MICHELIN 12266 High Power Rapid Tyre Inflator with Pre-Set, USB Mobile Charging, 12V DC socket, LED Lights, and large back lit display

While it may be only the first day of my experience, I felt that I can rate my Michelin Tyre Inflator based on my previous experiences and my first impressions with this unit.I have been driving vehicles for decades and this must be my sixth or seventh electric Inflator. However, I was excited from the word go.I am not going to write here whether you need a tyre inflator or not. It is your choice. But for those who want one, I feel that they will more or less identify themselves with my experiences.I also started with foot pumps and graduated to electrically operated ones. Initially, like most of the people, I picked up the low cost ones which conked off within 30-40 uses or if used for more than 10 minutes at a stretch. Conking off does not mean total shutoff. They just don't inflate beyond 10-15 psi. Most of them move from my cars to kids' cycles. Or lying somewhere in the garage cupboard.I then started buying various makes which are more expensive (Rs.1000-2000 range) from SE Asia or even Germany. However, I suspect all of them anyway made in China and have similar characteristics. Analog needle type gauges which can be +/- 5 psi in terms of accuracy (if you ignore the wrong PSI and Pa scale placement matchings), highly noisy (always the KRRrrrrrrr & KiT Kit Kits together) and jump or walk around during operation. You just have to hold them with hand. The switches or the build quality was nothing to write about. And as the age goes up, ie., within 15-20 uses the time taken for inflating increases. They just struggle beyond 30 psi. And between a small car (say an Alto or an I-10) or a SUV, they show their weakness immediately, in terms of time taken per psi of pumping in the 25-35 psi range.With this background and when my German unit became weak and seized one day, I finally decided that I will pick up the most expensive compact inflator, which happened to be Michelin 12266, among the reputable brands. I noticed that there were no reviews for this on Amazon, in our country, despite a lot of people looking at it and probably leaving it due to high price.But let me confidently tell you. If you are fed up with your various electric inflators, you can as well try this. It is also made in China, but looks like those high quality items (Laptops, cell phones etc) which come from China. Hopefully Michelin brand and QC should count.Despite the fact this is only a one day of experience, I feel reasonably confident that it will work better and longer than my previous ones. Cross my fingers and pray. Anyway, I will tell you the reasons for my optimism.a. The quality of body, switches, cable and hose are superb. The packing is typical Michelin.b. The first surprise is that this is the lowest noise making inflator that I have seen. It is very pleasant. In fact, my neighbor who was cleaning his car, about 5 car bays away, could not hear it till I wanted to showoff my new acquisition.c. My Grand I-10 & I-10 tyres were at 27-28 psi and one of the tyres of my Ford Endeavour was at 22 psi. It took a few seconds for small car tyres and less than 2-3 minutes for the big ones to reach the recommended pressure. Even the hose did not heat up till I went to my sixth or seventh tyre. I kept trying on our neighbours' cars and even after six cars (x4 tyres each) the body did not show any traces of heat. The noise did not change.d. The unit stayed on ground with reasonable stability. At least it did not jump around.e. The accuracy of the digital gauge was unbelievable. I checked thrice at various Psi pressures with my high end sensitive hand guage and if we really want to split hairs, it perhaps would be less than 0.5 at our normal pressures. (Anyway I keep about 0.5 higher for compensating possible loss while removing the pressure hose).f. Auto cut off (it tries 3-4 times at the end for accuracy at the end, due to sensor) is a big relief. Combined with the non-walk character, you can leave it to its work and attend to other jobs on the car. It just switches off at the pre-set pressure that you feed in. It also remembers this for the next time.g. Though the 12V power output socket and the USB charging port were not the main reasons for picking this unit up, they add to the convenience. Mainly if you have a small test lamp / emergency light and have only one 12V socket in your car. Think of a situation that you wanted to fill up air on a dark highway-side as well as use your plug-in lamp, you have the convenience. And of course, you get double the length of electric cable for your plug in lamp to reach more than 8-10 feet away from your electric socket. The socket works just fine. My charge-dead, Thule Clamp lamp worked brightly from the first second of plugging in.May be a protective case to keep it in and a better On/Off feel (the visible difference in height of the button between both the positions is nil, though the guide says otherwise) could have made it more desirable.All in all, I feel that it is money well spent and the unit hopefully will continue to work for longer period than my previous ones.If you are one of those who are sensitive about keeping your tyre inflation pressures maintained correctly always, but somehow keep postponing due to long queues and inconvenience at the pumps or faced a situation when one sudden morning you found one of the tyre's inflation has come down, have a good tyre inflator like this one. And for heaven's sake don't go through the entire cycle of my (or some of my friends out there) experiences to finally pick up a good one. Just invest in this one and you will not regret.

Bought it approx 06 months ago . Found it handy and easy to use . Also Good Quality product.

Good product. Works good and sturdy build. Only bothering things is the power wire is too thin.

I bought this after my last Tyre inflator conked out after 13 years of service. It was a cheaper Chinese one, but it still lasted long. On the other hand, this one is quite sturdy and well-built. At 3.5k it is expensive compared to other units you get but performance is much better I believe. I use it on my Innova. It fills the air much faster—from 28psi to 35psi in less than a minute. It doesn't get heated up or make too much noise. The cables are big enough. It comes with a pouch so easy to carry. Much smaller than what it looks in a picture. Smaller than my previous one. The digital gauge is very accurate and matches my TPMS readings exactly. I always carry this on long drives. Overall very happy with the Quality.

Before buying the item I did go through the reviews which helped me in taking an informed decision. I shall give my perspective of the product. I had observed that the air filling stations of many petrol pumps are not calibrated in my city. It will be a similar case elsewhere. Petrol pumps may not like to hassle themselves in calibrating their equipment Hence, 33 psi could be 35 psi or 32 psi. Also, the availability of a tyre inflator could obviate the need of hitting petrol pump frequently since petrol could be filled in one go instead of small quantities. Before buying this product, I had purchased Michelin Tyre Pressure Sensor to compare with air filling stations. I found this difference I mentioned above during these comparisons. Hence, I decided to buy the item. While using it today, I noticed that the tyre inflator sensor was under reading by 1 psi wrt the tyre pressure sensor. Now I had no way of knowing which one was correct unless I checked with a third sensor which for me was too much of effort. This observation apart for both Michelin products, I'm fully contented with the tyre inflator. All plus points mentioned in various reviews holds good. It is fast, has a low decibel level during inflation and a hassle free operation. Some useful attachments have been provided to inflate toys, bicycle, etc. Car tyres can be inflated to 40 psi. A handle designed to be flush with the body would be value addition. A price of about ₹4000/- would be great value for money. 5K is a tad pricey. However, the quality & finesse of the product is top notch (it's made in China by the way).

Best ever tyre infalator

I returned this product. Couple of buttons were not working, some was behaving incorrectly. It was very noisy too. Later I found similar feedback from other buyers. So I don’t think the issue is with my copy only.On the other hand, considering this is from a reputed brand, I am not sure if something is related to the seller.

Don't get me wrong, this is an excellent tyre inflator. but the pressure i set and it delivers are different. it is usually + 2-3 units higher when checked with Michelin air pressure gauge 4203. this could be bad in some cases. I dont trust the gauge on tyre inflator and so now i double check each time i inflate tyre.