There is often a small mark on the sidewall that has nothing to do with the size: a star, a letter followed by a number, sometimes a single initial. It means the tyre was built to a car maker's own specification for a particular model, and it causes more confusion than anything else printed on a tyre.
What it signifies is a construction the tyre maker and the car maker developed together, usually chasing ride comfort, noise inside the cabin, or a particular balance of behaviour at the limit. It is not a safety approval and it is not a legal requirement. The legal requirements are the size, the load index and the speed symbol, and any tyre carrying the correct ones is a correct tyre for that car.
Should you match the marking? On most cars, honestly, no. On a few, where the suspension was developed around one specific tyre, it is worth having. What matters far more than the marking is that the two tyres on the same axle are the same tyre, in the same size and the same pattern.
Two things have to be true for a tyre change to be painless. You pick premium, mid-range or budget on the phone; we bring it to the car in SW6 at an hour you agreed to and fit it where it stands. A Hurlingham cul-de-sac or a Parsons Green main road, tell us which. A tight terrace in Parsons Green or a narrow bay on New Kings Road is usually workable. The SW6 postcode and a street in Munster Village: that is enough.
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Part of what makes buying tyres here awkward is that the bigger and lower profile sizes common on the cars around Fulham Palace Road are not always sitting on a shelf nearby. Read us everything written on the sidewall, markings included, and we will say honestly whether the marking matters before anything is ordered. Then it goes on where the car already stands.
A car came to us with a pair of original marked tyres on the front and two unmarked replacements behind, fitted elsewhere. Nothing about that is dangerous or illegal. Both pairs matched across their own axle, which is the part that affects how the car steers and stops.
An owner had been told they must have the marked version and had been given a long wait for it. The car was an ordinary model with nothing unusual about its suspension. We fitted a correctly rated tyre in the same size the next morning.
Someone who drives mostly short journeys around Fulham had chosen his car for how quiet it was inside. The marked tyres were part of that, which is very often what those specifications are tuned for. We sourced the marked ones.
Two codes at the end of the size on the sidewall. The number is the weight each tyre is rated to carry and the letter is the speed it is built to sustain. Both have to meet or beat what the car requires, and both are checked at a test.
Yes, that is fine, and it happens all the time because of what exists in a given size. Going the other way is not. A lower speed symbol than the car specifies is a fault at a test and a real limitation on a heavy car.
A correctly sized and correctly rated tyre is a legitimate tyre for the car. If you are inside a manufacturer warranty and uneasy, put the question to them directly rather than taking any fitter's word. What we can tell you is what the marking means.
The two on an axle should be the same tyre: same size, same pattern, same make. Across axles it is less critical, though mixing wildly different tyres changes how the car behaves in the wet. On four wheel drive cars keep them closer still.
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