Use of Compressor Kit Without Sealant?

[Shaun RC300h]

Hi, had a look at the compressor kit this morning and was looking to use this instead of going to garage to inflate tyres (regular top up) - offers an alternative of doing from home. However, the kit only has hose on sealant bottle and not on the compressor box itself. It looks like you may be able to hose clip hose and valve onto compressor so it doubles up as normal pump.

Anyone tried this? Seems a bit daft to have a compressor kit that can only be used with the sealant!

Thanks

Shaun

 

[dutchie01]

why would you go to a garage to inflate your tyres?

[sorcerer]

Not sure what you mean by 'sealant', 'sealant bottle' and 'compressor box'? Maybe some pictures would help us understand what you've got and what you're trying to do with it.

I bought a small air compressor from Aldi a while ago that sits in my garage. I have an air hose connected to it and I bought a kit of air tools to use with it, amongst which is a tyre  inflator attachment, that I just put on the end of the hose to inflate my tyres. In the picture below, 1 attaches to the compressor, 2 attaches to 3, and 4 attaches to the tyre valve, job done:

 

[Linas.P]

I would not advice it, the included compressor is for "emergency only" and first of all it would not accurately inflate your tires, secondly it would probably break if you start using it more often. I am not even sure if it can reach the desired pressure anyway, I might be wrong but it only works in conjunction with sealant and temporary fixes tire i.e. inflates it to minimum pressure by using both pressure from compressor and chemical reaction when sealant gets pumped into the tire. In short - your compressor is not fit for that purpose.

Myself I get nitrogen fill when fitting new tires and it mostly lasts 6-9 months before I need to inflate it. I do have little electrical gauge to check the pressure and only inflate the tires if they need it... most likely they won't. after initial 6-9 months I simply use air at petrol stations to top-up and to my surprise they pump the tires quite accurately and even air fill last good 3 months before needing top-up. 

[Shaun RC300h]

2 hours ago, dutchie01 said:

why would you go to a garage to inflate your tyres?

Meant petrol garage rather than a car garage (if that makes sense) 😊

[Shaun RC300h]

1 hour ago, sorcerer said:

Not sure what you mean by 'sealant', 'sealant bottle' and 'compressor box'? Maybe some pictures would help us understand what you've got and what you're trying to do with it.

I bought a small air compressor from Aldi a while ago that sits in my garage. I have an air hose connected to it and I bought a kit of air tools to use with it, amongst which is a tyre  inflator attachment, that I just put on the end of the hose to inflate my tyres. In the picture below, 1 attaches to the compressor, 2 attaches to 3, and 4 attaches to the tyre valve, job done:

 

Will try and add photo sometime (everything put back in boot now). Compressor box has no hose. The sealant bottle has the hose and plugs in to the compressr box. Hopefully will all become clear with photos.

[Shaun RC300h]

19 minutes ago, Shaun RC300h said:

Will try and add photo sometime (everything put back in boot now). Compressor box has no hose. The sealant bottle has the hose and plugs in to the compressr box. Hopefully will all become clear with photos.

Hopefully the pic helps. The main compressor box has no hose. Instead the sealant bottle plugs into the compressor box and the hose would then plug into the tyre valve. The top (of the pic) of the sealent bottle plugs (vertically) into the top left hand corner of the compressor box. At the head of the bottle you can see where the hose is clipped on. I was thinking of getting a similar hose and clipping straight onto the compressor box (there is a stem you could do this on you can see in the picture) and bypassing the sealant bottle. 

It means you could use the compressor box as a simple pump and not just a repair device.

[Shaun RC300h]

2 hours ago, Linas.P said:

I would not advice it, the included compressor is for "emergency only" and first of all it would not accurately inflate your tires, secondly it would probably break if you start using it more often. I am not even sure if it can reach the desired pressure anyway, I might be wrong but it only works in conjunction with sealant and temporary fixes tire i.e. inflates it to minimum pressure by using both pressure from compressor and chemical reaction when sealant gets pumped into the tire. In short - your compressor is not fit for that purpose.

Myself I get nitrogen fill when fitting new tires and it mostly lasts 6-9 months before I need to inflate it. I do have little electrical gauge to check the pressure and only inflate the tires if they need it... most likely they won't. after initial 6-9 months I simply use air at petrol stations to top-up and to my surprise they pump the tires quite accurately and even air fill last good 3 months before needing top-up. 

Thanks Linas. You can see my pics below but your advice means I probably won't touch. Once used expect I will just replace with a separate compressor pump and sealant bottle. 

[sorcerer]

Aha, right, I see now. Presumably, that's something that came with the car, is it? I thought we were talking about a 'real' compressor like the one I got from Aldi (below).

My LPG tank lives in the spare wheel well so I carry around a similar compressor to the one you've got and a can of Holts TyreWeld for small punctures, anything bigger and I'd have to call out the breakdown people.

 

This is the one that I carry around in the car for emergencies:

[Linas.P]

2 hours ago, Shaun RC300h said:

Thanks Linas. You can see my pics below but your advice means I probably won't touch. Once used expect I will just replace with a separate compressor pump and sealant bottle. 

No problem. You will probably need to check with Lexus, I don't know whenever compressor is disposable or you can reuse it and just buy sealant. On BMW it was reusable.

@soramad - yep these pumps are now becoming standard with car without spare wheels, I had it on my BMW... still prefer spare even if it is space saver. In fact the only puncture I had on BMW I had to call trailer, because tire had dismounted itself. These kits are only good for something like puncture from nail or something similar.

[rayaans]

I'd recommend the Ring RAC635. I use it to top up all my vehicles including the lawnmower and bicycles - takes about 20s to top up from 31 to 36psi on 20" RX wheels and is pretty handy in an emergency. The one below is an older model but you can see how it works from an independent tester even though the tyre is completely flat.

I like how it comes in a carry case and has different lights on it - a white light for illumination, solid red light and flashing red lights for warnings

From memory I think its about £25-30 to buy

[Shaun RC300h]

16 hours ago, rayaans said:

I'd recommend the Ring RAC635. I use it to top up all my vehicles including the lawnmower and bicycles - takes about 20s to top up from 31 to 36psi on 20" RX wheels and is pretty handy in an emergency. The one below is an older model but you can see how it works from an independent tester even though the tyre is completely flat.

I like how it comes in a carry case and has different lights on it - a white light for illumination, solid red light and flashing red lights for warnings

From memory I think its about £25-30 to buy

Thanks 👍

[Linas.P]

18 hours ago, rayaans said:

 takes about 20s to top up from 31 to 36psi

Does it actually inflates accurately? Or just "thereabouts"... I used to have few of these 12v pumps and they never inflate exactly, kind of tends to under-inflate by 1-2PSI and then you have to play game of setting in little bit higher, checking again and it goes too high deflating it bit by bit. After a while you kind of guesstimate what you need to set i.e. if you want 38 PSI, you set it to 41 and in inflates something like 38.5 which is close enough.

[rayaans]

4 hours ago, Linas.P said:

Does it actually inflates accurately? Or just "thereabouts"... I used to have few of these 12v pumps and they never inflate exactly, kind of tends to under-inflate by 1-2PSI and then you have to play game of setting in little bit higher, checking again and it goes too high deflating it bit by bit. After a while you kind of guesstimate what you need to set i.e. if you want 38 PSI, you set it to 41 and in inflates something like 38.5 which is close enough.

I'd presume it does it exactly. I havent really checked.

But the closest estimate I can make is that the IS300h has TPMS set to 36psi. It did come up with the yellow low pressure warning once or twice and I put the number on the compressor to 36psi. It inflated the tyres to 36.5psi and turned off and I haven't had the TPMS go off since. So it is reasonably accurate - im not overly concerned about tyre pressures as long as its near enough anyway as there are so many variables changing them all the time