What are my options

[Carlow]

Hi Folks
My front caliper started flaking today. What are my options.
Has anyone repaired this before?
Any tips or tricks for me?

Thanks

[Cyberdemon]

Your options are:
-1 Do nothing, it's just paint
-2: Rattle can it/DIY caliper paint brush kit and hope for the best
-3: Remove the calipers, get them media blasted and painted or powder coated.
-4: Big brake kit, used calpiers in better condition or a new OEM caliper.

Painting the caliper itself is pretty easy, but doing a good job and having it stick long term is another story - the prep work is more involved than the painting.

[pwrdbym]

Your options are nailed above.
Getting them professionally painted/powder coated means they have to be broken down completely with all seals removed, plus the car is down during the turn around time.

I can't speak for how obsessed you are, but a good option is to clean them up well and then use POR15 brake caliper paint which is a brush on application. It's actually very good.

[Cyberdemon]

I painted my calipers on my old car (not on my BMW), which were unpainted and the car was fairly new, so it mostly went fine, but the finish quality wasn't great and the longevity was OK after a few years of salty winters they looked pretty tired. It's going to be hard to cleanly get the old paint off in order to prep them without taking them off and either stripping them or blasting them though.

If you really wanted a weekend project and didn't need the car, you wouldn't need to break down the calipers completely, just pull them off (I sat mine on plastic crates but kept them hooked up to the brake lines), use wipe on paint stripper to try to get them as clean as possible, then wait a day and paint them with a brush kit.