Interesting event that happened to me this evening. I went out to my Intrepid and found that my right-rear tire had picked up a nice piece of metal between .5-1 inch in diameter somewhere in a trip I took the previous night and was flat as a pancake. I soon determined after trying to pump it up with my compact tire compressor that the leak was bad enough that I did not want to try airing it up any further as it seemed to hit a ceiling of 15 psi (plus the loud hissing sound did not fill me with confidence). I pulled out my full-sized spare which until now I had never used in the last five years just to find that five years of sitting in that trunk doing nothing had done little to help the air pressure and the rim itself was a mag (not the best idea granted but that was all that was available at the time). It was practically flat itself, so I plugged in the compact compressor to the spare and in about half the time it had just under 30 psi.

Not having that compact compressor would have made my spare worthless and would have forced me to walk about two miles to the nearest Casey's (or any other gas stations with an air compressor). In short, it pays it be a packrat and have any possible emergency equipment that you could need in your trunk. Also, having a full-sized allows me to drive on any roads I want to without worrying (unlike donut spares). That compressor has come in handy for my friends on countless occasions.