I live in MA and every time it snows or rains overnight in the morning mu rotors are covered with rust (is it normal?), after driving around and braking the rust is scraped off, but not evenly on the rear rotors - the outside is cleared first and it takes some more braking to clear the whole area covered by the pad. I want to know how may people have this issue and how they deal with it? Also the brakes sqeal like hell before the rust is worn off, then they quiet down (also normal?).

 

Mine do the exact same thing...in fact they make lots of weird noises....eh...learned that is Nissan for ya

 

I believe it's normal... but ask a chemistry buff... they should have a fun time explaining why it happens...

-Tom

PS... mine does the same thing, but once i start driving (actually braking) the thin coat of rust quickly disappears...

 

mine make some crazy noises everytime i brake like grinding and stuff... it bothers me to the point that the next $2000 i get im putting on brakes!! i will get a big brake kit and x-drilled / slotted roters in back...

 

Disk brakes do that. The rotors are cast iron (except on some Porsches). When you park they are freshly ground clean of everything and exposed to exterior moisture so a film of rust will form. If they were warm the oxidation will happen faster. Some types of pads (carbon ceramic for example) leave a slight coating on the rotor surface which may slow down this process.

Dave

 

Also - the rears take longer to clean because the fronts do about 75% of the braking - the rears just work enough to keep the back end behind the front end (except on the infamous Citation which had too much rear brake and spun all the time).

Dave

 

I too live in Ma, and my rotors also rust up on my 2k. They also used to do it on my 95 SE. Must have something to do with the Pilgrim nuclear power plant.

 

and my brakes do the same thing but once I drive the car a little and use the brakes a little the rust scrapes off.

rm

 

what is the reason for getting rear slotted rotors instead of x-drilled all around?

 

Slotting might help with the noise as it gives the rust somewhere to escape as it's being ground off by the pad, it won't help though with the rust.

Dave

 

But if you are looking at it from a rotor upgrade point of view why would you get rear slotted?

 

Brake rotors are usually made of cast iron. Therefore they rust very easily. No biggie...

 

just get the slotted rotors...
cross drills are mostly for the show...for us anyway since we'll never make our breaks to get that hot to a point where we really do those crossdrilled rotors....

plus...if you have crossdrilled/slotted rotors, the rotors will wear out alot faster than just a slotted ones..

 

All cast iron rotors will rust when exposed to water and air. You probably never noticed it on your other cars because they did not have spoked wheels that exposed so much of the rotors to view.

 

All cars have that rusty film on them. You can even see ut happening as the rain begins to fall. They thin film comes off with in the first 2 brake applications

 

Is it a problem then if not all the rust is removed from the rotors (the inner part of the rear rotors in my case) even after repeated braking?

 

I think that is normal too and I have seen it on several cars. That is probably where the pads don't touch the rotor.