I looked at a lot of small compressors last year and settled on a 10 gallon Husky from Home Depot. Pumps to 175 psi and is very quiet. So far so good with it.
For pumping up tires in remote areas it's hard to beat the 12v portables. I put one in each vehicle. The Walmart brand you can program is pretty good at around 35 bucks.
It’s good if you’re satisfied with a 12V model.
However, it’s been my experience (with a half-dozen different brands of 12v units) they are only good for small toys, bicycles, etc. A pickup truck or tractor tire needs VOLUME the little 12v compressors simply don’t have, and you can Forget about installing a tire on a wheel or to set the bead.
The adverts on TV are time-lapsed to make it look like a few minutes is all it takes to inflate a completely flat automobile tire. In actual fact…IF (and that’s a B I G “if”)…. the tire has NO LEAK…it will take 30-45 minutes to inflate a 15” or larger tire… and that’s ANOTHER “IF”…that little 12V unit doesn’t overheat or burn up.
I hope that’s not what‘s in store for you.
Here’s a solution I’ve been using for Ten Years with very good results:
Cheap Harbor-Freight 3-gal “hot dog” compressor. (Reg $59 but on-sale for $39) It fit inside the RamBox on my pickup (powered the trainhorns in everyday-service) makes/stores 100 psi and requires 115VAC….which I supply from another cheap 400-watt 12V-powered inverter which I mounted in the 2012 truck. For ten years it inflated full sized tires on vehicles, travel-trailers on camping-trips, air mattresses, toys, and ran air tools for short periods. It was a handy source for a parts-blow-gun when working on a project out in the field.
Of course, many more modern trucks already have an inverter onboard. (My ‘24 Ram 2400 has a 400 watt factory-installed inverter with a very convenient outlet in the Rambox.)
(The wife even puilled a cute-trick with me on a long trip…. she plugged her “Instant-Pot” into the inverter and when we arrived at the destination the English Pot-Roast was READY. I was surprised that such kitchen-cookers/Crock-Pots often require less than 400 watts.)
While camping at Chaco Canyon we wanted to watch the Robert Redford DVD on Chaco one late night…. but discovered the DVD power-supply cord had broken. Little inverter to the Rescue! I used it to run the soldering-gun and repaired the DVD power-plug…and there we were in such a remote campout (so called “boon-docking”) …but we were “roughing it” laying in bed with a glass of wine watching Redford’s education about what we were about to hike-and-see the next day!
Well…. sorry to be so long-winded…but hope it gives some ideas as to what can be if you‘re willing to have a small inverter to power a “real” compressor.
ymmv