OK I am soooo sick of waiting on the air-up lines at the beach to fill my tires, b/c some of the people doing it are half spaz. Does anyone have or have any good ideas for on-board air. I was looking at the q-industries mv-50 and the ARB ckmp12 air compressor that connects to the battery via alligator clips and the reviews seem good. Just trying to get some ideas. I am running the stock Michelin cross terr 18" and air down to 18 lbs from 32 lbs. Thanks.

Hey there. I'm looking to do the same. So far what I've found was that yea the MV50 was cheap way to go and it does the job. It can be modded for onboard with and without a tank set up. Moving up I found a lot of people installing Viair Systems... everyone from FJ's, Jeeps to Expedition guys are doing the full kits. Viair also has a pretty reputable following amongst the low-riding airbag scene so their compressors go through some hell in both engine bay and underneath body installs even though they aren't water sealed like the more expensive ExtremeAire's. One thing to keep in mind is that a good compressor will have 100% duty cycles. This means after airing up say 2-3 tires, the compressor won't auto shutdown because it overheated. Roughly speaking Viair/ExtremeAire will fill a 35" tire from 15psi to 30psi in-around three and a half minutes.

Another option are Co2 tanks. They are fast and can do a 35" tire from 15psi to 30psi roughly around 45 seconds. From what I've read the drawbacks are that you have to keep refilling the tanks which can be anywhere from $15 to $20 and say a 15lb tank will last you 16 35" tires to 30psi. Which is cool because it's instant and fast but when you want to help your buddies out with air, your tank will deplete quickly. One last thing is I've read that Co2's don't last as long as normal air in tires. For example one guy said when he air's up after trail runs with Co2 a week later he has to put more air in them. But if he airs up with normal air it'll last entire month.

I'm sure other's with first hand experience can chime here but this is from what I've read so far.

Good luck!

I'd go with a 10lb CO2 bottle and be done with it. I've burnt up several of those under $150 compressors.

For $250 and around $10 each fill-up, I went with this system. (mine is the 15lb one though)

http://www.offroadairstore.com/servlet/Detail?no=7

You could go all season on your small tires. I use mine on my crawler with 37's and get about 1/2 season of wheeling fill-ups (about 6) before it runs out.

Find a fire extinguisher store for the best refill prices on CO2. Mine charges $9.50 to fill my 15lb tank. You can run air tools off of this too. I'd skip the expensive regulator and just get the fixed 150psi one.

I own the Q-Industries MV-50 and I have been pleased with it so far. It seems to be quite durable for a smaller, inexpensive unit, but time will tell I guess. I've used it about a dozen times and have filled up some of my buddies tires as well. The O2 tank is definitely faster, but I didn't want to worry about lugging that around in my 4R and I didn't want to mount it.

The drawback of the portable air compressors is that they can take a while to refill you tires (4 or 5 minutes per tire depending on tire size and how much psi you are putting in) but I'm typically not in a huge hurry when I am done wheel'n either.