Hi everyone,

Does the factory air compressor run/fill when you turn on the car? In other words, is it holding pressure all the time, or do you turn it on and it "kicks in" when you need it?

Thanks!

 

Land Rover fitting instructions (operation instructions near bottom of that page step 30).

The steps in the above link do say to keep the engine running. I generally do just that out of an abundance of caution given all the electrics in the rig and a dead or weak battery would be an issue. I've only seen a compressor draw down a battery to very low levels once. 'Twas on a buddies very old rig many, many years ago - sorta raised a red flag for me going forward.

I consider the unit a more on demand type system so there's no reservoir/tank holding per se. Hook-up the hose to tire - hose to compressor - tap dial to turn compressor on - set psi - tap dial - it'll run until it's very near the set psi, then pulse a bit near the end of the filling process to hit the specified psi. Lather, rinse, repeat for each tire. It's supposed to work in reverse too - as a deflation system according to the instructions linked earlier. I've never used my onboard compressor to deflate as I typically use my

Staun tire deflators

Staun tire deflators

for that operation out of convenience.

EDIT: I've had a failure in my compressor that required a firmware upgrade. Of course it failed at the worst possible location but I muddled through. If it's new install I'd make sure they do the firmware upgrade as part of the intitial installation

Lots of discussion in another thread in the forum but I can't immediately find the link (EDIT2: found the other thread here)

Hope that helps
Cheers
Huc

 

Thank you, that's super helpful!

Are folks using the compressor for non-Defender tasks: inflatable SUP? bike tires, etc.?

Really appreciate the help!