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Product Detail

Michelin Hi Power Rapid Tyre Inflator 12262

High power - inflates a fully deflated car tyre in under 3 minutes
Patented Quiet-Motor™ technology
Accurate to +/- 1 PSI (up to 50 PSI)
Easy to read pressure/preset/auto cut-off
Displays in PSI, BAR and kPa

What Car? Magazine test of tyre inflators on 7th March 2008 awarded the Michelin Hi-Power a 5 star rating and second place overall.

Michelin Hi-power Rapid Tyre Inflator 12262
RRP £38.99
Weight 1.70kg

For Super-fast inflation; nicely made; handy features
Against Quite bulky

Performance
Only 13 seconds behind the fastest inflator, with a time of four minutes 22 seconds. The Michelin was more accurate, though, and its digital gauge was only one PSI out (it read 30 PSI when the true pressure was 31 PSI). It was super-steady when pumping, too, and not that noisy. It's probably the best overall for performance in our tests.

Ease of operation
The preset auto cut-off made inflating simply a case of choosing a pressure, plugging it in and switching it on. The cake-shape styling might look good, but the design isn’t great for practicality: unless you’ve got big hands, you’ll need to use both of them to move it about. A cubbyhole on the base on the unit kept the power lead tucked out of the way when we’d finished pumping.

Buying
The cheapest price we found was £29.99 at Halfords. That’s only a fiver more than the cheaper Michelin unit (the 12V Digital Inflator) and well worth the extra cash, we reckon. There are cheaper and more compact units, but if space in your boot isn’t hard to come by the High Power is tough to beat.

Quality
Looked as good as a tyre inflator can, and felt nicely bolted together. The aluminium fins around the side gave the Michelin a more solid feel than most of the units here, and we reckon the sturdy screw-on tyre valve connection should last a while. The rubber pads on the base killed any vibrations from the electric motor, too.

Special features
Comes with some bright LED lights on the front – handy if you’re trying to find your way around a flat tyre in the dark. The preset auto cut-off feature was useful, too, and meant we didn’t have to constantly keep our eyes on the pressure gauge when pumping up a tyre. All you do is dial in the desired pressure, and the unit switches itself off when the tyre is fully inflated.