What Car? test: tyre inflators - 5th Halfords Rapid Digital £32.99

Halfords Rapid Digital Tyre Inflator
RRP £32.99
Best price £32.99 (Halfords.com)
Weight 1.02kg

For Handy feature to pre-set stop point; steady when inflating
Against Pricey; feels a bit cheap; inaccurate digital gauge

Overall


Performance
A reasonable inflation time of five minutes and 53 seconds. The digital pressure gauge wasn’t great, though, and kept flicking between 29.0 PSI and 32.0 PSI when the unit had stopped itself pumping. The actual pressure was 30.5 PSI, only half a PSI over the correct inflation.

Ease of operation
The Rapid is quite chunky, but has a handle making it easy to carry about. What made it particularly easy to use was the pre-set stop function. All you do is set the digital display to the correct pressure and flick the ‘on’ switch. When the tyre is pumped up, the Rapid shuts itself off.

Buying
Not cheap, but you might think the handy pre-set stop function is worth spending a bit extra on. The Rapid is a Halfords own-brand product, so you can’t buy it anywhere other than a Halfords store or at Halfords.com. That means you won’t get anything off the rather lofty price of £33.

Quality
The circular shape meant there weren’t any exposed gauge or switches. There were also cubbyholes for storing the 12-volt power leads and a range of adaptors for airbeds and footballs etc. The plastic casing did feel quite cheap and brittle, though, so we wouldn’t want to drop it. When inflating, the Rapid’s large footprint and padded base kept it very steady.

Special features
LEDs on the front helped us see what we were doing in the dark. Probably the best feature, though, was the pre-set stop function. Like all but one of the units tested, the Rapid came with a few adaptors for pumping up other items.