I'm hoping someone can make some better educated guesses than me. The picture below is from a OEM 19 in Z51 wheel (right front). Wheel was perfectly fine before I drove 700 miles round trip to NY with 2 days of HPDE. I was using brand new rotors, track pads, and calipers for the front. Pads were properly bedded. Left wheel looks perfect, right wheel is the picture below.

The wheel is pitted very badly with some metal material. Nearly the entire inside of the wheel is rough, with heavy clouding in the two inconsistent rows as you see in the picture.

Notes. I never went off the track (not even close). I had zero brake issues on street or track. Brakes performed amazing. I have completely disassembled the front brakes for thorough inspection. Everything looks completely fine. After putting it back together, test drive still feels great.

My initial thoughts, but I don't think are correct.

1. Rotor material from manufacturing. Ex. From inside rotor vanes. Kind of ruling this out after conversations with engineers and brake inspection of entire front system.

2. Brake pads. Kind of ruling this out after inspection, but I suppose still could be the culprit. However, why is left front completely fine unless pads were bad from manufacturer. I guess I could swap pads from the other side and see if I can trash both wheels.

3. Something flew or was stuck in the brake system that blew through the wheel. Hard for me to think that based on the damage in the photo.

Anyway, any luck would be much appreciated or recommendations to try to determine root cause. Thanks for your time in advance!

 

If me I wouldn't chg side on the brake pads at all. They get a wear pattern to one rotor and if you chg them to the other side. It may give you a diff feel in the wheel. Looks like from the pic do you think someone put something on it just to be a dick and it done this to the inside rim.

 

No one has touched the car since before the track event. Probably safe to say if someone was going to vandalize my car, they wouldn't pick the inside of one wheel to mess up. Outside and lips of the rim are fine. It's really just the entire middle section.

 

If still have a warr on 36mos take it to the dealer and see what they tell you on it. May have been trash on something in the wheel and just now coming out on it. Robert

 

My wheels were pitted and peeling, but not nearly to that degree.

You can take it back to GM and they will either repaint or replace them.

-Or-

You can take all four off and get them powder coated.

On mine, it was clear that the outside surface had more coats of paint than the insides of the wheels. But they should not have been peeling/pitting after only a 1000 miles of street driving. I also changed to PowerStop Z26 pads which dusts less but I don't track my car.

 

At your track event was there any debris on the track that the right side of the car would have traveled over? If somebody oiled down the track heavily and the track maintenance people used a lot of Speedy Dry the speedy dry would have gone through the brake duct inlet into the rotor and thrown out of the rotor vanes onto the barrel of the wheel. Speedy Dry can be some what abrasive when it hits something at high speed.

Bill

 

Bill, that's a great point. The Watkins Glen event had several black flag sessions and long delays for fluid clean ups. I didn't realize how abrasive the Speedy Dry is especially with a hot wheel it could stick right to it. Makes a lot of sense. Thank you !

Regarding warranty, I'm sure they will say it's not covered since I'm used aftermarket rotors, calipers , and pads. Fortunately, oem wheels are not too expensive .

Thank