Dot, tire identification number (tin), Operation – Mercedes-Benz SL-Class 2009 Owners Manual User Manual
Page 229
Tires and wheels
227
R
No specification given: absence of any text
(like in above example) indicates a stand-
ard load (SL) tire.
R
XL or Extra Load: designates an extra load
(or reinforced) tire.
R
Light Load: designates a light load tire.
R
C, D, E: designates load range associated
with the maximum load a tire can carry at
a specified pressure.
U.S. tire regulations require each new tire
manufacturer or tire retreader to mold a TIN
into or onto a sidewall of each tire produced.
The TIN is a unique identifier which facilitates
efforts by tire manufactures to notify pur-
chasers in recall situations or other safety
matters concerning tires and gives purchas-
ers the means to easily identify such tires.
The TIN is comprised of “Manufacturer’s iden-
tification mark”, “Tire size”, “Tire type code”
and “Date of manufacture”.
1
DOT
2
Manufacturer’s identification mark
3
Tire size
4
Tire type code (at the option of the tire
manufacturer)
5
Date of manufacture
i
For illustration purposes only. Actual data
on tires are specific to each vehicle and
may vary from data shown in above illus-
tration.
DOT (Department of Transportation)
Tire branding symbol
1
denotes that the tire
meets requirements of the U.S. Department
of Transportation.
Manufacturer’s identification mark
Manufacturer’s identification mark
2
denotes the tire manufacturer.
New tires have a mark with two symbols.
Retreaded tires have a mark with four sym-
bols. For more information on retreaded tires,
see (
Tire size
Code
3
indicates the tire size.
Tire type code
Tire type code
4
may, at the option of the
manufacturer, be used as a descriptive code
for identifying significant characteristics of
the tire.
Date of manufacture
The date of manufacture
5
identifies the
week and year of manufacture.
The first two figures identify the week, start-
ing with “01” to represent the first full week
of the calendar year. The second two figures
represent the year.
For example, “3202” represents the 32nd
week of 2002.
Operation
Z