Rusty calipers
 

I have just got a 6 month old X6 35d but notice yesterday when washing the break calipers are rusty, is this normal,
Has anyone painted theirs or is it a warranty job ? :dunno:

Throw up a pic, the caliper shouldn't have rusted that fast. Even if it does rust, that is not a problem. Do some searching on this site and you'll find people who painted their calipers.

The rotors will rust, but I've never heard of the calipers rusting.

:iagree:...when I wash any of our cars, the rotors rust up in a heartbeat,
esp. if I am thoroughly washing the wheels...my cals have a touch of rust,
in the creases, but those are 7 1/2 years old. The caliper rust scrubs off
with a couple of slow rolls up and down are driveway, brakes gently applied.
GL,mD

Caliper can rust, rotors would rust on the very first rain storm or car wash. If the paint somehow chipped off the caliper, it would definitely rust. I can't imagine anyone confusing a "caliper" with a "rotor" :rofl:

you can't? have you been drinking? :)

:rofl:

http://www.martinpratt.co.uk/1.jpg

http://www.martinpratt.co.uk/2.jpg

http://www.martinpratt.co.uk/3.jpg

http://www.martinpratt.co.uk/4.jpg

The Rusty bits as shown

For a comparatively new car, I would guess they pulled those hub, rotor and caliper sets
off of the bottom of the barrel. :(

I would be pissed and urge the stlr to make some swap or arrangements on replacing.
The cals are really ugly; almost like they were improperly painted to begin with or,
received some serious salt spray situation.
GL,mD

That is too much rust. I would take it in for sure!:iagree:

Wow! I agree. Take it back to the dealer.

Somethings amiss, after driving through several salted road winters the rust on my calipers/rotors is nothing compared to that - go back to the dealer.

You didn't go for a quick spin in the Bognor waves by any chance ;)

Based on that level of corrosion, someone has used some wrong chemical to clean the wheels/calipers. I've never seen anything like that before.

I know of someone that had his calipers replaced under warranty because of this problem. It was on an X5 in the UK.

Are you using a lot of alloy wheel cleaner on the wheels, and quite frequently ???

Some brands of that stuff will strip paint !!!

she going in next week, the dealer has agreed to replace them

Mine are rusted too, not that bad but they are rusted. I guess I'm getting new calipers.

Straight to the dealer!

For what it's worth. BMW does not put paint on it's calipers or hubs (?) (the part between the wheel and rotor). I found this out when I changed out my wheels exposing the system behind the stock wheels. I talked to the body shop at the dealer and he proceeded to show me the owners car. Same problem, light layer of rust. For $133. they painted the calipers and hubs silver. Man told me no guarantee and after looking at the calipers I know why. Quick cleaning job, not thorough. There are now two cans of caliper paint in my trunk and as soon as I have some time to get it into a shop I've used for years it will be properly done. Google "painting calipers". There are numerous ways to do it. Some even suggest powder coating. Problem with that is calipers have to be removed and taken apart. Car would probably be down for 3 days at least. I've owned Mercedes and Porches. They paint there calipers. Cost cutting?

When it is time to replace the rotors look at Centric. They are good quality rotos and they come with a black coating on teh hub that stays clean looking.

My car is already 14 months old and no rust at all, you better claim warranty replacement, that is not normal.....do you live by the sea ?

My original (factory) rotors on my 2003 X5 had slight surface rust on the hat, not enough for me to paint them, but noticable. I bought replacement rotors from the dealer when I did a brake job, and they had a much better coating on the hat, with no visible rust after the same km as the first set.

Aluminum paint for rotors/discs
 

Hi everybody,
Although I never had corrosion problems with brake calipers, rotors or brake discs on all my cars (no matter what brand) quickly started to rust. These are made from steel and bound to rust eventually. One recipe against that is to paint them with ALUMINUM paint. The earlier the better! Ideally, dismount the wheels while the car is still new and apply the paint before the corrosion process has started. Even after some rust has built up this method still works well. The advantage of Al-paint is that it is extremely heat resistant (one can use it for stoves) and needs to be applied only ONCE. Its acts a bit like zinc coating on iron. After years of car use I never had to repaint these parts. Besides that, it's cheap.
Cheers,
MTomTom.

I sense this is a problem in newer cars, production cost cutting? Regardless, took my car to my tire shop. They went all the way down to taking the rotors off, cleaning both calipers and hubs of rotors and even the shield behind the rotors and giving all three coats of paint. Cost $250. Should I send the bill to BMW?

Not a great picture but perhaps it helps.


http://i460.photobucket.com/albums/q...s/CIMG1583.jpg