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Saw the title of this old thread while searching - it's my question exactly - why do my painted rear calipers have such a dull finish and rough casting compared to the "slick" and shiny good look of my front calipers? Are they cast of different materials? Since I bought used, did they both look good from the factory and the rears don't hold up well?

Related question - the "JAGUAR" lettering on the front calipers is almost completely faded away. What's up with that? Expected? It's a very minor issue but then again, buyers shell out for the painted calipers for a reason - appearance - and the near-missing lettering looks sloppy. The red paint seems to hold up to the heat - why not the black paint for the letters?

Thanks in advance and Happy Holidays to all!

 

The rear calipers are steel and the front calipers are alu alloy.
Also the front calipers are relatively smooth while the rears are "rough and bumpy" and I have no idea why this is so.
And yes, they both look bright and shiny when new but they both fade over time, especially the red ones. The fronts fade faster than the rears, again I don't know why.
And yes, the "Jaguar" lettering on the front calipers fades fairly fast, I bought my used F-Type when it was 20 months old and the lettering had faded so much you could barely see it any more than a few feet away. Easily fixed though by sticking new decals on, although I could not find any in the correct font that were an exact match for the OEM ones, I ended up buying some that were a little longer and stuck them over the top of the OEM letters.
Last but not least you can get decals for the rear calipers but they will not stick due to the bumpiness, I tried this on both my XFR and F-Type to no avail.
When I repainted the F-Type calipers yellow I filed down the faces of the rear calipers where the decals would go before painting and the decals stuck good and hard no problems.

 

I think Oz answered all of your questions and is spot on. Keeping them clean and /or Ceramic Coating seems to help. Those calipers get pretty hot, and thus the lettering fading (though it shouldn't!). I bought some Leaper, heat-proof caliper decals and cleaned mine up and replaced them with those decals. Looks better for sure.

DC

 

Guys - thanks for the answers and the DIY tips, much appreciated. That rear caliper looks way better and the decals are a great idea. Now I just need to take a Santa break and get into the garage!

 

At 12k miles my rears are turning a bit grey also. I plan to repaint them next year.
Weird how everyone else in the performance car industry can figure out how to apply a decent coating to their brake calipers but somehow it’s a mystery to Jaguar.