Muc-Off Hey Dipstick!

The Muc-Off Hey Dipstick! is a premium product designed for checking your sealant levels without breaking your tyre beads, but it can be hard to read and there are much cheaper or free options available, so it's really one for Muc-Off fans only.

My favourite tubeless checkup is to weigh wheels before and after adding sealant. A £10 set of digital kitchen scales and a roll of duct tape is all you need.

If you want the comfort of actually eyeballing sealant, you need to either suck it all out using a Milkit or similar system, or use a dipstick. Enter the Hey Dipstick!.

It's made from aircraft grade aluminium and stainless steel. Overkill? It's not like you're taking a core sample from a neutron star or the densest material in the known universe – dried Weetabix leftovers.

The tip is stainless steel, the last 20mm scored at 1mm intervals that show you how full or empty your tyre is. The problem is that it's stainless steel. When dipped into light-coloured sealant – that'll be most of them – it's hard to tell how far up the dipstick sealant has come. Also, slippery stainless steel allows sealant to run off easier than plastic.

Attempts to assess wheelsets filled with Orange Seal or Silca Ultimate proved inconclusive. The best I could tell was there's sealant present. Was it one ounce or four? Dunno.

I didn't test against all sealants, but the idea of sealant is that it's nicely fluid. Were it to be so congealed as to stick well to stainless steel, it would possibly not be that good at sealing.

The £10 Hey Dipstick! is also infinitely more expensive than the black plastic dipsticks that come free with Orange Seal. If you can't snaffle one from a friend, you can buy packs of five Orange Seal dipsticks from your local bike shop for about £5.

Price aside, the Orange Seal ones work far better than the Hey Dipstick! – the black plastic is serrated, and shows sealant levels much clearer than shiny steel. Also, you can drill a hole in the tab to hang it on a nail or hook.

The Hey Dipstick! sets out to be a premium product made from high-class materials, but in doing so it actually goes backwards in terms of desired functionality.

Right to reply

We put Mike's findings to Muc-Off, to give the company the right to reply:

When designing Hey Dipstick!, our goal was to create a durable, long-lasting alternative to disposable plastic dipsticks. Stainless steel was chosen not only for its robustness but also for its eco-friendliness, aligning with our commitment to reducing plastic usage.

We appreciate the feedback on readability. The dipstick has been designed to give an indicative reading across most sealants, but it's optimised for use as part of our Tubeless Sealant and Big Bore Valve system, which features a valve with no core, simplifying the measurement process (among many other benefits). A simple way of improving visibility is to mark the sealant level with a marker pen after the first fill – this is stated within our directions for use and makes checking levels over time quick and easy.

On the question of value, Hey Dipstick! is a premium, reusable tool built to last, unlike disposable plastic alternatives. It's designed for riders who want a reliable way to monitor sealant levels without contributing to plastic waste. Additionally, our customers have shown great satisfaction with the product, as evidenced by our 4.8 out of 5 rating on Trustpilot and positive reviews from consumers we meet at events around the world.

We always welcome constructive feedback and will continue working on enhancing our products based on real-world rider experience.

Verdict

Made from premium materials, but unfortunately it's hard to read and relatively expensive