ARB Digital Tyre Inflator Review
In this post we review the ARB Digital Tyre Inflator.
As part of our on-board ARB twin motor compressor setup, we needed a tyre inflator and air hose. We chose to purchase the ARB pump up kit which came with a 6-metre hose and connectors. This kit came with an inflator connection, but we really wanted an inflator that had a pressure gauge making airing up our tyres far easier. We had seen the ARB digital tyre inflator in a mate’s setup, and it seemed to work well so we decided to stick with the ARB theme in our 4WD and this is what we think of it 12 months on.
The ARB digital tyre inflator is not cheap at around $80 but ARB is known for making quality air compressor gear for 4WDs. There are cheaper options that are analogue compared to digital so pick the right product for what you want. We do discuss the digital reading compared to analogue later in this post.
NB: 2023 UPDATE: I have not had the time to update the detail in this review post but, please note the second ARB digital tyre inflator that we received under warranty has since failed (24 months after replacement). The digital gauge shows a reading of 0 PSI only. We have now replaced this with an analogue tyre inflator by Jamec Pem. We removed the quick connect fitting from the ARB tyre inflator and made an adaptor to allow us to use the standard inflator on our ARB hose. Once we update this review we will remove this note.
Digital Tyre Inflator Features
Let us sum up the main features of the ARB digital tyre inflator and what it allows you to do:
- Inflate your tyres as you would expect.
- Deflate your tyres however we only use this option for minor adjustments (we use a quick tyre deflator for airing down).
- Measure your tyre pressures using the digital gauge.
- PVC coated braided hose that is 600mm long.
- Hose can be swivelled on either end for easy manoeuvrability.
- ARB claims an accuracy of plus or minus 1 PSI with pressures between 25 and 75 PSI.
- Battery life of approximately 200 hours of runtime.
- Uses two AAA batteries that can be replaced.
- Large blue backlight display.
- Battery level is also shown on the display.
- Set units to PSI or KPA.
- Pressure range of 0 to 200 PSI.
- Handle supply pressures up to 350 PSI.
- Protected with a ribbed rubber casing.
- Two buttons being power and function.
- Large thumb operated inflator button.
- Small deflator bleed button on the side of the unit.
Digital Gauge
The ARB digital tyre inflator has a digital gauge as the name suggests. The blue backlight display is large providing you with an easy-to-read pressure reading that goes to one decimal point. The light up display is great if you are ever airing up when it is still dark as you can still easily see your pressure readings. The display provides you with your tyre pressure reading, the units (PSI or KPA) and a battery level indicator on the side. There are two buttons below the display. One button is to power the gauge on or off. The other button is a function button which basically allows you to change the units of measure which will change along the bottom of the display. It is super simple to operate, as it should be.
Inflating Tyres
The ARB digital tyre inflator has a PVC coated braided hose, which is long enough at 600 mm, and swivels on either end allowing a lot of manoeuvrability when moving around. The problem though is the chuck on the end of this hose. We have had constant problems with the ARB supplied chuck. It is so temperamental and extremely hard to get the chuck to lock on to the tyre valve. In most instances you need to hold the chuck onto the valve to keep a proper seal. As a result, we have since replaced this chuck with a far better quality one, and had no issues since.
Once you have the end of the hose connected to your tyre valve, the large thumb operated inflator button works well. It would have been amazing if there was a way to lock the inflator button in the on position when you are airing up from a low tyre pressure like 15 PSI. There is also a small deflator bleed button on the side of the digital tyre inflator. We use this all the time to make small adjustments to our tyre pressures when we have filled them up a little too much. ARB do claim an accuracy of plus or minus 1 PSI with pressures between 25 and 75 PSI. We have checked this with an analogue tyre pressure gauge and found the readings to be accurate.
Changing Batteries
The ARB digital tyre inflator is powered by two AAA batteries that can be replaced when they run flat. Replacing the batteries is simple. The batteries are at the back of the display unit and cannot be seen due to the protective rubber coating. To get access to the batteries you simply slide the rubber casing off the back, then you will see the battery compartment. Remove the battery compartment cover and you can then replace the batteries. No tools required and it will only take a few seconds to replace them.
Digital vs Analogue
Is a digital tyre inflator necessary compared to a traditional and simple analogue one? Having a digital reading is great making it easy to know your exact tyre pressure while pumping up your tyres to one decimal point. But is it that much better than an analogue reading?
To be perfectly honest an analogue tyre inflator will do the job just fine. On top of that you do not ever have to worry about replacing batteries or something else going wrong with a digital inflator. Your readings will always be fairly accurate using an analogue display with little room for error. An analogue inflator is a safer and more reliable option in our opinion. A digital inflator looks cool and does the job when everything is working, but when you can buy an analogue tyre inflator for more than half the price, we would say that is probably a better option. We use an analogue quick tyre deflator that has always worked well and provides really accurate pressure readings. So, if you want to save a bit of money go analogue as you will not have any issues. If you do want a nice big digital display, then the ARB digital tyre inflator has this feature, just be prepared to replace the chuck as it is useless.
What We Don't Like
Overall, we think the ARB digital tyre inflator is ok but as we highlighted above, going analogue is sometimes better. For what the ARB digital tyre inflator costs I would have expected every part to be top quality. The ARB chuck is terrible and has to be replaced. This one part of this product would make me purchase something else if I could do my time over.
Issues
We did have issues with the ARB digital tyre inflator gauge. We found that the digital gauge kept jumping all over the place giving us weird tyre pressure readings. From the research we did we found that this was a known issue with the ARB digital tyre inflator in a few of their production runs. We purchased ours from ARB Maroochydore so one day while driving past we stopped in and let them know the issues we were having. Thankfully, they said they knew about the issue and replaced it straight away no questions asked. This issue has not occurred again since it was replaced so it must have just been a once off problem with a few of them. At least it was an absolute breeze dealing with ARB when we did have a problem.
Overall Verdict
We have used our ARB digital tyre inflator for well over 12 months now. Overall, parts of the product are well-made but the chuck is a massive dissapointment. The large digital pressure reading is great, but to be perfectly honest it would not bother us going back to an analogue gauge. The swivel mechanisms on both ends of the hose make it easy to manoeuvre the inflator in the correct position. The rubber coating on the display unit provides fantastic protection as we have dropped it a few times. The small deflator bleed button on the side really helps to get our tyre pressures just right. We also think it would be great to be able to lock the inflator button in the on position however this is not a game changer for us. Running off batteries does mean they will need to be replaced at some point, but they are just AAA batteries and we always have a few spares in our setup, so this is not a problem for us.
Overall, we think the ARB digital tyre inflator is let down by the ARB chuck and for $80 I expected more. To be perfectly honest, going old fashioned and buying a cheaper and simpler analogue tyre inflator is probably best. At the end of the day, it is really going to come down to what you really want. If you want a digital tyre pressure reading, then you will get that with the ARB digital tyre inflator, but be prepared to change the chuck.
For more information on the ARB Digital Tyre Inflator check out their website here. This is not a sponsored post, we did buy this product ourselves and is an honest assessment of what we think about it.
If you would like to read more about how we installed our ARB Twin on-board compressor then check out our post here. For more information on our ARB Twin onboard compressor see our post here. To keep up to date on future posts and become apart of the 4WD Adventurer community please sign up here. You can also follows us on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube.
Thanks for reading legends.
The thoughts of Peter.
28/09/2024 @ 7:27 PM
Thanks for the review, I’ve also purchased one of these and have pretty much similar feedback about the chuck. Just curious to know what replacement chuck you purchased?
11/11/2024 @ 3:31 PM
G’day Sam,
Sorry for the late response. I replaced it with a Jamec Pem chuck. Same ones used on the Indeflate.
Cheers,
Peter