Do rusty brake rotors bug you?

Mr_Asa said:

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:

noddaz said:

And just what does someone do about the area rusting that is not braking surface?  

Paint with a high-temp spray bomb, after cleaning up with sandpaper or wire wheel.

So you get rusty flaking paint, instead.

 

I don't see the bother, brake parts rust because they are cheaply made consumables.  Going in with the mindset that they must be carefully preserved suggests that they don't expect to chew through brakes on a regular basis.

I put the front rotors on my truck 4 years ago (today actually, Google Photos gave me a preview of what I was doing 4 years ago.)   Only place they are remotely rusty or flaking are where the wheel mounts.

You must be prepping your surfaces wrong if you are getting flaking paint.

Your Florida is showing .  Most truck beds start loosing wheel wells within 4 years around here.

Personally, I couldn't care less, I clean up the mounting surfaces and move on.  If you give me E36 M3 for having rusty rotors I'll probably avoid you in the future.

if you can see them and you have wheels off I like to paint them, just spray bomb (engine paint for me) but its a fruitless battle. This is the rear drum, the caliper and the rotor hat look the same but they will turn ugly soon.

Bothers me. Rationally,  I know its bare metal,  and I live in 400% humidity,  but the narcissist in me says you just paid $XX for brand new parts, and they look like ass.

The struggle is real 

Torq Thrusts with high profile tires... hnnnnnggggg. Awesome!

In reply to Teh E36 M3 :

Wanted to keep that 90's feel for the 90's truck... 

In reply to David S. Wallens :

Not a concern for me, I consider them to be wear items and the hats rarely rust like yours have. I only check them for signs of brake problems. 

But car folks have different views, I understand for some the paint quality and color on the rotor hats is important like I like to clean all the touched plastics in the engine bay periodically.  I don't like the built up road grime when I have to change an air filter or add washer fluid. 

On my car, yes.

Anyone else's car, nope.

My concern is how they work, appearance is for trailer queens.  If rusty rotors bother you, just hose 'em down with oil once in a while.

Doesn’t bother me enough to spend time painting them regularly, however I will spend a couple extra bucks when doing a brake job to get the zinc plated rotors.  That's as much about rust protection on the mating surfaces and inside the vented rotor fins as it is about appearance, though.

I seem to recall it was around my 12th birthday when I fist told some one to F-off in reply to something superficial.

If it bugs you be all means paint them or have them coated.

This is akin to telling someone their wife (or husband) has a big butt.................keep it to yourself.

Of course if you're friend's car has rusty rotors and you know it bugs them AND they run the same class at autocross; by all means tell them right before they go out for their runs.............I approve of that sort of thing.

LOL....I live in Michigan....if I let it bother me I'd have to sell the house and move someplace south of here.

Mr_Asa said:

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:

noddaz said:

And just what does someone do about the area rusting that is not braking surface?  

Paint with a high-temp spray bomb, after cleaning up with sandpaper or wire wheel.

So you get rusty flaking paint, instead.

 

I don't see the bother, brake parts rust because they are cheaply made consumables.  Going in with the mindset that they must be carefully preserved suggests that they don't expect to chew through brakes on a regular basis.

I put the front rotors on my truck 4 years ago (today actually, Google Photos gave me a preview of what I was doing 4 years ago.)   Only place they are remotely rusty or flaking are where the wheel mounts.

You must be prepping your surfaces wrong if you are getting flaking paint.

I don't paint brake stuff, because it's brakes.  It's gonna rust.

Even those fancy coated rotors get rusty after a year or so.  Have got better things to do than try to sweep the tide back out to sea.

David, just tell them it's patina...

People are funny about things. 
I never look at someone else's stuff and think they should paint that or wash this or whatever. I keep my stuff clean because I like it that way. I don't care if someone else cares if my rotors are painted. 
I was painting one of my first cars and I was working like heck on the underside of the door sill. One of my friends said "stop sanding that, if anyone gets down there to look at it that just kick them in the ass."

He was right but I was sanding for me not them. Do what brings you joy. 

Hats are one thing.  Brake rotor surface is another.  My son was complaining of warped rotors on the Dodge B250 Ram Van.  A 1994 model, it came to us by way of New Jersey, which is definitely a Salt State.  I ordered up some new rotors, pads and wheel bearings, and did the job last week.  When I got the rotors off, I was very glad I decided to replace them.  The braking surface was extensively rusted, and the inboard side of the rotor was at least 50% gone, as in no contact whatsoever with the pads.  How these things can pass state inspection like that is beyond me, but all they are required to check is pad thickness.  This exact van had gotten a sticker just the week before.

Driving it after the job was done was like "wow, the brakes work really well."

In reply to 1988RedT2 :

That's what Prius front rotors look like after like six months, at least here.  The downside of regen is you have to brake HARD to get some heat into the brakes, and you have to brake hard the first few cold stops of the day to burn off the flash rust.  Priuses seem to especially be had for it because Toyota seems to never charge the battery enough to where it's topped off and it can't regen anymore.

The shocking part is how much many care to post about it.  No care here.

If you actually gave a crap about stuff like this your car would last a lot longer. By the time you had periodically cleaned and painted the rotors, groomed all your tires to remove entrapped pebble and given them a coat of tire black, polished all the bright bits on the car including under the hood, you wouldn't have enough time left to actually drive it much.

No, I do not groom my car as if it were a prize show dog. I maintain it and drive and enjoy it.

One thing I haven't seen in this thread - some new iron rotors glaze badly if they aren't taken off the kart to rust before first use! The rust pits mechanically wear against the pad faster than the iron, giving a rough enough surface for the brakes to work. 

Passenger car and race car brakes developed by actual engineers on a real budget don't do this as much.

In reply to chaparral :

Most rotor surface rust seems to be deposited pad material, not the rotor itself.  This is why cheaper pads seem to have worse rotor rust problems.

I've never heard of rough surfaces as being a good thing.  Back when we used to machine brake rotors (this was about 25 years ago) if you didn't get a good smooth surface finish, the brakes would be absolutely horrible until you got them hot enough for the pads to start the deposition process, filling in all the low spots.  But you would have a hard time getting them that hot in the first place because the rotors would be more like files than friction surfaces.

New pads and new rotors with a nice ground-smooth surface seem to have zero break in period.

I hope I don't mind, because mine all look 10 times worse than those.

I put these on 4 years ago... they still look like this. Stainless FTW!

I live in Wisconsin where we have heavy salt usage in the winter and uncoated rotors develop nasty, scaly, slice-your-hand-open rust within a winter.

I always spend the extra $10-20 for coated rotors, not just because they look nicer (though that is a perk), but because they seem to come apart easier and make less of a mess of iron oxide flakes in the work area when it comes time to do brakes.

If I lived somewhere without salt I probably wouldn't bother unless it was a show car.

The painted centric rotors are the trick. I don't like the rust but it is not not because of looks. Aluminum rims will react with steel rotors and weld them selves together. Painted centric rotors greatly reduce this problem. I also put a very thin coating of permitex anti seize on both the mounting surface of the rotor hat and on the rim to help prevent the parts from welding them self together.  First gen RX7 rims and rotors were the worst for this. Porsche are also problematic. 

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

In reply to 1988RedT2 :

That's what Prius front rotors look like after like six months, at least here.  The downside of regen is you have to brake HARD to get some heat into the brakes, and you have to brake hard the first few cold stops of the day to burn off the flash rust.  Priuses seem to especially be had for it because Toyota seems to never charge the battery enough to where it's topped off and it can't regen anymore.

The Prius battery rarely charges fully for two (good) reasons:

1) battery life management. Batteries last longer if they are partially charged and discharged. Complete discharges from full will result in shorter life.

2) headroom for braking regen. If the battery is full the brakes are just friction brakes, but only charging to 80% leaves room for recapture.  I live in the mountains and frequently fill the battery on long downhill grades and it feel weird using the brakes with a full battery/without regen.

edit: back on topic. 
 

I don't give a single E36 M3 about rusty brakes so long as they function. I'm more into driving my car than looking at my car. People with reversed priorities probably feel differently and that's perfectly fine too!