Most of the options on this list will refer to various numbers in “psi.” It’s short for “Pound per Square Inch” or “Pound-Force per Square Inch,” which is a unit of pressure.

But how much do you need to inflate a car tire, and how much can you expect to get from a car tire pump like the ones listed here?

An ordinary car tire should have 30-35 psi, generally speaking. You should check your manufacturer’s recommendation, which is probably printed on a label inside your car, to be sure.

In terms of buying a car tire inflator though, the most important factor is whether or not it can take a tire from 0 to 35 psi, and ideally if it can do that pretty quickly (within a few minutes).

Pretty straightforward, right?

And the good news is that the options listed here can handle that.

But while that’s what’s needed for the emergency flat tire situation, you’ll probably need to inflate your tires consistently, though to a lesser degree, because tires can lose pressure over time.

They also can lose pressure when it gets colder: roughly speaking, every 10-degree temperature drop translates to 1 psi dropping from the tire. Even if your tires don’t go flat, they could make steering difficult or incur longer-term damage.

So it’s good to make sure that your car tire inflator can be used not just for that one-time crucial moment job, but for smaller and more routine pumps.

One final note: most of the time, a car tire inflator is not intended for use on large tires. “Large” in this case means truck, RV, bus, or even large SUV tires. (Typically a mid-sized SUV is workable).

You may find some complaints from customers that a certain car tire inflator couldn’t successfully inflate their tire enough, but upon closer inspection, you’ll find they were trying to inflate more than just normal car tires.

You may have noticed that a lot of features are repeated among the items here. That’s because they’re some of the best options around. But they do range quite a bit in importance.

So let’s just consider these features in three rough categories of importance.

First, these are the most important features/specifications:

• Ability to raise pressure from 0 to 35, ideally within minutes
• Longevity/ability to perform over time and not just more than once
• Flashlight feature for low-light environments
• Pressure gauges

r purchase, plus it’s useful for those regular pressure tune-ups mentioned earlier.

A flashlight is very useful for dark environments. No one wants to be stuck on the side of the road at night time, or when day passes during a blackout.

It may not be strictly necessary for the functioning of a car tire inflator, but it sure is helpful in the situations you’d want your inflator in the most.

And a pressure gauge? It helps to know how much inflating your tire needs (or if it doesn’t).

Anyway, here are features that aren’t strictly necessary, but which are still very useful:

• Auto-off function
• Longer power cords (11ft or more)
• Multiple power sourcing, so it can be charged from the car or a home outlet
• Easily stored in a car without taking up too much space, ideally with a handy storage bag

An auto-off feature is very useful both for ease of use and for general safety reasons:

First, being able to just pre-set a needed pressure and wait until it’s reached can save you a lot of time and stress. Some auto-off features don’t require a preset, and shut off based on detection of a given pressure alone. Presets are probably better, but both are useful.

Second, auto-off features reduce the risk of over-inflating a tire, or any other inflatable object you’re using it on.

The other features just make life easier for the times that you have to use the car tire inflator.

And here are some features that are just nice, but probably not the most important things for most customers:

• >Built-in handles
• LCD display, which makes it easier to read problems and progress
• Additional power sourcing beyond car or home outlets (like USB connections)
• Lack of noisiness/quiet performance
• Additional nozzle adapters for inflating other objects

As for the last item on that list…

Yes, this list is about the best CAR tire inflator. But all the options here are basically multi-tools that can inflate other objects as well.

So it’s worth asking yourself…

How much do you care about inflating other objects?

Your primary objective can still be to have a good car tire pump. But some people may have other inflatable objects around their home. For those people, why not get a device that can handle those too?

If you care about this, the primary things to keep an eye on are ease of use and the number of nozzle adapters.

Ease of use matters to begin with when inflating a car tire. But it’s also important if you’re potentially going to use it on more than one other object, because other inflatables often need to be pumped more regularly.

Nozzle adapters matter because while the best car tire inflators have adapters, some have only a couple adapters included, and others have 3-4 adapters included. So the range of objects you can inflate aside from a car tire may vary quite a bit.