HI-TEC DIGITAL TIRE GAUGE

Based on the good reviews in Amazon I purchased several of these as Christmas stocking gifts. Although they were described as "easy to connect," some of the recipients were unable to use the gauge on their particular car/motorcycle/bicycle. For those where the connection worked, they were very pleased, but others could not use the gauge because of leaks at the connection.

I purchased this pressure gauge late February 2008. I have kept this gauge inside my house when not in use. Well, last week, I left the gauge in the garage for a few days where the overnight temperatures got down to just below 30 degrees F. When I went to use the gauge a few days later it would not work at all. I brought the gauge inside for a couple hours and checked it after it "warmed up". It worked fine. I put it back outside for 1 hour when the temp was about 33 degrees F. Again....it would not work. What a pain in the ole keister. This gauge is not worth it unless you live in areas of the country that are always warm. I'm going to try to return this gauge and buy a different brand.

Great device for when limited space is available for checking tire pressure. It's great with the verbal voice of tire pressure so you don't have to keep checking it to see what the reading is.

Bought this for my motorcycle along with the pen version. They work great, and give (seemingly) accurate readings. The head angle makes it easy to get around the brake rotors on my SV-650.

Unfortunately, the pen gauge died about 2 years after I got it, and the regular one died after 5 years: it would just show "L" on the LCD. I cracked it open and discovered the "lifetime" battery had died. I had to cut some plastic to change it out, but even with a new battery it would then only read "1.0" so perhaps it needs to be calibrated or something.

I rate this 2 stars because they advertise it as having a "lifetime" battery when the battery obviously dies after a few years of infrequent use. It is also impossible to change the battery so you have to throw the whole unit away to buy a new one.

As other reviewers have said, the audible feature is quite handy--it speeds up the filling/releasing air process. It's easy to fit this gauge to my motorcycle tires but less so for my car. Hi-Tec makes another pencil gauge that might fit better. I don't own that one but you might want to check it out.

I'm very happy with this gauge. If it were easier to fit on a car tire I'd give it five stars.