Brake rust on the drum
 

Had my brake rotors changed a month ago. Shop took three tries to set the parking brake right and settled on a setting where it doesn't smoke. When I took it back and asked them to add tension, they basically told me to go away.

Now the drum is rusting and it looks awful. I'm wondering if there was supposed to be a plate over it and it got left off. I hadn't noticed this with the old rotors. I'm taking it to a different mechanic next week (one I know is competant), just trying to figure out what's going on with it. It drives fine.

The rotors' top hat are probably uncoated. For example, Centric sells 120.x where the top hat is coated and 121.x where it is uncoated. An uncoated top hat will obviously rust and unlike the rotor itself it will continue to rust (the rotor gets cleaned up during braking).
Do you have the part numbers installed by the shop?

I don't have it at hand. The invoice might still be in the glove box. I was looking at AAP and noticed they also sell a coated and uncoated, with the uncoated only being a few dollars cheaper. Since its technically acceptable, but unsightly, do I have any actual recourse or should I just buy the correct part and take it over to my previous mechanic? This new guy probably doesn't want to see me again.

if it bothers you, chalk the cost up to experience and get the proper one's yourself. he was trying to save money for the customer-- many customers would rather pay the lesser price and never look at their rotors.

I'll do it that way. I'm sure this is what he had on hand, but you'd think a mechanic would see its a sports car and give the customer a choice. I would have waited an extra day or two for the correct part.

It's cosmetic only issue anyway. And as soundman98 noted, most would rather save & never look at.

nah, doesn't matter the type of car. i know a few independent mechanics that have stories upon stories of pristine almost-show cars coming in, they'll recommend the $75-100 part for reliability and looks, but then the customer demands a $25 iteration that they make clear will have aesthetic finishing issues or long term reliability issues.

but the customer wants the $25 option, and is perfectly happy with it later.

but those same customers are the one's that will raise holy hell if they find out that the place charged $4 more than what someone else charges for it.

a place i used to go until my buddy stopped working there, i always explicitly told them, "i want the best performing part, if it's a matter of $200, just go with the better part, don't even bother asking. i don't want to keep fixing it"

My go-to for blank discs now are the Centric coated premiums. I put them on in 2012 for my WRX and they stayed black/dark for 8 years of use through tons of salt. We now use these rotors on all our cars, even my SO's Sentra because I hate the look of orange rust right there when you look at the wheels. Any uncoated rotor does this. Your OEM Brembo rotors had the coating.

The difference in price is $65 vs $45. So eh, for $80 all around, it's worth it to me for as long as rotors usually last. You can typically get 2-3 pad changes out of quality rotors. Most junk ones you end up having to change out with every pad change from rust.

How many miles on your old Brembo rotors? These are usually really good quality as should last a good 75k+ and multiple pad changes. I have 40k on mine and they look perfectly fine.

Those coatings have always burned off on me. It REEKS.

Sorry, I didn't see your reply, been dealing with some stuff around my apartment. The rotors only had 30,000 miles on them, but I ground them down by not changing the pads in time. I figured I had another 10,000 or so left and just never checked.

I've been looking for the coated Centric rotors, but the only place I can find them in stock has some really bad reviews. I can get the Brembo rotor directly from them (PART #: 09.A198.21) for about the same price. Is this any good or should I wait for Centric?

The Centrics or the Brembo rotors are both good choices. If I was in the same spot and the Brembos were available with a better vendor, I'd get replacement Brembos and call it a day.