Blow-drying your car...

Felonious Crud

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Maybe, and plausibly so, but I personally would be inclined to take every reasonably opportunity to reduce wear on such expensive components. If a quick post-wash blast of compressed air over the ceramics* would help then I for one would do it!

*not rhyming slang!
 

spkennyuk

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5,930
Hmm, but why would a 'grinding' paste 'eat into the surface'

Not an expert either, and I gather they *should* be it I'm with Kenny

C

Ceramics being low dust too Mr C. Sounds like a Croc to me :)

Im not knocking you for taking extra care Adam. Far from it. A few of the comments on that thread just dont stack up.

Such as any water hitting the discs would be vaporised. Spraying water droplets on a hot disc yes it would evaporate off in a millisecond. Water spraying on cold discs while driving in the rain not so much.

Brakes rely on a transfer of pad material to the disc surface. Its why we bed new pads/ discs in. If that cross contamination isnt an even layer then we get brake judder. Which can take a disc skim to correct in the worst cases.

The grinding paste suggested would be made up of mostly brake pad material suspended in water. Which would be much softer than the pad that would be pushing said paste against the disc and also much softer than the disc. The second the brakes were applied any paste between the pad and the disc would loose its water content and become brake dust again.

Interesting bit on a thread i was reading earlier about a dealer claiming that the ceramic disc on the front of a car had failed due to cleaning with agressive chemicals at low mileage. It was pointed out that why would anybody wash just one wheel out of four and the other three were all in VGC. Upshot was the dealer agreed and replaced under warranty. I think the car in question had done around 14k miles.

Ceramic as a material is pretty resistant to chemicals / acids.

Im no expert either but the case on the PH thread is one case and the damage had already been done to the discs. It was then attributed to chemical wheel cleaners on a basis of what ? It doesnt say. I would imagine if they spoke to the owner that they could find out which wheel cleaning products were used and see if the damage could be replicated. I would imagine that any chemical can only be attacking the carbon eliments of the disc.

I think the biggest problem has been the over zealous sales people that have said the discs wont need changing during the lifetime of the car and other exteme long life quotes.

Carbon ceramic discs might be expensive but at least you can have them rebuilt in most cases numerous times at a much cheaper cost than new discs.

You would think the likes of BMW , Merc and Mclaren would remove the auto brake drying function from theirs cars if "grinding paste" was a problem for ceramic discs.

Condensation on the discs would surely be a problem on cold morning too.

Im sure we will know more in the next few years as more and more discs need changing if its a real problem or more a perceived cause of another issue.
 

safrane

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16,747
Back to the thread.

I find lots of water hangs around in the coupe side/fog/indicator cluster in the front bumper.

I have to blow into thise to get the majority out...a can of compressed air would be handy.

Also I may have a word with Mr Dyson (his mansion is near me). His air blade system would make an ideal car accessory... it would be like a water blade but without the risk of dragging dirt across the body panels.
 

spkennyuk

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5,930
Your local east european car wash may let you drive under their air blade for a small fee. Although the water will probably have blown off before you get there.
 

safrane

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Im sure Newton would knock one of these out in an hour or so. Hair dryer and a length of plastic pipe with a two mm slit down the length and the end blocked off.