Disclaimer, this article may have links that I may get a referral bonus or commission from. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases,
The Problem Of Using The Gas Station Air Pump
The last few years I have been going to the local gas station and paying a few dollars to use their air pump to inflate our cars whenever they have a low air pressure warning. Most of the time this was inconvenient since:
- Had to drive to the gas station.
- Sometimes wait for another person to be done with the air pump before I could use it.
- Carry a portable tire pressure gauge since the one attached to the air pump was difficult to read.
- Generally I would only have time to go after work when it was dark out.
- Having to race the timer after I paid for the air pump to start. Sometimes I would have to pay a 2nd time since I only got 2 or 3 tires done.
- Each time it always seemed like an emergency.
The Search For A Tire Inflator
I have spent time afterwards after each event looking up different tire inflators on Amazon but I never was comfortable with the ones with the batteries since it was another thing to manage. I could see myself wanting to use but the battery would be drained and I would have to make sure to go and charge it before I could use it.
After the third tire inflation event, I found Carsun AC/DC Tire Inflator with dual power from 110/120v AC or using the car’s 12v DC. This product checked off a lot of boxes that I was looking for:
- No batteries to maintain.
- Can be powered by the car’s 12v connection.
- Can be powered by a standard 110v or 120v wall outlet.
- Long enough power cord to not need an extension power cable.
- Set the PSI I want to inflate to and let it automatically stop when it reaches the value.
- Small enough I can leave in the trunk of the car.
The Real Life Events To Test It Out
After purchasing and receiving it, we had some opportunities to use it. The first event was the usual low pressure warning the for the tires. When examining the tires, it looked like they were all just about 29-30 PSI when they should be around 35-36 PSI. In the previous times, I would delay this for days or weeks until I could dedicate a block of time and stress to go to the gas station to fill up the tires. Now with the Carsun tire inflator, I was able to go out during my lunch break and get each tire inflated in a few minutes of time. Compared to the gas station method, this was so much easier and relatively stress free.
The second event that happened was one of our tires was looking completely flat. It was at 5 psi so there definitely was something wrong with it. After using the tire inflator to get it back to 30 PSI, I noticed sound of a small leak happening and saw a nail was dug right into the middle of the tire. I took note of the time and came back to check on it later. When I had come back, it had been two hours and the tire was at about 24 PSI so it was leaking around 3 PSI an hour. With this information, I felt very confident if inflated it again then we could easily drive it to the tire store to get it fixed. It was super convenient and a stress reduction being able to inflate on demand.
The Flaws
The only flaw we run into with this product is that the free carrying case isn’t big enough to carry everything it comes with. This is really a minor flaw since you have to figure out how to store the extra cables and adapters without losing them. I’ve just kept using the box it came in to store it and so far that has been working fine for us.
The other flaw on the product page is that it does need to cool down if you use it for more than 15 minutes at a time. I hadn’t run into this issue yet since each I have used it, it was for a very short amount of time and I was ready to put it away.