New zinc coated rotors

[gizzsdad]

I have received new zinc coated rotors that are supposed to be less prone to rusting.

A few years ago, while changing over to my winter tires/wheels, a couple of the wheels were stuck good to the raw iron rotors and required an uncomfortable number of smacks with a rubber mallet to free them.

Since then I have applied a light coating of nickel based anti-seize to the alloy wheel mounting surfaces - and have not had a repeat of the sticking.

Any ideas as to whether anything similar will be needed to prevent any galvanic corrosion between the coated rotors and the alloy wheels??

 

[sciphi]

Yes, once the salt gets into the interface between wheel and rotor. They'll be better, but far from perfect.

 

[SuperDave456]

No idea about the galvanic corrosion.
But that was going to be my first question.

I've seen "Hot dipped" galvanized nails start to fall apart after 20 years, a fence I built, the Zinc was still there but the Iron nail under it was not due to water getting in and rusting it.

Also, how did they coat them with zinc? One thing I remember about the fence was that the zinc made the nails brittle. Even the larger 4" ones that I was driving would shatter if I hit them with a glancing blow from my hammer.

I would worry about the heat treatment... although it may be some type of zinc coating other than galvanization.
Now that I think of it, There is all kinds of new coatings for firearms that would work awesome for the undercarriage of a car.

 

[KrisZ]

Keep applying a thin coat of anti-seize. The factory rotors in my Mazda 3 were coated and that didn't do squat when it came to rims freezing to the hub.

 

[gomes512]

One of the beaters I bought had the rear steel wheel frozen on so bad to the drum that I could drive around the block making turns with the lug nuts half off. Couldn't believe it... A quick 30mph turn finally broke it, had a disturbing deep crack to it.

Since then I've switched to alloy rims but they still like to stick unless I put a very thin layer of silver antisieze. I make sure that there aren't any dirt/rust particles in between the interface though.