Rowan Lee Posted August 11, 2011 Share Posted August 11, 2011 This has always been a problem for me, as I cannot find a local garage/supermarket where I can blow up the tyres. I keep the tyres at 67psi, but most garage machines have a top limit lower than this. I have had a Bosch rechargeable gun type compressor, but the battery gave up the ghost and the unit had been discontinued anyway. Then I bought the Ring RAC630 12v compressor as recommended by a survey in one of the Club magazines, but this has failed after only a couple of uses. Has anyone any recommendations for a reliable machine please? Or where do you go to get them done? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Den Posted August 11, 2011 Share Posted August 11, 2011 I found the same problem and recently purchased a small Copressor and various attachments from Macine Mart. Works perfectly, some will post not to go by the Gauge supplied, which I didn't . I use a digital one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rowan Lee Posted August 11, 2011 Author Share Posted August 11, 2011 Sounds interesting Den. How much did you pay for it? Is it 12V or 240V? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Den Posted August 11, 2011 Share Posted August 11, 2011 Cost about $95.00 plus $25. for the inflator, hose,spray gun etc. It's 240 v . Pumped up my work van which had 2new tyres fitted and found them under inflated by 10psi. After probably a minute the chamber was up to pressure and the pump did not come back on while doing the 2 tyres . One of my better buys Den Ps my $ sign is supposed to be a pound sign Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rowan Lee Posted August 11, 2011 Author Share Posted August 11, 2011 Yes, it looks good but I was hoping for something a bit smaller and more portable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flicka Posted August 11, 2011 Share Posted August 11, 2011 Some available on this site, which may be suitable http://www.rockshore.uk.com/heavy-duty-mini-air-compressor-12v---150-psi-11-bar-2023-p.asp (some more further down the page) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colin Leake Posted August 11, 2011 Share Posted August 11, 2011 I've been using a Halfords one for some years now and it will even pump up to 80psi until I found out we only needed 68. The connector is getting a bit iffy now but the pump is working fine. The 12volt lead was not long enough to reach the rear tyres so I purchased an extension from Halfords. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterjl Posted August 11, 2011 Share Posted August 11, 2011 Hi I also have had a halfords one for about 5 years - seems bomb proof - use it for m/h, car, motorbike, pushbike - the works + the gauge seems accurate! Peter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rowan Lee Posted August 12, 2011 Author Share Posted August 12, 2011 Thanks Flicka, that one looks good. Unfortunately we are going to Norfolk today and in my efforts yesterday to use the useless ones I already have, I have succeeded in reducing the pressure in one of the rear tyres I was trying to blow up! So in the first instance, I am going to take Colin and Peter's advice and go to Halfords this morning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rowan Lee Posted August 12, 2011 Author Share Posted August 12, 2011 Of course I should also have said many thanks to Colin and Peter, you have given me the confidence to try a Halfords one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted August 12, 2011 Share Posted August 12, 2011 These are some previous tyre-pump-related threads: http://www.outandaboutlive.co.uk/forums/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=21768&posts=23 http://www.outandaboutlive.co.uk/forums/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=21050&posts=18 HTTP://www.outandaboutlive.co.uk/forums/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=19721&posts=15 http://www.outandaboutlive.co.uk/forums/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=17625&posts=10 http://www.outandaboutlive.co.uk/forums/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=15230&posts=30 Possibly the best 12V pump easily available in UK and suitable for rapidly inflating a motorhome’s tyres is the Ring RAC900 (around £70), but its high current ‘draw’ means that you would not be able to power it via a dashboard 12V socket. Instead you’d need to connect it directly to the motorhome’s engine or leisure 12V battery. There are very positive reviews on: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ring-Automotive-RAC900-Compressor-Accessories/dp/B000W08QZY As will be seen from the earlier threads, I ‘invested’ in a Ring RAC700. This can be powered from my Transit’s 20A-maximum dashboard socket and it has proved capable of the task I anticipated it could perform. The current cost is around £35. The amazon reviews for this pump are far more critical: http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews/B000W6ZTDK My own (current) view is that the Ring RAC700 is probably the best UK-available relatively-inexpensive 12V dashboard-socket pump suitable for handling the large, high-pressure tyres fitted to motorhomes. Nevertheless, it’s still a cheaply-made trashy piece of kit, just less trashy than the other relatively-inexpensive 12V dashboard-socket pumps that are UK-marketed. With hindsight, I wish I’d bought the Ring RAC900 pump. (A caveat. Don’t overlook the obvious – that these pumps are generally intended for car-tyre inflation and an extension cable will usually be needed to allow inflation of longer motorhomes’ rear tyres.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterrosey Posted August 12, 2011 Share Posted August 12, 2011 We featured this test in the June 2010 issue of the mag. I'd take the RAC630 back - might have simply been a faulty one. Our test one got hammered during testing and stood up to it fine. But the best - by a mile - was the RAC900. Although you do need to crocodile-clip it to the battery (flip the bonnet and find the jump start points) it has a really long lead and its design features a massive air-line style spiral air line tube. So you don't need any adaptors even on the longest of motorhomes. It's quick to inflate and very quiet, too. Downside is cost (though I think it's very reasonable for the quality on offer) and bulk - it comes in a bag the size of a rugby ball. Without going to an entirely mains air-line based system it's the best of the 12V compressors at reasonable cost. I have an RAC900 in my van... (as a back-up to the OE kit). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterrosey Posted August 12, 2011 Share Posted August 12, 2011 Being the ever-helpful folk that we are, we've uploaded the MMM Compressor test here: http://www.outandaboutlive.co.uk/Motorhomes/Features/Handy-guides/Air-Compressors/_ch1_ft640 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alanmac Posted August 14, 2011 Share Posted August 14, 2011 Just came across this entry - been away in van -. I have had 2 compressors in the past and finally they gave up the ghost. I went to Halfords to buy another nbut the assistant told me that although it wouldf take my tyres up to 80psi I would have to deflate them to about 40psi to take the start up pressure off the compressor as there was a risk of burning it out if this wasn't done. Didn't fancy this as it may burn out anyway and leave me with an underinflated tyre. So on the previous advice, I read here some years ago, I bought one of their upright cycle pumps - looks like an old stirrup pump. Costs about £35 . I check tyres about once a month and about 10 - 20 strokes is sufficient to reach recommended pressure It does not need excessive force from me either ! It's about 2ft long and takes up more space than a compressor but really easy to use IMO no leads to move around. also use it on the bikes ! Hope this is of use to someone - although by now you have probably bought a new one Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted August 15, 2011 Share Posted August 15, 2011 alanmac - 2011-08-14 10:57 AM Just came across this entry - been away in van -. I have had 2 compressors in the past and finally they gave up the ghost. I went to Halfords to buy another nbut the assistant told me that although it wouldf take my tyres up to 80psi I would have to deflate them to about 40psi to take the start up pressure off the compressor as there was a risk of burning it out if this wasn't done. Didn't fancy this as it may burn out anyway and leave me with an underinflated tyre. So on the previous advice, I read here some years ago, I bought one of their upright cycle pumps - looks like an old stirrup pump. Costs about £35 . I check tyres about once a month and about 10 - 20 strokes is sufficient to reach recommended pressure It does not need excessive force from me either ! It's about 2ft long and takes up more space than a compressor but really easy to use IMO no leads to move around. also use it on the bikes ! Hope this is of use to someone - although by now you have probably bought a new one Before deciding what pump to buy, the objectives need to be defined. If you just want to put a couple of psi into a motorhome's tyres every now and again, then a good quality 'track' cycle-pump should be OK. If you want to be able to put a lot of psi into a motorhome's tyres (say, you find the vehicle has a slow puncture and you need to re-inflate the tyre to allow you to drive the vehicle to a garage, or you are swapping different-pressure tyres around the vehicle), then a cycle-pump is very unlikely to prove suitable for such tasks. If you envisage only using the pump when a mains electriicity supply is available, then a mains-powered pump would be the obvious choice. But, if you want an electric pump that you can use anywhere, then you'll need either a pump to be powered from your motorhome's battery, or a pump with its own rechargeable battery. I'll repeat part of one of my (far too many!) previous postings on tyre pumps.. "Before committing to the foot-pump route, I suggest you refer to the following article: http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/products/products/56696/foot_pumps.html Although the report is 5 years old, it's worth noting the test criteria. These were a) the accuracy of a pump's own gauge at 30psi and b) the increase in pressure in psi that a pump was able to produce with 50 'strokes'. 50 strokes of the best pump could add 12psi, but don't forget that the tyre being inflated during the test was an ordinary car tyre and that only relatively low pressures were involved. It would be completely unrealistic to expect that pump to be capable of inflating one of your motorhome's tyres from 0psi to 69psi with 288 strokes. (Even if it could, that's still a helluva lot of strokes.) Inflating at 30psi is one thing: inflating at 60psi quite another. I've owned 12V tyre-pumps that have inflated the tyres of my cars easily and rapidly from, say, 25psi to 30psi, but have either refused to work at all, or took forever, when asked to put a couple of psi into a motorhome tyre at 60psi. In June 2010 MMM published a tyre-pump article that, besides reporting on various 12V pumps, included testing of a track-bicycle pump and a twin-barrel foot-pump. The comment for the former was "The pump itself was fast and it did work... I did turn purple with the effort, though...it will work in an emergency, but you may have a heart attack in the process." Comments on the foot-pump included "...As it approached the 60psi mark, it got quite tricky to pump and your humble tester thought he might pass out..." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lunarmike Posted November 2, 2011 Share Posted November 2, 2011 Re RING RAC 900 Compressor I too thought the RAC 900 should be a good choice for my 215/75R 16C tyres, 51 psi front, 69 psi rear. So I emailed Ring a while back to ask for their advice. They said it was not up to the job and if I used the RAC 900 on these tyres it would not be covered by the warranty. P.S. The MMM test said the RAC 900 stopped pumping at 60 psi - which is too low for a lot of motorhomes The Ring RAC 900 manual says it pumps up to 150 psi !!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest pelmetman Posted November 2, 2011 Share Posted November 2, 2011 What's wrong with a foot pump?:D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lunarmike Posted November 2, 2011 Share Posted November 2, 2011 Have tried that. With a double barrel foot pump. I managed to only get 4 psi in after 10 minutes solid pumping !! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest pelmetman Posted November 2, 2011 Share Posted November 2, 2011 lunarmike - 2011-11-02 8:39 PMHave tried that.With a double barrel foot pump. I managed to only get 4 psi in after 10 minutes solid pumping !!Sounds like if you don't have a dog:D get a foot pump as it will do wonders for your health(lol)(lol) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted November 3, 2011 Share Posted November 3, 2011 lunarmike - 2011-11-02 8:12 PM Re RING RAC 900 Compressor I too thought the RAC 900 should be a good choice for my 215/75R 16C tyres, 51 psi front, 69 psi rear. So I emailed Ring a while back to ask for their advice. They said it was not up to the job and if I used the RAC 900 on these tyres it would not be covered by the warranty. P.S. The MMM test said the RAC 900 stopped pumping at 60 psi - which is too low for a lot of motorhomes The Ring RAC 900 manual says it pumps up to 150 psi !!! If you refer to the full version of the tyre-pump article published in the June 2010 issue of MMM (pages 229-232), you'll appreciate that the test procedure involved inflating a Ford Transit-based motorhome's tyre from 50psi to 60psi. Consequently, it's misleading to claim that the "MMM test said the RAC 900 stopped pumping at 60 psi" as the pump would have been manually switched off when that pressure was reached. As no attempt was made during the test to inflate the tyre beyond 60psi, there's no way of knowing what each pump's ultimate inflation capability would have been. The pressure in the tyre was set to 50psi at the start of each test using a known-to-be-accurate gauge and the reading on the tyre-pump's own gauge was then recorded. The tyre was then inflated until the pump's gauge read 60psi and the actual pressure in the tyre was checked. The time taken to inflate the tyre was recorded. The RAC-900 took 42 seconds to inflate the tyre from 50psi (48psi on the pumps's gauge) to 60psi (60psi on the pump's gauge). It can be gathered from this that a) this is a seriously powerful 12V pump and b) the RAC-900's gauge was fairly accurate. My own RAC-700 pump will inflate my motorhome's 215/75 R16C tyres to 70psi happily enough, though (unsurprisingly) not particularly quickly in the latter stages, so I'm confident that a RAC-900 would inflate a motorhome tyre well beyond the 90psi that certain of the latest camping-car tyres can handle. In fact, the final paragraph of the RAC-900 review in the MMM article warns that "the speed and power of this compresor would make it surprisingly easy to blow the tyre clean off the rim!" Obviousy I don't know how you worded your e-mail to Ring, but It's possible (I suppose) that Ring may have believed you were planning to use the RAC-900 on a very regular basis to inflate large motorhome tyres from 0psi to 80psi, when the pump would undoubtedly be unsuitable. But if you only want to inflate your motorhome's tyres in the 50psi to 70psi range now and again, or inflate a deflated tyre with a slow puncture to 70psi to allow you to reach a garage, then this is the pump to have. As I said earlier, I really do wish I'd bought a RAC-900 not a RAC-700, as not only is the 900 product much better specified than the 700 and would do a much better job, but the 900's 7-metre air-hose would have obviated the need for me to make up a 12V extension cable to allow me to pump up my motorhome's rear tyres. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted November 3, 2011 Share Posted November 3, 2011 pelmetman - 2011-11-02 8:19 PM What's wrong with a foot pump?:D I would have thought that the pros/cons of a non-electric pump had been well-covered in the two postings immediately prior to lunarmike's 2 November inquiry - or do you think otherwise? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyishuk Posted November 3, 2011 Share Posted November 3, 2011 It may sound obvious, but having your engine running whilst using the electric pump helps reduce inflation times greatly. Rgds Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clive Posted November 3, 2011 Share Posted November 3, 2011 Inflating a motorhome tyre with a portable 12 volt compressor is likely to burn out the motor before the tyre is up to pressure. And it will take an eternity. Its a job for home. I bought via Ebay a mains powered twin cylinder compressor which was a belt drive jobbie from a induction motor and put 120 PSI in the cylinder in less than 5 minutes. This more the tool for the job. If you need air at the side of the road either drive to a garage if its just low or change the wheel. Lastly call the emergency service. C. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted November 4, 2011 Share Posted November 4, 2011 Clive - 2011-11-03 10:32 PM Inflating a motorhome tyre with a portable 12 volt compressor is likely to burn out the motor before the tyre is up to pressure. And it will take an eternity. Its a job for home. I bought via Ebay a mains powered twin cylinder compressor which was a belt drive jobbie from a induction motor and put 120 PSI in the cylinder in less than 5 minutes. This more the tool for the job. If you need air at the side of the road either drive to a garage if its just low or change the wheel. Lastly call the emergency service. C. Tyres will gradually lose pressure and most people's requirement for a tyre pump will be to 'top up' that pressure occasionally. A 12V pump is ideal for that purpose, but, to handle the pressure and volume of air in a motorhome's tyres, the pump needs to be a good one. I wouldn't have thought that the 42 seconds the on-test RAC-900 took to inflate a motorhome tyre from 50psi to 60psi can be classed as "an eternity". A mains-powered pump is fine if one could guarantee there would always be a mains power-supply available when the motorhome's tyres needed inflation, but that's not the way reality works. If, after an overnight stop on a remote aire in France where there's no mobile-phone signal, I find that one of my motorhome's tyres is seriously down on pressure, how will I contact the emergency services or (as I'm controlling this imaginary scenario) fit the spare-wheel that my motorhome hasn't got? But, if I have a reasonably powerful 12V pump like the RAC-900, I should be able to put sufficient air in the tyre to either allow me to reach a place where I can call the emergency services or to drive to a garage without risking damage to the tyre. Incidentally, this scenario is not as unreal as all that. I was at a rural aire recently where no mobile-phone signal was obtainable and, a couple of years ago (on another remote aire) encountered a UK motorcaravanner pumping up a punctured tyre to allow him to drive safely to a garage a few miles away. And, as forum members will be well aware, increasing numbers of new motorhomes are being marketed without a spare-wheel and, in many, cases, with no realistic means of carrying one. I've no interest in further cluttering up my garage with the type of compressor you bought, but I do value the versatility of a powerful 12V tyre-pump that takes up little storage space and can travel with me in my motorhome. If people are looking for a pump most suitable for inflating motorhome tyres at any time or place, then I don't think there's anything better on the market than the RAC-900. If they just want a mains-powered pump, then they can do as you did, but they won't be able to travel with it. Anyway, even if you own a mains-powered air-compressor for at-home use, there's no reason why you shouldn't also have a portable 12V pump for use elsewhere. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sandya Posted November 4, 2011 Share Posted November 4, 2011 Most of the larger Shell filling stations in my area have an HGV tyre inflator that exceeds your required pressure near HGV diesel pump Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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