az3579
07-06-2015, 05:05 PM
Today I purchased a Craftsman 12V Tire Inflator. The price was $34.9x plus tax, and was purchased at my local Sears next to the Milford Westfield Mall.
20634
20635
20636
I was mainly looking for something compact and easily storable. I keep my tire inflator in the spare tire well in the plastic cover that covers the donut spare, so my requirement is that it must fit in there alongside my toolbag, torque wrench, and jumper cables. It's amazing how much fits in there, and this inflator just happens to fit perfectly.
After opening the package, I inspected the device itself. It is apparent that it is made in China with somewhat poor quality control. There was some plastic that looked a bit wavy, as well as non-finished edges which you can potentially cut yourself on (I'm not going to try though). Otherwise the unit is solid and doesn't creak. It has a rubberized red handle on it which prevents it from slipping out of your hand.
20637
20638
This unit has a pretty nice cable management system. It offers channels around the device to wrap the cables around and store the connectors in cut out recesses. The hose and cable stay nicely in their designated areas until you intentionally take them out. The various attachments are stored in a couple of different little cutout/cubby areas.
20639
20640
20641
20642
The 12V cable that plugs into the cigarette lighter is sufficiently long. You shouldn't have an issue reaching to the rear of even longer vehicles such as the 7-series long wheelbase versions.
20643
This particular device has a treat in store. It comes with a tire pressure gauge that is stored on the unit itself. It is detachable, and can be used on its own. I'm not too sure how accurate it is quite yet because I don't have a "real" tire pressure gauge to test with yet as it's on order. Once it arrives, I'll compare the readouts and update this post.
20644
I haven't yet had a chance to put any air in my tires since the supplied tire pressure gauge said I was above the pressure I was aiming for (the tires were hot after just coming back from a drive). I did check the tire of the Jeep in my neighbor's driveway that hasn't been used in over 6 months and as flat as it looked, it read 9 psi, which by my estimation seems accurate. I will compare the numbers with the real tire pressure gauge when it arrives.
Stay tuned for updates on how quickly the pump can fill a tire, noise/vibration levels, and accuracy of the included tire pressure gauge.
UPDATE 08/05/2015:
I've had a while to test this tire pump at this point. I have to say I am very pleased with its performance!
I set a baseline for the built-in tire pressure gauge to see how far off it was consistently. I compared the readings with a Longacre tire pressure gauge I ordered from Amazon. The built-in gauge consistently read about .5 psi higher than actual, which isn't too bad.
I also got a chance to test the "set it and forget it" feature. With this feature, you set the pressure you want your tires filled to, attach the hose, and let it rip. It will fill the tire to the specified pressure and then turn off. Because the built-in gauge reads high on its own, I set the pressure 1 psi higher than what I wanted the pressures to be since you can't adjust it in smaller than 1 psi increments. This was just fine, because I found that if I set it to something like 36 psi, it will fill to an actual 35 with just a hair above that. The amount of bleeding I'd have to do with my real pressure gauge is totally minimal, maybe a tap on the pressure release button and the job was done. The auto-fill feature of this gauge is quite excellent once you know what the differential is between the pressure it thinks and actual pressure.
Fill speed is very fast! This pump filled 3 psi (the most I was lower than desired) within seconds.
Overall, I am very satisfied with this pump and highly recommend it to others that are looking for a great space-saving, budget tire pump.
20634
20635
20636
I was mainly looking for something compact and easily storable. I keep my tire inflator in the spare tire well in the plastic cover that covers the donut spare, so my requirement is that it must fit in there alongside my toolbag, torque wrench, and jumper cables. It's amazing how much fits in there, and this inflator just happens to fit perfectly.
After opening the package, I inspected the device itself. It is apparent that it is made in China with somewhat poor quality control. There was some plastic that looked a bit wavy, as well as non-finished edges which you can potentially cut yourself on (I'm not going to try though). Otherwise the unit is solid and doesn't creak. It has a rubberized red handle on it which prevents it from slipping out of your hand.
20637
20638
This unit has a pretty nice cable management system. It offers channels around the device to wrap the cables around and store the connectors in cut out recesses. The hose and cable stay nicely in their designated areas until you intentionally take them out. The various attachments are stored in a couple of different little cutout/cubby areas.
20639
20640
20641
20642
The 12V cable that plugs into the cigarette lighter is sufficiently long. You shouldn't have an issue reaching to the rear of even longer vehicles such as the 7-series long wheelbase versions.
20643
This particular device has a treat in store. It comes with a tire pressure gauge that is stored on the unit itself. It is detachable, and can be used on its own. I'm not too sure how accurate it is quite yet because I don't have a "real" tire pressure gauge to test with yet as it's on order. Once it arrives, I'll compare the readouts and update this post.
20644
I haven't yet had a chance to put any air in my tires since the supplied tire pressure gauge said I was above the pressure I was aiming for (the tires were hot after just coming back from a drive). I did check the tire of the Jeep in my neighbor's driveway that hasn't been used in over 6 months and as flat as it looked, it read 9 psi, which by my estimation seems accurate. I will compare the numbers with the real tire pressure gauge when it arrives.
Stay tuned for updates on how quickly the pump can fill a tire, noise/vibration levels, and accuracy of the included tire pressure gauge.
UPDATE 08/05/2015:
I've had a while to test this tire pump at this point. I have to say I am very pleased with its performance!
I set a baseline for the built-in tire pressure gauge to see how far off it was consistently. I compared the readings with a Longacre tire pressure gauge I ordered from Amazon. The built-in gauge consistently read about .5 psi higher than actual, which isn't too bad.
I also got a chance to test the "set it and forget it" feature. With this feature, you set the pressure you want your tires filled to, attach the hose, and let it rip. It will fill the tire to the specified pressure and then turn off. Because the built-in gauge reads high on its own, I set the pressure 1 psi higher than what I wanted the pressures to be since you can't adjust it in smaller than 1 psi increments. This was just fine, because I found that if I set it to something like 36 psi, it will fill to an actual 35 with just a hair above that. The amount of bleeding I'd have to do with my real pressure gauge is totally minimal, maybe a tap on the pressure release button and the job was done. The auto-fill feature of this gauge is quite excellent once you know what the differential is between the pressure it thinks and actual pressure.
Fill speed is very fast! This pump filled 3 psi (the most I was lower than desired) within seconds.
Overall, I am very satisfied with this pump and highly recommend it to others that are looking for a great space-saving, budget tire pump.