Reddit reviews Slime 40022 12-Volt Digital Tire Inflator

Seriously. Purchase one of these and toss it securely somewhere in your car; never seek air again.

IMO, don't waste money on the rechargeable ones, but DO make sure your engine is running while using it.

Slime 40022 12-Volt Digital Tire Inflator

Invest in a cigarette lighter powered tire inflator and keep it in your car at all times;

http://www.amazon.com/Slime-40022-12-Volt-Digital-Inflator/dp/B002ZBWKAU/ref=sr_1_27?s=automotive&ie=UTF8&qid=1409791379&sr=1-27

I did the same exact thing. Also managed to squeeze this guy between the tire and the plastic right where you have the little pouch. And I have a little repair kit on the other side of the tire.

I'm in Chicago too. I use this cigarette lighter inflator. You set the desired psi digitally and it shuts of when it gets there. It is accurate and much quite than my last unit. I also have a digital gauge with bleed off that comes in handy.

Well, not all air pumps provide that free service. And every air pump around me costs more than 50 cents.

It's funny that I see this post today, because just this morning I woke up to a flat tire on my truck sitting in my driveway. Completely flat. An air pump at a gas station that's far away and costs money was simply not an option for me. But since I had this in my truck, I was able to pump up my tire - for free - and make it to work on time.

I've had an air compressor in my truck for around six months now, and it's been a great investment. It's paid for itself more than once.

TL;DR - Don't knock buying an air compressor. It's a good purchase. If you think it's a waste, just don't fucking buy one.

Check to make sure you have the spare tire, and that it's inflated properly, there should be a jack and a tire iron(wrench?) as well.

I also suggest the following:

If you have a smartphone: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004B7YXOM/ (Lets you read codes off any OBDII car. Fun for friends and family too.) Keep in glovebox.

A cigarette outlet powered tire inflator: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000ENQRD2/ or http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002ZBWKAU/ (I have the first one and it works as advertised). Keep in trunk.

Also I don't know how the 2012 system works for music and navigation, but integration with your smartphone is very nice for music and nav.

(purely cosmetic and expensive.) Also look up vinyl wrapping if you're bored. Protects your paint job while you're at it :P

Alright... but who set the precedent?

I remember two distinct eras:

1. This era was one where I could walk outside with a Game Boy in one pocket, a link cable in the other and find another kid to battle or trade with by riding my bike around the neighborhood. People weren't afraid of kids, or what might happen if they stopped to help a kid in distress (in this case, I'm referencing a memory where my bike chain fell off in the pitch darkness and an older man stopped and helped me find it). I could walk to school, and nobody would think anything of it.
   
2. This era came after 9/11, when people were saying "it could happen again anywhere!!!!". Suddenly the school wouldn't allow me to walk to school anymore, I had to ride a bus half a block. News media started scaring parents with stories of pedophiles, since it kept their ratings up. This meant that adults became less likely to help a kid out, and that parents wouldn't let their kids play outside, because of the sudden "pandemic of pedophiles" that didn't actually exist. This meant that kids (which are now becoming adults) were kinda forced to find other ways of entertaining ourselves.
   
   What generation was the parents at that time? What generation worked itself into a self-sustaining frenzy? It couldn't have been the millennials, we were kids at the time and only doing as we were told.
   
   By luck, I am a country boy. I keep a socket set in my truck, and a bootable ISO in my phone. I've dived into my engine compartment and fixed my own shit many times, an alternator or a water pump isn't that hard to replace and a tire is just a couple bolts. You haven't changed a tire, until you change a boat trailer tire with the wet boat still on it in the rain with a Toyota Camry's weak little jack (because the pickup's is missing of course) on the side of the interstate with waist-high grass.
   
   You like your cell phone? Do you know how to restore it in iTunes? Is it an android? do you know how to get into safe mode? what about do a factory restore if your phone won't boot? Are your contacts being synced to google right now? are your pictures backed up to Google Photos? How much data would you lose if it fell in the toilet right now?
   
   Let me guess.. not only do you not know that, but you also don't know the last time you checked your tire pressure. TPM sensors have batteries that die, and you could have low pressure. Your not gonna wait for the dealership or jiffy lube to check are you? If you have green caps, that's not a bad idea because you have nitrogen in your tires but if you have black caps, Get one of these things that are sold at a bunch of places and make sure your tire pressure is at what it says they should be at on your driver door. Or are you just gonna waste gas and wait till you have a blowout.
   
   Sorry if I'm rambling a bit, but i see the same shit in your generation. "oh, the factory warranty is about to expire. Better trade it in on a new one! My 2004 ford truck needs a small rubber hose that every auto parts store sells for $10, better take it to ford and pay $250! Your a web designer, not a mechanic Nakota. Quit fixing your own car and take it to a mechanic, and not that ASE certified one that you know will trade mechanic work for computer repair work, the one that I know who is expensive."

Car tire pumps are cheap enough that they probably don't care, probably because most people that buy them don't care enough to read the directions, typical tire pressures and sizes aren't that difficult to handle, and they'd just buy something else if it broke. Anyhow, here's the first cheapie I found on Amazon. It doesn't list a duty cycle, but the directions do say it can overheat and needs to cool down for 25 minutes if that happens. The specs and directions don't say what the maximum psi is, but a reviewer said it's 150 PSI. That pump would get so hot if it was working over 100 PSI.

To get a 100$ duty cycle at high pressure, you have to spend a lot of money on a compressor like this one.

An alternative at roughly the same price bracket is a liquid CO2 inflation system like this. Fwiw, this is the way I want to go. I may start putting together my system when I pick up a welder in about month, especially if I get a tig welder.

Ideally, you should own a portable tire inflator. They're inexpensive, and you can keep them in your trunk in case of emergencies. Something like this would work great. You just plug it into your cigarette lighter, connect it to the air valve on your tire, tell it what pressure to inflate to (as listed on a sticker inside your driver's side front door), and it will do the rest. Technically, you should check your tire pressure every time you fill up with gas, but I tend to only check every couple of months.

If you have a leak, you can take your car to a local tire shop (Wal-Mart and Costco do this too), and they should be able to patch it for you fairly quickly (depending on how busy they are) and inexpensively (usually no more than $25). Some places even do it for free.

(OP's post is going to get removed whenever one of the mods shows up, since /r/CarTalk is not Car Talk, but just for specific repair questions. Before that happens, does anyone know of a subreddit with an attitude more in keeping with the Car Talk namesake?)

OP: Some folks have suggested tire inflating foam. I carry a plug kit and a cheap battery-driven compressor like this. You can find a cheaper alternative pretty easily online. Keeping the compressor around reminds me to top off my wheels regularly, whereas foam can only be used in emergencies.

I also keep a couple of water bottles, a sleeping bag, and a pair of those "hot hands" things in my trunk in case of getting stranded, although that's probably not very necessary in your area.

I would. When I need to air up the tires, I set the PSI and leave it to do its thing. The only thing is that it don't come with a battery, so unless you have other 18v Ryobi tools with the same battery then it doesn't make sense to buy one. Also probably not a good one for a car trunk.

This one is in my wife's trunk and it works just as well. Also highly recommend.

OK, should these things happen again, here are some things you should keep in the trunk.

A tire inflator that plugs into your cigarette lighter. It won't help much with larger leaks, but for smaller ones it'll let you reinflate the tire long enough to get to an auto shop.

If you want to plug a leak, you'll need a tire repair kit. This isn't as simple to use as the inflator (you'd want to practice or at least see it done first), but it's not rocket science either. A word of caution though: the needles used in those kits have been known to break, so don't do what that guy did at 2:48 where he was lucky not to give himself a vasectomy.

If the nail or whatever is still in the tire, then you'll need something like vice grips to pull it out. If it's not in the tire, then you'll need the inflator to push air in and some (preferably soapy) water to see pour on the tire and see bubbles where the air is coming out.

And since this kit is $6 and has plugs to fix four flats and a shop will charge you $5 to fix one, it doesn't take that long to start saving a few bucks.

A set of jumper cables. Honestly, I don't know why dealerships don't put this in every car that drives off the lot. Here's how to use them correctly. With these, you won't need to call AAA for (most) dead batteries, just find some kind soul willing to let you jump off of their car. For jumper cables there's a few things you want to look for:

• Made of 100% copper. Cheaper ones are made of aluminum or aluminum with a copper shell. Those don't work as well, and they break easier.
  
• Longer is better. After all, they're no good if they won't reach!

> as a vacuum. I have a 7+ year old vacuum that sounds like a jet taking flight, seriously wont let you hear

It is pretty loud, but it is totally worth it. I purchased mine 2 years ago for around 35 bucks. It is incredibly well made with very thick steel. probably the best purchased I've made after this portable tire inflator