G2 Brake Caliper Paint kit: Impressions and thoughts after a year and a half

[gixxerfool]

Going back and forth about the Macan upgrade, I landed on a no since most of the guys that used them said there will be no discernible difference on the street. I grabbed a set of used GTI PP fronts from a member here for what I feel was a decent enough price. Powder coat was my original goal, but my regular guy has been sporadic about getting back to me and I do not chase people down to spend my money with them. I looked at other options.

Spray paint was considered, but I don't think it has any real world durability in this application. No matter the prep, type, or application it just does not hold up. So I started looking at other DIY methods that were reasonably priced. Found the G2 system ordered some blue and ordered new deals from Badgeskins.

Here are the before pics. Not my pics, but they show the general state and saved me from remembering to take progress pics, I suck at that.

They were generally in good shape, just needed some real cleaning. I got to work soaking and scrubbing in some water and degreaser. After that, a lot of masking, little corners and radii.

I thought I grabbed a picture of everything masked off, did I mention I suck at progress pics? While the kit says you do not have to sand anything, as this is designed to be used with the calipers still on the car, I scuffed them with some 400 for a little tooth anyways.

My kit arrived...in white...

Must be the wrong box, right?

Nope. I contacted G2 right away, I ordered straight from them since they were cheaper than Amazon, sent them my invoice and pics and they sent the correct color right out. No questions, and they left me the white paint which is useless as far as I am concerned.

After picking at the masking for a couple of weeks here and there I added some hangers. Real quick on the masking, I grabbed the little watch makers hammer from Harbor Freight for about $3 or so and was perfect for tapping on the sharp edges to cut the tape. It was nice and small to get into tighter areas. There were still spots I needed to cut by hand, but a real sanity saver.

The calipers were prepped and then hung.

I did another quick wipe with the supplied brake clean and started the process. Prior I watched a bunch of YT videos of people using this system, so there is some information I gleaned I found helpful. The first coat is supposed to be thin, do not worry after the first coat it really starts to come out. Its basically a coat to give it some good foundation. The subsequent coats are thicker and need to be otherwise your brush dries out enough to start pulling the previous layers off.

I let them cure for a few hours in my ventilated garage and then brought them downstairs into my boiler room where its warm and let them sit another 24 hours. I was impressed by the self leveling of this product. While not perfect, pretty damned good.

 

[gixxerfool]

After they were cured I pulled all the mask off, which came off just like any other paint would got the results I wanted.

Anything that would have bled under the tape, which wasn't much if any, can be scraped off real easy with a blade.

Final thoughts and TL;DR

1. For ~$65 this kit is complete and real decent value, this is initial thoughts, holding off on review until some time has passed.
2. They have a wide variety of colors and I believe will color match for a fee.
3. I like that it is not just a paint, there is a reactor you add make it an epoxy type finish.
4. G2 thought outside the box with this and really you can too for other applications.

Dos and Don'ts

• DO take the time to clean prep, results will depend heavily on the time invested
• DO use a better brush than one provided, this was universal in almost all the videos I watched
• DO wear proper PPE, it dripped on my pants and through onto my legs and I didn't realize it and now it won't come off my skin
• DO NOT paint these inside, the paint does not smell, the reactor is quite strong
• DO NOT buy the sprayer for this product, the brush works fine and will not take that much more time

I want to get these installed and start testing soon to see how it holds up over time.

 

[Gray_Panther]

Great review and post!

I am on year 8 or 9 when I applied G2 on the brakes of my BMW 128i. Still no paint chipping and they look brand new still. I don’t drive the car in the winter so maybe that helps with why they have lasted so long.

 

[gixxerfool]

Great review and post!

I am on year 8 or 9 when I applied G2 on the brakes of my BMW 128i. Still no paint chipping and they look brand new still. I don’t drive the car in the winter so maybe that helps with why they have lasted so long.

Thanks man!

I couldn’t find a long term review on this product. Mine is a daily so I’m hoping it will stand up to the elements well.

 

[Acadia18]

Looks good, glad it worked out good for you! I tried it ony Macan calipers last year. My experience with the kit was the exact opposite, but not on the fault of the kit, but my own inept to paint anything well.

I ended up bringing them somewhere to have the G2 sandblasted off and powder coated.

 

[gixxerfool]

Looks good, glad it worked out good for you! I tried it ony Macan calipers last year. My experience with the kit was the exact opposite, but not on the fault of the kit, but my own inept to paint anything well.

I ended up bringing them somewhere to have the G2 sandblasted off and powder coated.

Thank you!

I was apprehensive at first. I wanted to coat them but didn’t want to be bothered to rebuild them, ship them and such. If I can scare up some rears I want to do them to match. They do not come up for sale often.

 

[Gr33nBunny]

My father in law introduced me to this stuff a few years ago. He did both his and his wife's calipers black on their Accords, and I helped him do a friend's A6 calipers in yellow. Before this thread I was already planning to use the same kit when I upgrade my brakes, but this helps seal the deal.

 

[gixxerfool]

Oh. I guess I should post installed pics here.

 

[Drewpul]

Is this paint still holding up well for you?

 

[gixxerfool]

Is this paint still holding up well for you?

Hey! Thanks for asking. This is a great question.

So overall, yes very well. There are a few minor things.

Durability 9.5/10: It is still really solid. There are literally two small dots where the original caliper color is showing. I mean dots. They are on the back end of the caliper. Why these spots? I don’t know. Could have been residue from prep or something hit them. I’m in the northeast so we get pretty nasty winters.
On top of that I haven’t cleaned them since last October and just cleaned them this past week. This is my daily. Some soapy water and a brush got them looking new again. Super impressed with that.

Something weird to note, when I clean them the one side gets super light blue, like a cornflower blue almost. Seems to go back to normal after it fully dries, but I’m not sure why it does this. It’s one side only that does it. It could be I didn’t mix the paint well enough and did that caliper first. Could be that side gets more sun. I don’t know. I’m not bothered by it.

For the price point, this is an amazing product. The self leveling and overall strength of it is pretty stellar for ~$70 USD. This is all dependent on reading the instructions. When watching YT videos before I applied it some trashed the product because of cure and finish. They applied it in too cold of weather and didn’t even really prep it right.

I would buy this again, and may to do the rears. Since I bought the off the shelf blue it will easily color match the fronts and I can touch up the fronts while I’m at it.

They do custom color match as well. I didn’t want to wait and there may have been a fee for it.

I would suggest if you go this route to Jack it up on four Jack stands pull the wheels and clean everything really well and then get to painting.

Oh side note as to durability, even though the paint has a couple of chips, you can see my mask line and those are not peeling.

 

[Charlotte.:R]

Nice write up.

Agree G2 is a fantastic product for the price. I used it on my Macan calipers back in 2020 and it's holding up great -- helps that they were that bare/flat black and I painted them black. Also used on my wife's B9 A4 and C8 A6 which both had bare Brembo calipers. No worse for wear after years in use.