside from filling a low tires,most of these units come with adapters that allow you to inflate other things such as air mattresses for camping,sport balls,beach balls,pool toys,etc.It is really handy for inflating your bicycle tires before you go out on the trail. A few other features that I thought might be quite useful depending on the circumstances are emergency lighting.Very helpful when working at night.Some of the higher end 12v air pumps can actually provide power for other items that need 12 volt power.There are even units that have the capability to jump start a dead car battery and come with their own jumper cables.Very handy indeed. The time it takes to fill a tire from almost flat to full varies from unit to unit.Some are very quick and will do the job in a matter of minutes,approximately 3 to 5 minutes.Others will take longer,up to as much as say fifteen minutes.But still 15 minutes isn’t too bad considering what your alternatives might be. The amount of pressure that is delivered also varies.Some lower cost units may only pump out 100 pounds of pressure whereas some top of the line models will produce in the 300 pound range.This could make a huge difference depending on what you are pumping up.With large tires such as truck tires on 4x4s you would probably want to go with a better 12 volt air pump that can handle higher pressure as an example. Some other considerations that popped up while I was researching 12v air compressors.Be aware that these pumps tend to get very hot and can quite possibly cause a serious burn,while others were merely warm to the touch.A lot of reviews and comments on 12 v air compressors that I read at places like Amazon.com mention the fact that these pumps are light and tend to move around while in use.That in itself is not really a bad thing but something to consider. Two other items were mentioned a few times.One is to check the power rating on the power port in your vehicle.Pumps that require 15 amps to operate will over load systems that only provide say 10 amps of power.And noise seems to be the other thing that people complained about.To me,given the alternatives of getting safely home verses being stranded,I’ll take the noise thank you.Oh and leave your engine running while using most of these pumps just in case.No sense in filling your tire only to find out that now you can’t start your vehicle because of a dead battery. The second type of air compressors are designed to be permanently mounted on board your vehicle,to offer what is called OBA or on board air.Most of these units are higher end type pumps with heavier duty ratings and can in general be hard wired directly to your vehicles electrical system.Some use simple clamps such as you would see on battery jumper cables. These kinds of compressors are really good for use with off road vehicles like 4x4s and jeeps.The drivers of these vehicles reduce the air pressure in the tires before going off road.This allows them to get better traction when driving.When it is time to go home they then fire up the air pumps,fill the tires to acceptable highway pressures and away they go. On board compressors also can be used to power things like air horns and air ride suspensions.Think semi tractor trucks.
Which ever type of 12 volt air compressor that you do decide on make sure to do your proper research just like any thing else.Decide what you will use the pump for,check the ratings and features.Make sure that you read comments left by other purchasers.Sometimes that is a bigger help than just straight information.
