Preventing crummy brake rotors when parked outside?
 

Is there a simple way to keep my brake rotors from going bad if I don't drive my car much?

Because I have only been using it a couple of times a month lately, they "thump-thump-thump" and the pedal pulses until I do a bunch of relatively hard stops to scrub them clean (which I hate to do, because hard stops = bad FE).

The car is parked outside. The wheel covers are already fully sealed, so its not a question of rain getting in (from the outside of the wheel, anyway). So it must just be atmospheric moisture doing this.

I suspect the easiest solution is to just go for a drive once a week or so and use the **** brake pedal. Am I wrong?

As far as I know rotors shouldn't go bad from sitting, aside from a bit of surface rust. Thump, thump, thump sounds like they need to be turned. I don't think that they would need this from sitting, but I could be wrong.

Well, it goes away with multiple hard brake applications, so I'm thinking it's just surface rust. It's not warped, just unevenly corroded :)

The longer I let it sit between drives, the more & harder stops I have to do to get the thumping & pulsing to go away.

clencher: in the past I've bought replacement rotors from the store that came with some kind of light waxy coating (which I assume is for rust prevention), but it would obviously be a pain in the *** to re-coat the rotors after every drive!

Get some aluminum rotors.

No, really? If that's true, I'm sure I can't get them for this car anyway.

Is aluminum robust enough for that application? I would think that the repeated heating and cooling would affect its integrity and that the aluminum surface would be too soft. I googled it and didn't find a whole lot.

EDIT: Ahh, I found some online.

I don't know if their is anything you can do. I do know that other than the thump's and noise, the rust doesn't seem to create any undue harm.

I've had a couple of cars which have been largely unused for extended periods of time. The first one, I took apart and sanded the rust off, before i used it. I got lazy the next time, so I just drove it and used the brakes, as I needed to. They seemed to clean up just fine. I don't think it will cause the rotors to warp, in any way.

The insight came with stock aluminum rotors, their cool, dunno if they can be found for the metro through.

Any metros come with rear discs?

wd40?

NO!!! NEVER apply oil to your brake rotors or any part of your breaking system.

the oil soaks into the pads and your never stopping again.(try it on a bycycle)and then ya gotta buy new pads.

theres nohtign u can really do to prevent it anyways.

The solution is obvious! A Car Capsule!
https://www.rdent.com/images/capsul1in.jpg

Doesn't this cool car make you want to buy this climate controlled plastic bubble thing of doom?

fair enough.

Stainless steel would be ideal. If you can find them, you'll be the envy of Teamswift.

Most rotors are cast iron - it's cheap and has good properties for brakes. Like you are seeing, the one property is does not have is corrosion resistance. Since there isn't much of a performance aftermarket for Metros/Swifts, I don't think you're going to find stainless rotors for it, and if you did, the cost of them would probably keep you from wanting them.

So, untimately I think there's not much you can do beyond parking it in a garage if possible.

Svoboy - where did you hear that Insights had aluminum rotors? Seems it would be a horrible material for brakes.

if any application could live with aluminum rotors, it would be a hypermiler in a metro. Maybe the insight is iron clad alum or sumptin

Oh, we're talking about rotors are we? I was thinking drums...

*shootsself*

The Insight has aluminum (bimetal really) rear drums almost identical to those used on the '84-87 CRX HF. The body of the drum is aluminum, while the friction surface is the typical cast iron or steel or whatever it is they normally use. Instead of relying on thermal mass to deal with heat buildup, they have cooling fins around the perimeter.
I had a set of 1st gen HF drums on my CRX until I converted to rear disk and sold them a few months ago. Some pics I took for the buyer:
https://www.fuelly.com/attachments/fo...f4b7f60b85.jpg
https://www.fuelly.com/attachments/fo...4f4c7a952d.jpg
They're about half the weight of the stock cast drums.

I think I see Michael Jackson in there....

I've pretty much stopped driving the car for the sake of driving the car. But I wasn't really expecting an easy (+ cheap) alternative. But you never know what you're going to get when you throw something at the GS brain trust...

Maybe I'll just use it as an excuse to start doing more tests again. At least that will be somewhat useful driving for the sake of driving. And it'll get all the other parts moving too. There are undoubtedly other potential problems I could avoid by not letting the car sit so much.

Not that the car isn't used to sitting - it sat unused for the first 7 years of its existence, although garaged.

Metro

Look for some rotors that don't have the high carbon steel. And Im surprised the metro's rotors foul/rust like they do. Or drums. There are lower carbon steel rotors out there. They wont offer the stoping power. But they do work.

Aluminum (either clad or throughout) seems rather expensive as does stainless steel. Its not a garage baby where you could put a dehumidifier next to it in the garage to reduce the inevitable humidity. The only cheap and somewhat time consuming would be to wrap the wheels up individually and find a way to create a vacuum or as close to one as you can to reduce the rust. Seeing as the diminutive size of the wheels it wouldn't be too complicated to cover them, but reducing the air you could use a small vacuum, and seal with duct tape.

If I were, say, leaving the car parked for a known extended period - like while I sail the Caribbean for the winter (I wish!!) - I might consider doing something more drastic to keep the rust away...

But I'm not. Arrr.

I would just ignore the noise and stuff. It isn't actually hurting anything and other than being annoying is not really that big of a deal.

You could oil the brakes down if you know it is going to be parked for a while. The pads will eventually become oil soaked if you do it often and will need to get hot enough to burn all the oil out of them either by driving like a nut or hitting the pads with a propane torch :)

Then again as little as you use the car you might want to oil soak the pads anyway, it will reduce rolling resistance and you don't hit them hard enough to worry about needing real strong brakes most of the time. :cool:

Na. The best thing to do would be to sand off the rust when you get back, before driving the car. :thumbup:

How about simply roll the car back by several cm to move the rust spots around every few days? A car like that should be easy to push, and you only have to move it by 1/2 turn of the wheels.

Or you could get a car cover and stick a dehumidifyer under it, but that would run off the grid and consume energy. OK how about a dehumidifyer running from a timer so it's on an hour or two per day? It might be practical if you're away for a few weeks.

I like this idea:
I suspect the uneven rusting is due to where the pads/shoes are close to the disk/drum. Moving it a bit will change that spot.

We get the same on our Volvos (4-wheel disks) if we leave them parked during a rainy day. If 2-3 days they can sound pretty scary, but it scrubs off after just a couple stops.

Carbon fiber rotors? I'm pretty sure that's what F-1 and prototype cars and such use. :)

You could brush them with a solution of Oxysolve and leave a film of zinc phosphate on them. This is usually done for the non-wearing parts but if periodically applied to the braking surfaces (especially since you use the brakes as a special occasion), it may help.

Or ceramic :D.

Lack of use is a form of abuse.

If you're driving the car that rarely, you might consider selling it and renting instead.

The rotors *will* die
 

I think the responses are varying by climate and I think your rotors are doomed :)

The pulsing and grinding are the most noticeable symptoms but if you can get a look at the inboard side of each rotor you may see that side rusting up more completely. That "invisible" side of the rotor rusts faster because the spash shield doesn't allow the air to circulate as much.

I have seen rusting that reduced the shiny surface to about 1/2" radially on the inboard side of the rotor.

The only solution is to drive the vehicle more or store it in a dry garage.

Bruce, I have to admit I've been toying with the idea of selling the car, especially now that I have the "electric umbrella" for local trips when needed.

Since January I've only driven it about 3500 km. Makes for a really poor $/km analysis. And for thwapping rotors, obviously.

css28: now you've got me thinking I should pull a wheel and have a look - see just *exactly* what's going on, instead of doing this by ear & by feel.

I had that problem really bad on my truck. The rotors and pads glazed over after many cycles of rusty braking.

I got everything together and started a brake pad change when I discovered it was just glaze. The pads weren't very bad at all. I went ahead and did the change though - the new pads had a compound on them to break glaze and bed in the new pad/rotor combo.

In the future should this happen I'll just give the pads & rotors a quick lick with the flapper wheel to my 4 1/2" grinder to break the glaze and get everything right again.

Other than that, I really don't think there's anything else you can do to stop surface rust short of stainless or other type rotors.

deer god please tell me you're joking cuz when little molly chases her ball into the street in front of you I doubt the judge will like that forensics found your brake pads were oil soaked and roters and wheels had residue with no oil leaks in evidence.