Brake Routers rusted out after only 11 months? One winter??

BUT.....the material that they are made of will show signs of surface rust almost every time the car sits unused overnight......when dew tends to collect on exposed metal parts.

IF.....you can drive down the road and brake firmly once or twice and the rust signs go away........that shop is scamming you and you should never go back there again.

P.S. Rotors will also sometimes show tiny pits if you look close enough. That is not necessarily a problem either.

 

JFYI, Here is a photo of my PRIME's rotor last fall when I was switching to winter tires. It was 15 mo old ~18K miles and it had experienced one winter with mountain of road salt on NE roads. You can see the outer circumference especially inner vents are all rusted. Some surface rust is also visible. All those with daily use.

 

I can replace those for you for the low, low price of $600. Don't delay, this offer is good for a limited time. p.s. if you drive on those for more than a few miles you will certainly plummet to a firey death, but don't let that influence your decision...

 

On my cars that see road salt (two of the three, the other is seasonal), I spray Fluid Film on the exposed ends of the driveshaft and on the face of the hub. This keeps the rust off the driveshaft threads and keeps the aluminum wheels from sticking to the hub as they corrode.

 

Oh, I already drove another 10 K miles after that photo was taken. Now with two NE winter assault ("nice person salt"?), it must look worse than the photo, but I am doing OK. I will rely on regenerative braking only if it fails. lol

edit: lol... PC converted as-salt to "nice person salt"

 

your turn dave

 

I wouldn't worry about rusty rotors unless there's prolonged grinding. After a few thresholds brakes (just enough without ABS kicking in) it'll be gone from where the pads contact the rotor, which is the part you really care about. But honestly I wouldn't let it bother me as long as the car doesn't shake or steer in a certain direction when you brake

I wouldn't try to clean the rotors with any solvents.

Ive taken my cars to drive around on road courses (not the Prius) dozens of times and that stuff doesn't matter. I'd worry if I saw cracks though.

 

Because of all the salt used here in MN in the winter, I notice rotors rust on the rotors of all our vehicles. In fact, the rotors on the Prius v (wagon) were in *extremely* bad shape when we purchased it ( the v was from Iowa...they must use even more road salt there )!

I ended up switching over to zinc-plated rotors on both of our Prius vehicles. They are working out great! They really do add some protection and resist rust. In fact, they got through the winter with no discernible rust at all....which is extremely impressive.

Here is a post that documents the change to Zinc plated rotors on the Prius v (wagon) :

Hi all, new Prius v owner | Page 3 | PriusChat

I happened to go with a company called 'R1 concepts' because Amazon had a great deal. However, there are other brands as well.

In fact, I like the zinc plated rotors so much I am also going to put them on our 2012 Hyundai Sonata.

 

Hmm. I dont even know how rusty my cars rotors are and actually dont even care(yet). Surface where pads make contact is clean and brakes working good is enought for me. Rust on the edges wont make any difference.
Then if they get so rusty after years and years that rotor will fall off, then i call them rusty

Maybe i am just used to have rusty rotors always, they wont survive here without rust. Maybe those stay clean in warm south?
Those pictures from rotors up on this thread seems totally normal for me.

 

They all are normal. It appears that the OP was being led to believe that his rotors required replacement due to rust, and it was likely not required. Just another boat payment for the service advisor.

 

I would think they're (service department) talking about rust on the outer faces, where the pads contact. OP needs to come back, provide some pics; 'till then who knows.

 

Full disclosure...I went with the zinc plated rotors because I was doing brake jobs anyways...and it was sort of an experiment. However, I really like the way they worked out. I wasn't trying to imply that the pad surface contact points were rusty.

 

What happens with those, the zinc wears off the pad contact zone, but remains, and is effective elsewhere?

 

dave?

 

Do you have a recent picture how the Zinc plated rotors looks like after a winter period? I am just curious if I should get that for my Prime when the time comes (I hope I wont need it that soon )

 

I don't. I'll try to get one the next time I work on the brakes. However, they did make it thru the winter with no visible rust at all ( and we have really crappy winters here in MN ). The zinc plating really did help. Although some would argue it is only for looks, I'm willing to pay the small amount extra to get the plated rotors.

 

yep, exactly.

 

I recently went to my Toyota dealer because my brakes were making a loud clunking noise as the mechanical brakes engaged. This is only 11 months and 25,000km (15,500 Miles)
When the tech took the pads off he found all sorts of rust on the face of the rotors, and some decent gouges. They are replacing all 4. Front rotors are apparently on back order since May, so this seems to be a bit of a problem. The pic with the caliper in the frame is the front rotor.
Come on Toyota, if you are designing a vehicle that uses brakes infrequently, have the materials designed for it. Zinc or Cadmium plated rotors and maybe some sort of non ferrous pad material.

 

Those actually look pretty decent to me, except for that first photo showing the very narrowed contact band on an inboard surface, with bands of rust on both sides of it.

I had front rotors on my Gen 1 rust in the same odd pattern:



I'm not sure what gets that pattern started. Clearly when light rust forms on the rotor surface, the pads normally clean it off. If it gets a little more established and gets thick and tough enough, it grinds some pad material away and makes room for itself, instead of the pads being able to clear it off. For some reason it's not uncommon to have it start that way at the center and edge of the disc and just squeeze the clean braking surface down to a little stripe, always on the inboard side of the rotor, where it's harder to see.

It can be turned down smooth again if the rotor has enough thickness remaining, and if new pads are used, because the old ones have already been ground away at those edges so they would do nothing to stop it rusting that way again.

The other two photos don't really look dreadful to me. Maybe the grooves are deeper than they look on my screen, some wetordry sandpaper by hand might be where I would go.

They ought to be reasonably smooth, but they don't have to match the kitchen appliances.

 

i hope that was warranty, they look fine. i don't recall any prime brake issues. 25,000 k is ridiculous to have problems