One very weak spot in the larger cheaper compressors is that they use motor contact points that are built into the air pressure switch like smaller compressors (very undersized for the load). The "good" compressors will have a seperate pressure switch that in turn controlls a regular motor starter contactor, which is much more heavy duty. We went through three pressure switches on our Coleman Black Max 80 gallon compressor before getting tired of it and installed a contactor. The bad thing is when the switch goes bad a lot of times the contacts weld together and the compressor runs till the high pressure pop off blows then sets there and runs all day or night till someone comes around and notices a problem - compressor just cooks.

We have ran our "cheap" sams club compressor pretty hard in a 60x80' shop that gets used by several people and It has been pretty good for the 8 or more years we have had it. It is an aluminum compressor with aluminum head. Besides the pressure switch thing we burnt out one motor, which was not very expensive to replace (I think around a hundred dollars). At the time a "good" compressor would have been about 50% more in cost than this sams club unit.

You kind of get what you pay for. Buy a better quality one and likely you will not be sorry you did but on the other hand I would say we have got our moneys worth out of our "cheap" one and it is still going strong. Like one poster says, it will likely get a lot more use than you imagine. If when I bought this one I could have imagined it would run a fourth what it has I would have bought a better quality one. As it worked out, the purchase has been ok though.

John