Washed my car yesterday. Gave it a thorogh cleaning, and wiped it down (that California water blade is *great*) and it sat for 5 hours until I had to take it out to get dirty again.

There was rust all over the surface of the rotors! (Not the calipers, but the *face* of the rotors. Brakes made funny noises until it removed the surface rust.

I've never seem any surface rust so quickly. Maybe next time I'll set my camcorder on time lapse so I can get the rotors turning orange.

Anyone else notice this? Is it the wash I'm using? (Some liquid Armor All car soap stuff, I think.) Is it the Chicago air?

Yikes. Nissan must be using some really low quality iron...

 

I think it's just the water. I read from some magazine that on hot days cooling the brakes down by hosing the wheels down would improve performance on hot days (not sure if its true). Well I tried it and the brakes had orange spoltches all over the disc.

 

Yeah, some racer (back in the days that I was active in the SCCA) had a system that sprayed water on his rotors to cool them during a race. Help a lot until the SCCA said it was illegal. (Something about not allowing fluids to be leaked onto the track.)

Good idea though.

 

It's normal... don't worry about it.

 

dont worry about the rust on the rotor, itll go away once you drive


I would NEVER recommend to my friends or customers to spray water on the rotors to cool them off. Espically a HOT rotor, this is one way to warp your rotors. Extreme Hot-Extreme cold Equals NO GOOD.

 

Well, yeah, I know that. But rust after 5 hours? What if I left the car sitting for 2 weeks?

Hey, it was a track car. In a real race, you generally don't do the best thing for the longevity of the car. (If you do, you lose. ) You just need the car to last until the end of the race day...

 

spraying cold water on hot rotors? Even good rotors will warp if you do that, think of what will happen to the crappy Nissan rotors....

 

Yeah I don't do that anymore...I must have misunderstood the article, but I swear it said on hot days cool the brakes down by hosing the wheels...