Well I guess I can’t make comparisons between the “cheap one similar to that” you bought (since I still don’t know which one that was) and the one I did go ahead and buy yesterday (the OEM Tools model). Suffice it to say, this one seems to be of decent quality. I’m no youngster—I doubt I’ll be doing DIY maintenance for decades to come and, as far as doing coolant projects, I’m comfortable that what I got will serve my needs. I’m not convinced that the problems you suggest will happen will in fact happen with this unit, and if they do they’re not insurmountable. If it craps out on me I’ll man-up and report as much here on this thread. The compressor I’ll be using should be just fine on cfm provided—thanks for mentioning that. And, when it comes to coolant work in the trunk, I always “have a towel ready.” Not doing so, regardless of WHICH product you’re using, seems to me to be a really bad idea.
I should also point out that I actually see a slight advantage of the OEM unit over the Uview. The OEM one has a separate connection for pulling the fresh coolant, which allows you to prime the intake tubing (ie get the air out) by use of the compressor/venturi process, as shown at 11:39 on youtube vid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbQ77-zDOEo
This as opposed to dunking the whole fill tube into the bucket of coolant, which is what I’ve seen done on vids about the Uview model. A minor advantage, sure, but it would seem to makes things a little less messy.
I did check with the Advanced Auto, AZ and O’Reilly auto parts stores locally—unfortunately none of them had anything similar to these products to loan out.