Customer Reviews

Ring Automotive RAC750 230V Mains Powered Rapid Air Compressor, Incl. Storage Bag

This does what it says on the tin, but for the money, I think it could have had a pressure gauge, which you preset to whatever pressure you need and then it cuts off when it gets to it. The dial on the pressure gauge covers such a wide range that it's next to useless, as it's difficult to get an accurate read. Consequently, you need a separate pressure gauge, and need to keep taking the nozzle off to check it's the right pressure. Needless to say, every time you do this, you lose pressure trying to get the nozzle off and back on, and from the pressure gauge aswell. It's good at blowing up tyres, but so it should be for a mains compressor

After having bought other tyre inflaters that run off the car 12v supply over the years and realised they are a waste of money ,RAC750 - Mains Powered Tyre InflatorI decided to buy the "Which Best Buy", and WOW was I NOT dissapointed. I went out and checked/inflated the tyres on both our people carriers in no time at all.
The only small fault I would say is the inflater pipe could be a little longer. It has a handy bag to carry it in also.. A great product.

It pumps air into things.... and that's it, really.

It's not terribly exciting, it's quite expensive for what it is, and you certainly wouldn't get any brownie points from your missus for buying one for her Christmas present, but the good news is it does what it's supposed to do very much better than the generally worse-than-useless array of 12v DC "plug it into the cigarette lighter socket" pumps.

Other observations:

1. I'd expected it to be quicker than it is, having read all the guff about inflating tyres in seconds, but it's not bad.
2. The inflation hose would ideally be about 30cm longer.
3. You can skin the back of your finger very handily while cramming the hose or mains cable back into the storage "holes". Don't ask me how I know this.

I was very disappointed with this product. For a start I had great difficulty getting the thing on and off the tyre valves and the air hose is ridiculously short. The pressure gauge is calibrated up to 300psi so the graduations are very close together and hard to see. After inflating a tyre to what was 35 psi on the built-in gauge I checked it with a digital pressure gauge (accurate to +/- .5psi) and the tyre was shown to be 9 psi over inflated. I also tried it out on my wife's car with similar results. Trying to pack the thing back in its case to return to the retailer for a refund was a right fiddle - there's not enough room for the power cord and plug to be stowed away easily.
A tyre inflator should at least be accurate and this one was wildly out.
I really wanted this tyre inflator to work as I detest going to the garage to check my tyres.
Oh well - back to the drawing board I suppose.

I bought this recently, partly on the strength of the Amazon reviews, so there were no surprises. The pump seems effective, reasonably robust and quite quiet. Beyond that, the gauge is almost useless: mine jumps to 80 psi as soon as it gets going then slowly edges up. This means inflating by guesswork, removing the hose and checking with a separate gauge. The hose and adaptor could be better. I expect that pushing them back in the storage compartment after every use may eventually cause fraying. It looks as though fitting a replacement would involve dismantling the whole unit as the hose mounting is through the back of the storage compartment. The storage compartment for the flex is also too small (probably designed somewhere where they use smaller plugs than ours.) Struggling to get the flex back inside is likely to loosen the connections over time, but again, it's mounted through the back of the compartment with no obvious access to tighten the connections or fit a replacement.

Although the RAC (Royal Automobile Club) does sell its own range of car stuff, the RAC in RAC750 stands for Ring Automotive Company. Nothing wrong with Ring - I can see their premises from my house - but it's worth knowing.

As other reviewers have stated, you will have great difficulty simply getting the air hose on and off the tyre valves, a task made worse by the fact the hose is far too short. On a cold day with what feels like someone else's hands, it is simply not possible to pull the connector off a valve without losing two or more seconds of air. This is because the connector is of very poor quality, and is very poorly finished as well. It is not metal like you might find on your local forecourt but cheap feeling plastic.

The gauge on the unit reaches to a stratospheric pressure nobody in the real world wants (300 psi) meaning the more ordinary numbers you do (20-40 psi) are crammed together at the start of the dial and are impossible to read accurately. A twitch of the needle covers a huge range of pressures and the unit over-reads by 10 psi when the pump is running, making it a game of switching the thing on/off to see when the pressure is right.

On that subject, pumping the rear tyre on my wife's car to 32 psi and then checking with an external digital gauge showed it had been over-inflated by almost 6 psi, and others here on Amazon alone have reported even wilder discrepancies. So it's outright dangerous too.

While it does do the job of inflating tyres very well, and being 240V - the main reason I chose it - you have no fear of draining your car battery, and while the pressure stays good, strong and constant throughout, it is dangerously inaccurate and broadly worthless because of that.

Ring is a British company.

This compressor works, it does inflate my Hilux 4x4 tyres. Rapid, well not exactly. I've only had it for a few weeks so cannot vouch for longevity.
I like to buy good quality tools and this tyre inflator is very plasticy, if I had actually viewed the product in the shop (instead of online) I probably wouldn't have bought it due to the cheap quality of the casing and plastic dial that was instantly scratched by the unit tipping over on its side. In short, it works so far but I wouldn't recommend it to some one who expects good quality.

Whist it can and does pump up tyres etc quickly it has drawbacks
The pressure gauge is erratic, inaccurate, and cannot be preset, an accurate separate pressure gauge is essential
a long extension mains lead is required to connect it to the car tyres
it is difficult to put away the mains lead and plug back into its storage space
a metal tyre connecter would be preferable to the plastic one provided which appears flimsy
in use, the grey back cover keeps falling off but clicks back easily
tilting the machine whilst in use to read the pressure gauge affects it running smoothly

Does what it is intended to do, blows up the tyres on my 4x4 in reasonable time and without over-heating, although I always give the motor a brief rest after every couple of minutes. The plastic connection valve would be better in metal but at the moment it's holding up. The noise level is acceptable and the bundled adaptors handy for miscellaneous inflatables

This is great for fast inflating, and it's not half as noisy as I was expecting. Have only used it so far for topping up my car tyres and bike tyres. Before topping up, one car tyre was about 6lb/sq inch short of what it should be. The Ring pumped it up to the required level within about 6 seconds. It's so quick you have to be careful not to over-inflate (especially with bike tyres) - just a matter of getting used to it. The only niggle is the built-in dial which is not much use as a pressure indicator. You need to use a hand-held gauge to check the tyre pressure accurately. Apart from that I'm very pleased I got this Ring. It came well packed, has its own handy carry bag, and feels solid and well made. A great product.