Usually, the brakes on a car aren’t something you pay much attention to. But on sportier or fancier cars, sometimes some attention is shown to how they look. With bigger wheels that show more of the brakes, a common way to dress up the brakes is to paint the calipers. Typical colors to paint brake calipers are red, yellow, or black, and may also have the manufacturer’s logo on them.

This Honda Ridgeline pulled into the shop and I saw the flash of red inside the wheels. I was intrigued because this wasn’t the type of vehicle you would bother getting custom calipers for. When I looked closer I could tell what was going on: the customer had bought some kind of plastic covers for the calipers.

They were red, had fake painted on bolt heads, and said Ridgeline on them, so they’re definitely made vehicle-specific. Usually when somebody wants to make their calipers look nicer they just spray a little paint on, which I’ve seen multiple times before. I’ve never seen plastic covers like this. I think actual painted calipers look at a lot better than these.

New blog posts every Monday and Thursday, plus pictures throughout the week on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram!

Watch Mechanical Malarkey on YouTube!

Mechanical Malarkey T-shirts, hats, and stickers are available to order!

-Dan