I've noticed recently, that the rear rotors on my 2016 IS350, which is about a year and a month old, with ~16,500 miles on it (everything is still 100% factory), has quite a bit of surface rust around the edges of the rear rotors. I know this is common with less expensive cars, but in my past experience, with BMWs, the factory rotors have a satin silver paint coating on the non-braking surfaces that prevents them from getting ugly and rusty-looking. The front rotors on my car look fine, but the rear ones are quite rusty and ugly. Is this normal on these cars? Some pictures below to compare the front and rear brakes (they look worse in the sun, in person, than these pictures):

Rear:




Front:

 

That is totally normal for rotors to rust like that. Rotors have high iron content which oxidizes or rust when exposed to moisture. Even driving through rain. You'll notice this on the rotor surface if you spray water on it when hand washing your car. Since you're in So Cal, it is minimal, so definitely consider yourself lucky. In areas where it snows and they use salt, it looks 10x worse. If it really bothers you that much, you can paint the exposed surfaces with paint. I'd look into por15. As far as the brown rust colour stuff on your disc brake shield, some wheel cleaner with a brush can take that off easily.

 

Alright I guess I'll quit whining and deal with it. Haha I guess I just thought they'd have a similar coating as a BMW since they're relatively similar in quality otherwise.

 

If you come to Canada they won't last for 1 winter month, Welcome to the hotel California, such a lovely place such a lovely face ! i missed Cali spring time so much and missed those cali girls.

 

I washed my car today, and (though I wasn't really taking this picture for the purposes of showing it), you can see lots of rust on the brake rotor. This usually happens when I wash it, but it doesn't stay this level of rusty for long.

rust