Tires: Tire Codes, yokohama geolander, 4 digits

Question
I just bought a brand new set of Yokohama (Geolander H/TS GO51) SUV tires for my 2003 Toyota 4-Runner. I can't seem to find the tire codes on 2 of the tires. Can you help me out? - Thanks

Answer
Patrick,

DOT codes are a 10 to 12 digit number located near the letters "DOT".  BTW the digits can be numbers or letters.

The first 2 digits are a code for the manufacturing plant.  

The next 2 digits are a code for the tire size.  

The next 3 or 4 digits are a code for the type of tire.  

The last 3 or 4 digits are the date code.  The format is week/week/year/year or week/week/year.  

Starting in the year 2000, the date coding used is 4 digits.  That means the highest number you should see for the year is 08.  Before 1999 the format was 3 digits.  1999 and 2000 are transition years, so you will find both 3 and 4 digits.

The Codes are only required on one side of the tire, so if you can't find it on one side, you should look on the other side.