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i stop tonight to fill up a tire with air at my local gas station .for 3 mins of air they charged $1.00 and i know the compressor in the box is just like the little portable one you buy that plugs into a cigarette lighter in your car .
talk about a rip-off but i was in a bind and had a long drive ahead of me. so i drop my 4 quarters into the slot and filled my one tire it was down to like 15 pounds.

Days of full service are gone.

the local gas stations started charging for air about five years ago or so. the last time i went, it was $0.75 to have it run for 3 min or something...the best part was as soon as i put in the money, someone else flew over behind me and waiting impatiently to use it, since i had already paid. sad.

Fortunately I have a compressor in the garage.

Now on one hand I can't blame them. Gas stations used to be happy with giving you free air because back in old days MOST gas stations were garages with repair bays and a full compressor.

Nowadays they're all just convenience stores and they have to install that stand alone compressor, which probably get's abused badly all the time and required maintenance.

Still, a dollar a shot seems ridiculous. I can see a quarter.

I can honestly say that the first time I remember having to pay for air was about 16 years ago. I went to a 7-11 and they wanted 50 cents. Then from that point on every year the free ones became more and more rare. If you find a free one now days, you better mark it on your Nav, it might be one of the last of the mohicans..

eGo

I used it twice last year and never paid a dime. They did charge, but if I showed them my gas card, it was free for both the Chevron and Shell stations here.

I'm eternally grateful for the compressor I own at my home. No end of uses for compressed air.

That said, I do understand a small charge, however, if they are going to charge that much, I'd expect to at least fill all 4 tires & it not take 5 minutes each.

normalicy wrote:That said, I do understand a small charge, however, if they are going to charge that much, I'd expect to at least fill all 4 tires & it not take 5 minutes each.

I agree. I have a big old 60 gallon 2 stage compressor that fills tires quickly. Before that I used one of them crappy station compressors. Utter junk below 30 degrees.