After years of using the Air Tire stations at convenience stores I finally wised up and bought a small 110 / 12V tire pump . Had it for 3 months and since I check tire pressure at least once a month it is quite accurate and shuts off when it should . I now keep one in both vehicles .
Good decision!
Years ago, when I still used the air pump at gas stations, it was amazing how many of them spewed water vapor along with compressed air. I had to keep a mental list of which air pumps to avoid. And then, there is the issue of how much air to add after one has driven several miles to a public air pump.
I have replaced my tire inflators a couple of times over the years, and they have continued to improve. The convenience of being able to use one of these devices in my own garage is a nice “luxury”.
I have a compressor, so checking/filling at home is no problem.
Do either of you have a cordless unit?
You can buy a small compressor for less than $50. I’ve got three including a regular and a pancake one for air nailers. Compressors have a lot more uses than just pumping tires up.
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I have a small 110 / 220 tire inflator I got about seven or eight years ago. The ease and convenience of using it at home with the car parked in the garage, no matter the weather, is so nice. Wish I had gotten one years sooner.
Mine plugs into the car’s power outlets. This one below is an updated version of mine. Mine has a dial gauge, and is very quick and quiet. The new version appears to be the same, but with a digital readout.
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I have the same one. in case I have to plug a tire on the road. but I got the blue one because you can screw it on and walk away until it shuts off. the other colors you have to hold it on the whole time.
I don’t get this line in the product description
Does NOT Support truck tires, for instance: light truck tires (LT), heavy duty truck tires or any truck tires.
I think they are saying it may not be powerful enough for truck tires. I havent had any problems with it on my f150
I just used my Ryobi P731 cordless to check and inflate both cars, you set the pressure and it shuts off, very convenient. I got it at Home Depot, but they don’t carry it now. I think it was replaced by the P747, 4.7/5.0 stars, 1600 reviews.
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If I only used the inflator at home I might get a cordless but since I leave them in the vehicles the 12 Volt plug makes more sense .
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I’m going to guess it’s just because of the volume of air required to inflate the larger tires.
The pump may burn itself out while trying to inflate a 33-12.50-15
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I bought this model a few years back and love it. It’s super fast on car or truck tires. I keep it in the back of the car.
I use a hand pump. It takes 10 strokes to add a pound; I can do a 10 strokes in 10 seconds. It never breaks (use much more often for bicycle tires - they’re lots thinner and 100 psi) and never a worry about running down the battery in a remote spot.
I got this for my daughter from HF. Simple and cheap. I have used the pump several times, before I replaced her rusty rims.
I bought a Sanborn compressor at Menards something like 25 years ago. Back then (might still be today, dunno) Sanborn was made by Coleman, and the main difference was that the Sanborn version used an oiled pump, which is quieter and less likely to break. I hauled that thing all over the country with me when I was moving around a lot early in my first career. I was always the only weirdo at the cheap apartment complex with an air compressor in his garage. But my neighbors all had me inflate their tires. I should have charged money - could have moved to a better apartment maybe. 
A quarter century later and it’s still running like new. It’s now shoved in the corner of the garage and hooked up to a RapidAir distribution system with outlets on either side of the garage, plus a drop down hose reel in the center that’s long enough to stretch out to the driveway. I plugged the compressor into a smart switch so I can turn it on by voice, which means I can have stuff around the compressor without blocking me from turning it on. That’s handy because my garage is pretty tight, especially with it being a hybrid car-work and wood-work setup as well as holding 3 cars.
I also replaced the drain petcock with a 90 degree elbow and a long extension, with a long-handled ball valve on the end. The petcock was a pain because you had to tilt the compressor back to get to it, which means you can’t have anything in the way, and I needed to have it behind the storage spot for a large combo table/mitre saw and router station I built for the wood tools.
And the way the petcocks are built, the handle always ends up snapping off because the valve sticks when it’s closed and you have to put a decent amount of torque on it to break it loose. It’s made of cheap, soft metal, so it breaks off, and then you have to open it with a visegrips until you get around to replacing it. The ball valve works a lot better, and since it sticks out from the compressor I can still get to it even with the table in the way.
I got an inflator with a pressure gauge built in, so I just hook the inflator to the valve stem and fill the tire, which is much faster than swapping inflator and pressure gauge constantly until you get it right. That style of inflator has a double-action handle. Squeeze it halfway to let air out, and all the way to put air in. They don’t cost much money, either. Modern cars with the in-dash tire pressure display are great, because it’s an automatic accuracy check for the pressure gauge.
It’s a pretty handy setup, and it really didn’t cost very much to do, especially with the expenditures spread out over a couple of decades. I don’t just use it to inflate tires or break loose lugnuts that some idiot shop decided to install with an air gun set to “weld,” but also to blow out our drip irrigation system for our gardens in the winter, and for a brad and a pin nailer when I’m building stuff out of trees.
The “not truck tires” part might imply that either their motor or compressor will overheat and suffer damage in the time it takes to inflate a larger tire. I don’t own one, but once helped a neighbor with his and seem to recall it had maximum continuous usage limit. These pumps are made to a price point and appear to be very light duty.
That’s really not an issue. Just measure at home how many PSI are needed and add that amount at the station.
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