Looking to pick up a used Husky 5.5hp 26 Gallon horizontal model compressor, nothing fancy, for a good price. According to the seller it's about 3 years old and works great.



What should I look for in a used compressor?



Here's a picture of the thing:

make sure it airs up in a reasonable amount of time. once it is aired up fully open the tank drain valve and look for rust or excessive water.



make sure there is no burning smell when it is airing up.



make sure all the pressure gauges work



give it a good look over and you should be fine.

Open the drain petcock and see how much rusty water comes out.

Make sure it has CYLINDERS, and not an oiless "diaphragm" pump.

Then, make sure it starts and stops at a reasonable pressure  95/130 +/-

Make sure tank has no water in it...especially rusty water with chunks of rust.

For $300, you can buy a new one with a warranty.

ETA: The photo you show above, run away from that one. It's a diaphragm pump, and they dont last very long.

Is sound a factor for you? Meaning do you have neighbors close and you are going to be running it late at night. It looks like an oilless aircompressor like the Craftsman one I used to have, it was very loud and noisey. What type of tools are you planning on running with it? If it's any tool that runs in a circle like a cut off wheel, grinders or dye grinders, you'll suprised at how fast it will run out of air. I ran on similar size for a few years while doing light body work and painting(mainly motorcyles) and it wasn't a good enough setup for that. Since then I've switched to a 5HP 2 stage, 60 gallon.

Rust in the tank is the big one
It will be there but it can be difficult to know how bad it is.

Just realize a compressor like that is "disposable" meaning finding parts such as a pump will be tough.  Other than that, it most likely isn't a super high use compressor so for the money it's probably GTG, probably.

Can you recommend a decent one in the price range you're talking about?
 

Husky is decent...

look for compressed AIR