Rebuilding & Refinishing for all Brake Calipers
OEM or Custom Brake Caliper Paint Colours & Finishes
Here at Brake Caliper Refurbishment, we don’t just do big red calipers, we undertake a wide range of finishes. Whether you’re looking to get your car’s brake calipers refurbished back to their former glory, or are looking to spice things up with an eye-catching custom brake colour, BCR can deliver stunning results for a competitive price.
We can provide common caliper colours of red, yellow or black in highly durable powdercoat which is ideal for track applications offering maximum durability. Alternatively, we can refinish using industry-leading heat resistant paint to any variety of metallic colour providing an exceptionally deep gloss.
Our Brake Caliper Rebuild Quality Promise
Not only do we provide beautiful and durable brake caliper paint finishes to each and every caliper that arrives at our workshop, but we’re also committed to the performance and safety of the cars & motorcycles to which they are equipped.
Each caliper we refurbish is rebuilt with new OEM hardware including bleed nipples, seals, dust shields and where necessary, pistons to ensure dependable performance on both the track and the street.
We offer a warranty on every rebuild we complete, so you can be sure that we will deliver the best quality brake service available.
When is it Time for Brake Caliper Refurbishment?
Brake calipers are a particularly high impact part of your car, and they go through considerable extremes. With them not only being key for performance, but paramount to safety too, its recommended to get brake calipers rebuilt every so often, even if only mechanically and not for cosmetic reasons.
Generally Calipers can respond well to regular maintenance and with a partial strip-down, a clean and some fresh grease you can keep your brake calipers perfectly operational for a very long time.
Whether Porsche, BMW, Ford, Renault, Honda or Mazda, eventually, all vehicle calipers will need a full rebuild with wear parts replacing.
One of the most common signs that your calipers are due for a refurb is the classic sticking brake caliper issue. You may notice your car pulling slightly to one side, or that it’s a bit harder to pull away from a dead stop. In extremes you can even notice a vibration as your travel along or a juddering in the steering.
You can quite easily confirm that you’ve got a sticking caliper and zero in on which one it is by feeling each of your alloy wheels after coming to a stop. If you notice one of them is quite warm compared to the others, this is a sure symptom of a dragging brake caliper.
If you continue to ignore this issue you will eventually be faced with a loud squeal or squeaking brake calipers, which is not usual for a car fitted with regular road-going brake pads.
It’s not uncommon for customers to get in touch with us looking for salvation following a sticking brake caliper that continues even with DIY intervention.
Another good prompt to consider brake caliper refurbishment is noticing excessive corrosion or rust on your calipers building up. This can lead on to the sticking caliper and brake squeak issue quite quickly.
Unfortunately most automotive manufacturers send cars off the production line with bare metal calipers, or calipers finished in a silver passivate or zinc electroplate finish which looks great for the first 6 months or so and then deteriorates into a rusty corroded mess that can really spoil the look of your from-new car. This is an issue hard to ignore with today’s aggressive wheel designs revealing the brake calipers and discs that lurk behind the faces.
Luckily, we have had a lot of success refinishing this style of single piston sliding caliper found on most modern cars in OEM black or silver colours, or even more eye-catching red or yellow often found or Porsche brake calipers for example. Once properly prepared and refinished, the finish we provide is guaranteed to last considerably longer than the factory one and look better throughout their service.
If you are lucky enough to drive high performance cars or motorcycles that feature multi-piston brake calipers such as those manufactured by Brembo, your brake calipers are sadly just as susceptible to wear, if not more so depending on the maintenance and care you take.
Many vehicles are supplied with these larger performance brake calipers for a good reason. Stopping power. If your vehicle is high performance then you will undoubtedly be pushing your brake calipers harder leading to more rapid wear and tear.
Depending on what material they are cast or forged in, they can still suffer from corrosion after a while too, and as the eye is drawn to them, it can be a real cosmetic blemish on an otherwise pristine car or bike. Luckily, these solid brake calipers provided by Brembo or other manufacturers such as AP Racing, Alcon, Nashin, Tarox, Wilwood, Forge, D2, StopTech, Nissin or K-Sport tend to be very well built in the first place to stand the test of time. They are ripe for refinishing, and with the correct service can be remanufactured to look brand new, and this is the level of brake service we provide.
Motorcycle Brake Reconditioning
While we cater to many car brake calipers, we also specialise in motorcycle brake caliper refurbishment too.
Generally Motorcycle brake calipers are smaller, however many bikes feature a twin disc set-up up front which means there is an extra caliper to deal with.
Regardless of this, we are able to take on all kinds of motorcycle brake reconditioning for all manufacturers including Honda, Ducati, Yamaha, Suzuki, Kawasaki, KTM, Aprilia, Triumph, Harley Davidson and many more. We don’t just rebuild sports or superbike brake calipers either, we can also source parts and rebuild classic bike brake calipers too. We’ve even been known to rebuild the odd drum brake when the opportunity arises.
Brake Caliper Refurbishment Service Packages
As we provide brake caliper refurbishment services to such a wide range of customers, we appreciate that each requirement is unique. Due to this, we started offering 3 levels of service which serve as an excellent starting point for the majority of customers who contact us for brake work.
1. Brake Caliper Rebuild
Our brake caliper rebuild service is our most basic and cost-effective if your goal is to get back on the road with your calipers performing as they would new. This process involves a full, strip down as all of our services must to enable us to provide a warranty on the work. The stages your brake calipers will go through are as follows.
- Full brake caliper strip down
- Intensive cleaning using chemical baths and our ultrasonic cleaning machine
- Mechanical inspection
- Rebuild with new piston seals and rust seals. New hardware only where absolutely necessary such as damaged bleed nipples or balance pipes (we would confirm prior to doing this additional work)
- Rebuild and re-grease the brake caliper ready to return.
This service is perfect for sticky or seized calipers that need a speedy repair, and while the cosmetic appearing of the calipers will be greatly improved, we will not undertake any cosmetic work such as applying coatings to the calipers. For increased longevity for your brake calipers, we usually recommend the next level of service up from this which includes a protective paint or powdercoat finish that will keep your brake calipers looking and operating their best for much longer into the future.
2. Standard Brake Caliper Refurbishment
Our standard brake caliper refurbishment service level involves a full strip down, cleaning and inspection prior to applying a fresh protective paint coating in one of our standard colours.
This level of service is the most common one we provide and fits the vast majority of our customers requirements down to a tee. This service works great for both single piston sliding calipers, or multi-piston performance calipers on cars or motorcycles.
Once we have completed the initial brake caliper stripping and cleaning process, we then move on to the preparation work and the application of our high-temperature paint coatings.
You can expect an excellent, durable, and attractive paint finish which you’ll be proud of with a colour choice of flat silver, black, red or yellow to compliment the style of your vehicle.
This service can greatly improve the cosmetic appearance of standard brake calipers or bring Brembo calipers to an as-new finish for example. You can read a lot more detail about the coating process in our brake caliper painting section.
3. Premium Brake Caliper Painting
Our premium brake caliper refurbishment service turns the cosmetic side of things up a notch. For a relatively modest additional cost, you can select a custom paint colour based on or matched to any automotive paint code.
This service level also includes the application of special high temperature decals matched to any manufacturers design.
This service works perfectly for customers who are seeking calipers in a custom colour, maybe matched to their car or motorcycle, or customers looking to have a brake caliper refinished in the original manufacturer colour to retain a vehicle’s authenticity.
A great example would be Subaru WRX calipers which come in a unique copper paint colour. With access to a range of metallic paint colours, you can get as creative with your selection as you like with the brake caliper refurbishment process.
Pricing & Turnaround
With years of experience rebuilding and refinishing brake calipers, we are proud to offer one of the most complete services available in the UK or even internationally. Despite this, we are very keen to offer excellent value to our customers so keep our prices very competitive.
We’re happy to beat any genuine like-for-like quote, but we do ask customers to be aware of the amount of substandard work out there at seemingly bargain prices. These generally turn out to be a false economy and leave companies like us to pick up the pieces and fix their mess.
Get in touch with us for a quote, many brake calipers and many requirements come with vastly different costs in parts, materials and labour so while we have base prices for each service, quotes can vary depending on a variety of other factors.
We are of course happy to offer you the best value for money when it comes to brake caliper refurbishment and will not insist on performing any unnecessary work to your brakes if you need simply need to get back on the road.
If you are looking for a quick rattle can job which doesn’t involve any kind of preparation or mechanical rebuild, then you are looking in the wrong place. We take considerable pride in our work and always go out of our way to do the job properly and in a way which leads to excellent customer satisfaction and beautiful calipers ready for years of service.
If you are looking for a service level that involves brake caliper painting and not just a rebuild then we normally turn calipers around within 14 days, part of this involves the sourcing of and acquisition of new parts.
If your calipers require further engineering works to repair, the finding of rare parts, or the fabrication of new ones to replace we would be back in touch to discuss the cost involved and seek approval before proceeding. In these cases, it can take more than 14 days to complete the brake caliper refurbishment process.
If you require faster turnarounds than this, it can sometimes be available on enquiry, but at additional cost as it can require our dedicated team to work additional or anti-social hours to get the job done sooner.
Once we have completed a brake caliper refurbishment, we then contact the customer with images of the results, and once confirmed we then take payment and get your shiny refinished brake calipers packaged up and posted out to you on a fast, tracked postage service.
Preparing Your Calipers to Send to Us
Once you have decided that we at Brake Caliper Refurbishment are the right team for the job, you need to package up your brake calipers carefully and get them sent out to us.
To do this, they need removing from the car or motorcycle in question. You can elect to get a garage to do this for you which is usually what we recommend unless you are a confident home mechanic with the correct tools for both removing/refitting brake calipers and bleeding them correctly once reinstalled.
A garage will need to hold onto your vehicle while the calipers get refinished so it’s always best to check that they have the facility for secure storage before agreeing to take your vehicle to them.
This arrangement can be ideal if the garage will also be refitting the brake calipers after the caliper reconditioning process has been completed and they are back with you.
When calipers are removed we suggest bagging them up and taping over the now exposed brake line port to help prevent additional leakage or moisture ingress. We ask that you do not send calipers to us with lines still attached unless we’ve agreed to unseize and remove them for you as part of our service. We also ask that you do not send us brake pads either as these add unnecessary weight to the parcel and if they come loose in transit they can cause unnecessary marring to the brake calipers before we get chance to start our brake caliper refurbishment process.
As far as getting freshly removed calipers shipped to us for brake caliper refurbishment, we recommend sending valuable calipers via a tracked and insured service to prevent loss. We will confirm that your brake calipers arrive at our workshop safely ready for reconditioning work to proceed.
More About BCR
Experienced Brake Technicians, Automotive Painters and Powdercoaters We specialise in brake caliper refurbishment and can refinish any caliper, from single-piston sliding calipers to Brembo 8-pot carbon ceramic Porsche brake calipers to a stunning, durable finish.
We don’t just rebuild and refinish car brake calipers either, we can service motorcycle brake calipers and even brake calipers used in larger industrial machinery or agricultural applications such as Agribuggy used for crop spraying on farms.
In our time, we’ve turned around some very neglected calipers and also calipers used in aggressive and unsympathetic applications, an as-new finish in terms of function and form is always our goal.
Visit our Brake Caliper Painting page for more details on our refinishing process.