After a summer shower or hard winter rains, my brakes seem to have plenty of rust on them, more so than other cars. I walk into the parking lot and notice it on my brakes, but nobody elses. Is it because I have more of my rotors exposed because of my rims? Is it something I should worry about? Is there anything I can do to prevent it?

 

I have noticed that with my brakes. I don't think there is much you can do to the rotor itself. I know what you mean they do look horrible after a rain fall, or even if it is just really humid outside. I just figured they put the cheapest rotors on our cars. It is horrible to look at, and also they sqeak after sitting for anything over 15 mins. (even in dry weather) Lucky for me, it is almost time to put new brakes on my car.

 

Well, I installed some new Cross drilled and sloted Rotor-tek rotors about 2 month ago and they started to rust right away.

I when and got some rotors spray paint 900F +, actually I got the best one at 1200F and painted them a nice metalic gray. They look very nice now and the rust didn't come back.

I actually started to tape everything to not paint the surface were the pad makes contact but my patience couldn't take it so I painted everything, and then when for a drive to burn the extra paint... made lots of smoke but it worked. You probably don't want to wait too long, that pait can resist to extrem heat but you probably have 1 hour or so.

Worked for me!

 

Rust is normal for raw cast iron brakes...which is what is stock on tibs. Most cars brake discs rust, you just can't see it behind the hubcaps. Some companies put rotors of upgraded material on thier cars for exactly this reason (consumer vanity). The rust doesn't really hurt anything...it reduces the cooling ability of the rotor vents slightly (read: negligably) but mostly it's just ugly.

My expirience with painting metal is minimal but I'm pretty sure you should remove all the existing rust prior to painting. Which seems like a tall order on a brake rotor to me.

If you really care about this get a set of those flashy anodize or cadmium coated rotors. They are a nice shiney gold or silver color. smile.gif

 

or just wait until you buy new rotors and paint them before they go on the car.

 

Or just buy coated rotors. KVR can put a coating (can't remember what kind of metal it is though) on their rotors so they won't rust.

 

i believe they are coated with Zinc to prevent rusting, I have been told that it works quite well, even after a long canadian winter.

 

won't the zinc coating/plating wear off after using the brakes? Wouldn't it scrape the material off?

 

they are talking about coating everything that the brake pads do not touch to prevent rusting. if you are getting rust on the part of the rotor the pads touch, then that isnt normal, unless you hardly ever drive.

 

well im not very knowledgable with brakes... what part of the rotors do the brakes touch?