Finally painted my calipers

[Wilto]

After nearly 8 months of doing "other" mods, I've finally got round to painting my calipers today along with 15mm spacer's all round.

It was the last part in the jigsaw of my visual modifications.

APR or Revo remap next ?

 

[H Rafiq]

Nice. I put decals on my front calipers recently.

 

[RUM4MO]

I recently painted all 4 callipers on my wife's 2015 VW Polo 1.2TSI 110PS, really just to look them look a bit better as the years and miles had taken their toll!
I was replacing both front wheel bearings, so I reckoned that now was the time to do this, I picked "Gunmetal Grey" as the colour - not wanting to put on any crazy "false" colours on this car like gloss black or gloss red, so reasoned out that a darker grey like Gunmetal grey should work - it turned out to be near enough Battleship grey, not a good choice, still they are not now a horrid mottled silver-grey-rusty colour! I have not noticed any suitable high temperature silver paint that was dark enough to work, most/all I've looked at are too bright or white looking for my liking.

 

[BigJase88]

I recently painted all 4 callipers on my wife's 2015 VW Polo 1.2TSI 110PS, really just to look them look a bit better as the years and miles had taken their toll!
I was replacing both front wheel bearings, so I reckoned that now was the time to do this, I picked "Gunmetal Grey" as the colour - not wanting to put on any crazy "false" colours on this car like gloss black or gloss red, so reasoned out that a darker grey like Gunmetal grey should work - it turned out to be near enough Battleship grey, not a good choice, still they are not now a horrid mottled silver-grey-rusty colour! I have not noticed any suitable high temperature silver paint that was dark enough to work, most/all I've looked at are too bright or white looking for my liking.

I painted mine hammerite silver and i do agree they are too bright for my liking.

Maybe best option is a custom colour might add a bit of black hammerite to the silver to darken it up a bit

 

[SuperV8]

Nice. I put decals on my front calipers recently.

View attachment 33641

Nice painting but looks like you have some micro cracks radiating out from your drilled holes. Nothing to worry about at the moment - just keep an eye on it. if any micro cracks get to 20mm+, join up and reach the edge then you need a new disc.

What discs are they? Original or aftermarket?

That's the trouble with drilled discs, they look cool but each drilled hole is a lovely stress riser for a thermally expanding and contracting cast iron! drilled discs have a much lower thermal fatigue resistance than plain discs.

 

[RUM4MO]

I painted mine hammerite silver and i do agree they are too bright for my liking.

Maybe best option is a custom colour might add a bit of black hammerite to the silver to darken it up a bit

I've dabbled with mixing Hammerite colours, although Hammerite warn not to do this as some colours have different solvents in them. It worked out okay for me when I mixed some black in with blue so that it almost matched the Deep Sea pearlescent body colour on my S4 - I was just touching up the 4 sill lifting points.

 

[H Rafiq]

Nice painting but looks like you have some micro cracks radiating out from your drilled holes. Nothing to worry about at the moment - just keep an eye on it. if any micro cracks get to 20mm+, join up and reach the edge then you need a new disc.

What discs are they? Original or aftermarket?

That's the trouble with drilled discs, they look cool but each drilled hole is a lovely stress riser for a thermally expanding and contracting cast iron! drilled discs have a much lower thermal fatigue resistance than plain discs.

View attachment 33653

Stock discs. Mentioned it to MOT tester recently, and Seat dealership, they said it’s fine at the moment.

 

[H Rafiq]

Nice painting but looks like you have some micro cracks radiating out from your drilled holes. Nothing to worry about at the moment - just keep an eye on it. if any micro cracks get to 20mm+, join up and reach the edge then you need a new disc.

What discs are they? Original or aftermarket?

That's the trouble with drilled discs, they look cool but each drilled hole is a lovely stress riser for a thermally expanding and contracting cast iron! drilled discs have a much lower thermal fatigue resistance than plain discs.

View attachment 33653

Getting the front discs and pads changed tomorrow. Discs were from new. Lasted >100,000 miles. Swapping them for none-drilled ones.

 

[SuperV8]

Stock discs. Mentioned it to MOT tester recently, and Seat dealership, they said it’s fine at the moment.

Yes, which is what I said:

Nothing to worry about at the moment - just keep an eye on it. if any micro cracks get to 20mm+, join up and reach the edge then you need a new disc.

 

[SuperV8]

Getting the front discs and pads changed tomorrow. Discs were from new. Lasted >100,000 miles. Swapping them for none-drilled ones.

100,000 miles is good for a set of discs! Mostly motorway miles I presume?

 

[H Rafiq]

100,000 miles is good for a set of discs! Mostly motorway miles I presume?

I’ve owned the car around 15 months now. Put just over 10k on it in that time. We do the odd motorway trip maybe once or twice a month. The rest is city driving. No harsh braking. I try to read the road brake sooner and smoother. The rear discs n pads are fine though ??‍

 

[SuperV8]

I’ve owned the car around 15 months now. Put just over 10k on it in that time. We do the odd motorway trip maybe once or twice a month. The rest is city driving. No harsh braking. I try to read the road brake sooner and smoother. The rear discs n pads are fine though ??‍

Ah ok, I would highly suggest it has had some new discs previously before your ownership.

The OE number 5Q0615301G for the 340mm disc is plain - NOT drilled. Can't see any drilled option for the 340 disc - only on the 370 disc - unless there was a local dealer fit option?

 

[H Rafiq]

Ah ok, I would highly suggest it has had some new discs previously before your ownership.

The OE number 5Q0615301G for the 340mm disc is plain - NOT drilled. Can't see any drilled option for the 340 disc - only on the 370 disc - unless there was a local dealer fit option?
View attachment 36473

Oh, fair enough. You learn something new every day. I’ve gone with plain discs this time, no drilled holes, like those ☝?

 

[andylong]

Drilled discs are pointless. Back in the day when pads gassed off it probably mattered

 

[RUM4MO]

Yes, but just think about the raising of the street cred - as long as no one notices the cracking around them????
Or maybe not!

 

[andylong]

Grooves are the new drilled

 

[RUM4MO]

Grooves, in my experience are good for "casting off" road spray - more so for cars where the callipers are at the rear of the hubs and so subjected to more incoming road spray, particularly in winter when it has a high salt content in some areas of the country.

ATE Power Disc worked well on my 2000 VW Passat 4Motion where initially there was no protection/prevention of shielding the discs and pads from getting covered in road spray, same age Audi A4 eventually got additional plastic parts to prevent a lot of that, and the next or facelifted B5 VW Passat also got that along with proper sized front discs.

Where things went bad or wrong for me was that I started to use my car less in winter, and that meant it ended up getting garaged at times when salt rich slush/snow/ice had accumulated on these grooved discs - and that quickly lead to serious rusting progressing out from the edge of the grooves, and soon it got that bad that it did not get cleaned back to bright metal after a few miles of use - that lead one pair of ATE Power Discs to be scrapped/replaced before the discs wore down to their useful limit, that was annoying!

Neither of our current cars seem to suffer from that horrible "washing out" of the front brakes in extreme winter conditions which lead to zero front braking effort for the first maybe 10 seconds of braking, so I've not needed to repeat swopping plain discs for grooved ones.

 

[andylong]

I haven't found any benefit to grooves over plain discs.
The groove theory is supposed to scrape the pad rather than clear water. Once your brakes are hot they won't be wet anyway.
Frankly for non track use its cosmetic anyway.

 

[Branter]

After nearly 8 months of doing "other" mods, I've finally got round to painting my calipers today along with 15mm spacer's all round.

It was the last part in the jigsaw of my visual modifications.

APR or Revo remap next ?View attachment 33634View attachment 33635

Looks good what paint did you use ?

 

[Wilto]

Foliatec 2162 Brake Caliper... https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0029SFIEY?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share