The $50 MV50 air compressor. Yay or nay?

The ubiquitous MV50 air compressor, which is sold under a dozen different brands as near as I can tell, is not one I usually recommend. When they work, they work okay—not nearly as well as a truly high-quality compressor from Viair or ARB or Extreme Outback, but okay. Certainly the MV50 is a far better choice than those $29 plastic-bodied units with built-in flashlights that plug into the cigarette lighter. The MV50 has a metal body, and connects directly to the vehicle’s battery, which allows it to draw half-way decent amperage and thus put out halfway decent volume.

The problem with the MV 50s with which I’ve had experience has been consistency. Some owners have brilliant luck with them and wouldn’t use anything else; others have had them fail weeks into ownership. Yet so popular are they that you can easily find articles on hacking the unit for better reliability.

Recently I’ve been alerted to the MV50—in this case sold as a Masterflow Tsunami MF-1050—selling for under $50 on the Pep Boys eBay store (here at publication), with free shipping. At that price it’s a tempting bargain, even given the random instances of early failure.

I still urge those who ask me to spend til it hurts on their compressor, and I’ve never once had anyone come back and say he was sorry he bought an ARB Twin or an Extreme Outback ExtremeAir or even a Viair 400P. But if you really, really can’t afford that kind of money, at $50 the MV50 is a decent proposition—and way, way better than no compressor at all.