Painting Calipers

well im kinda confused. fiorst off id like to say its about 15 degress outside so keep that in mind. i painted my calipers over the summer. i do have the stock calipers and the stock rotors. i have the GTP. over the summer i paitined my calipers and all summer the paint statyed. i did use the caliper painting kit. about 2 weeks ago it got really cold out. i took my car out to go to work on a dry nice day. and when i got home the paint on my calipers was falling off. WHY????? heres the sterps i took to paint them

took rim off
used brake cleaner and sprayed caliper
used sand paper and sanded caliper
brake cleaner again
air gun to dry caliper completely
put one layer of paint on(using supplied brush)
let it dry for about 2 hours.
did another coat (x4 coats)

the only thing i can thinkof that caused the paint to chip and fall of would be the calipers being so cold then hitting the brake heating them up really really fast.

next time ill try using some sort of engine high heat primer first or maybe even some high heat enginer paint to paint them with. any other suggestions i know i see cars alllll the time with painted calipers.,

the brake cleaner may have left a chemical residue that caused the problem. after using chems always use a degergent like good old dawn to degrease and remove any chemical residue. then use a clear water rinse to remove any remaining degerent.

What brand caliper paint kit did you use? I used Duplicolor High Performance brush on which came with the proper caliper spray cleaner. Another suggestion would be to allow for more drying time between coats to give the paint more time to dry and cure. I went with two coats only but recall giving it a lot more than two hours to dry between coats.

But it never gets down to 15 degrees where I live.

Good luck on the next go around.

What brand caliper paint kit did you use? I used Duplicolor High Performance brush on which came with the proper caliper spray cleaner. Another suggestion would be to allow for more drying time between coats to give the paint more time to dry and cure. I went with two coats only but recall giving it a lot more than two hours to dry between coats.

But it never gets down to 15 degrees where I live.

Good luck on the next go around.


i did buy the brush on kit. but i did use the brush i figured its a lfairly large area why woud i use a paint brush it would use streaks. so i used a foad brush. it seemed to have been alot smoother and faster. i did use thesame kit you did it was like 20 bucks. and it came with a tiny little can of paint. do you think the high heat primer will help make it stick better if its the quick heating thats the problem. or should i just stright use high heat engine paint to do thw whole thing

Engine paint doesn't work on calipers. I've used it before and they will start to rust over time. It sounds like a surface prep problem, as the paint in those kits is specially designed for calipers, so I don't think the rapid heating issue caused your problem. It takes many hard, repeated stops in a short amount of time to get the calipers really hot, so unless you went rally racing, I doubt that did it.

Another alternative is to use the special Caliper Spray Paint instead of hi-temp type enamel if you think the brush on is not working out for you. I've seen the spray at Autozone. Good luck!

one thought...did you stir up the can of paint well before applying it to the caliper ? If not, you may have gotten more of the solvent than the coloring on the brush, not leaving a proper coat of paint.

i've had my calipers painted for over a year now without too many problems. i used some high heat paint first that stuck better to the caliper. then i just used the spray paint for calipers and applied a few coats. they have chipped some, but not too noticeable. i wouldnt even say i cleaned the calipers too thoroughly.