What labels on your car mean

The 4X4 label that is usually denoted on either the back of the car or in the side means Four Wheel Drive. PHOTO BY ALEX ESAGALA.

What you need to know:

  • All the eight pistons drive a common crankshaft and most of their banks are set at a right angle (90°) to each other. Some are set at a narrower angle of 45°, 60°, and 72°.

You have perhaps seen labels such as 4MATIC, GDI and GTI, among others and wonder what they mean.
In the world of automobiles some signs and labels are just after-market additions yet others carry meaning that is definitive of a particular car manufacturer.


The sign might be a car model or something that might save you unnecessary expenditure or inconvenience.
Therefore, the next time you go shopping for a car, take note of the various visible and invisible labels.
Apart from vehicle names, which are obvious, there are usually other labels on vehicles denoting the car’s engine size or notifying the user of the type of fuel the car consumes.
In the fuel consumption category, “D” in symbols such as CDI, TDI, and D4D among others, usually means that, that particular car only consumes diesel.


Some cars have a 4WD sign either on the back or in the sides of the car. This stands for ‘Four Wheel Drive’. Such cars can effortlessly drive through rough or slippery surfaces where others can not.
Perhaps you keep wondering what 4MATIC on a Mercedes Benz means.
This is another way of sounding sophisticated but to mean 4WD. Even better, Volkswagen calls its 4WD cars 4MOTION and others prefer the AWD to mean All Wheel Drive.


So, for some manufacturers it is about naming the car’s functions differently.
Some cars have been imported into tropical markets yet their engines are not friendly with humid weather conditions. Such cars will usually carry visible labels that ably explain under what weather condition they can be driven.
Whereas you should not bother yourself with cramming all car labels, you should learn the important ones and understand their functionality.


Numbers can mean engine size but can also refer to models. In the past, for instance Peugeot cars were defined by numbers such as 405, 504, 606, 404 and 505.

Engine size
Engine sizes can be abbreviated as 1.2 for 1200cc, 1.5 for 1500cc, 2.0 for 2000cc and 4.6 for 4600cc. V6, V8, V10, V12 are engine configurations as well.
A V6 engine has six cylinders mounted on the crankshaft in two banks of three cylinders, usually set at either a 60 or 90 degree angle to each other while a V8 engine is an eight-cylinder configuration engine with the cylinders mounted on the crankcase in two sets of four.


All the eight pistons drive a common crankshaft and most of their banks are set at a right angle (90°) to each other. Some are set at a narrower angle of 45°, 60°, and 72°.
In non-diesel internal combustion engines, you will find labels such as GDI and FSI, translated as Direct Petrol Injection and Fuel-Stratified Injection, respectively.
This is a variant of fuel injection employed in modern two-stroke and four-stroke gasoline engines.

Manufacturers and their labels

CDI Common-rail Direct Injection (Mercedes Benz)

FSI Turbo Fuel Stratified Injection (Volkswagen and Audi)

GDI Gasoline Direct Injection

D4D Common rail Direct Injection (diesel)

DI-D Common rail Intercooled Turbo (direct injection diesel, Mitsubishi)

MIVEC Mitsubishi Innovative Valve Timing and Lift Electronic Control

CRD Common Rail Diesel (Jeep)

TDCi Turbo Diesel (Ford)

VVT Variable Valve Timing

GTI Grand Injection Touring