New tyre labeling system goes live

3rd December 2012

All new tyres on sale in Europe now have to be classified and labeled for fuel efficiency, wet grip and noise performance.

The EU directive known as ‘tyre labeling’ is the biggest change to the way tyres are bought and sold for more than 50 years.

Like the European energy label that we see on household appliances, the tyre label uses classes ranging from best-performance (green ‘A’ class) to worst (red ‘G’ class).  Besides indicating how much the tyre affects the vehicle’s fuel efficiency, it will also give information about its performance in wet conditions and its external rolling noise in decibels.

“The new tyre labeling requirements are likely to have more of an effect on drivers of passenger cars than commercial vehicle operators,” the FTA’s head of engineering Andy Mair said.  “The road transport sector in recent years has seen an increasingly focused approach on tyre selection and maintenance, and commercial fleet managers are well ahead of the game when it comes to specifying tyres for commercial vehicles.

“Larger tyres for the heavy end of the commercial vehicle application, which are defined as C3 class tyres are not required to be fitted with the label, but the required information must be detailed in any technical promotional material.”

“The labeling regulations do of course provide valuable like-for-like guidance which will enable buyers to see at a glance the specification of a particular tyre which should help inform purchasing decisions.”

The labels will not be mandatory on type C3 tyres (for heavy commercial and PSVs), but the information should still be available in another format from tyre manufacturers.