Anything that can improve your safety and boost the fuel economy of your motorhome has to be an excellent product to consider. So that’s why we have tested a selection of tyre compressors to find the best of the bunch. They’re readily available to buy for anyone who wants to maintain their vehicle at home and on the road, without all the frustrations of having to drive round with a handful of coins, looking for a fuel garage with a motorhome-accessible airline that’s actually working! 

We reviewed this Halfords Rapid Digital Tyre Inflator, which is certainly reasonably priced, at £34.99, alongside its slightly pricier cousin, the Halfords Advanced Rechargable Multi-Purpose Tyre Inflator at £54.99. We also checked out rival tyre compressors such as the Ring RAC640 Digital Air Compressor + Inflator & Deflator at £39.99. 

The main things that we were keen to test were typical tyre inflation speeds, how user-friendly the compressors are, the length of the power leads and air hoses, whether they connect directly to a battery terminal or have to reach to a cigarette socket and whether you can both deflate and inflate with the device.

We favoured tyre compressors with screw couplings that are less likely to fall off mid-air-flow. And then we looked at how easy the product is to read and use. Is the gauge accurate? Does it automatically stop when you get to the desired level of tyre inflation? And can you use it at night, or will you be juggling with a torch, grumbling, while trying to unscrew tyre valve caps so you can attach the airline?

We gave extra brownie points to products that went above and beyond the brief, such as this one. The Halfords Rapid Digital Tyre Inflator does come with lots of different adaptors so that you’ll be able to pump up footballs, inflatable boats, chairs and air beds, as well as keeping your motorhome tyres topped up to the optimum inflation levels you need.

Being small and, allegedly fast, this Halfords Rapid Digital Tyre Inflator is obviously a direct rival to Ring’s RAC630 Digital Compressor LED light – and they both cost the same amount: £34.99, at the time of our tyre inflator tests. So how do the two units fare against each other? Well, both have the digital gauge and auto-stop set-up, and both have a good selection of LED light options. But in the critical inflation test, the Ring RAC630 is the winner, with this Halfords unit managing to do the job in 3 mins 5 secs. And, frankly, the Ring is also the nicer unit to use. 

The Halfords Rapid Digital Tyre Inflator has an 0.5m-long air hose, which is a little shorter than most and, while the valve coupling is the preferred screw-on type, there isn’t a deflate button. 

Overall, if you’re aiming to spend around £35 on a tyre compressor for motorhome holidays, then the Ring RAC630 is the better unit to buy than this Halfords product. But only just.

You can buy this Halfords Rapid Digital Tyre Inflator and several other tyre compressors at Halfords, which has a store locator tool on its website and also offers home delivery service as well as ‘click and collect’ so that you can check stock levels of various products before you go, to save any risk of a wasted journey.