Rust Spots on Driveway Pavers
 

What causes little rust spots to appear on druveway pavers, and how do you get rid of them?

If you use granular lawn fertilizer most of them have some iron in it and if not blown or swept off the pavers they will stain them. Can also get it from water dripping from a rusted are under a vehicle and some water has iron. I take my spots of using a thin cutting wheel attached to a drill and just lightly touch the spot with the surface of the wheel, comes right off and you will never know it was there. there are other ways but this is the easiest and quickest.

could be caused by acid dripping off a golf cart battery - tricky to get rid of as the "burn" can be quite deep

Based on your description - little rust spots - I think vintageogauge's diagnosis of rust from granules of fertilizer with iron is correct.

The stain is not permanent. The spots will gradually fade away. If you want them gone now, since they are rust caused by iron, a product like CLR works great to remove them.

You can also try SnoCap, I found this at ACE and to works great for removing the rust stains on the walls of our house.

SnoCap is oxalic acid. Can be bought in big bag on line at OXALIC ACID 99.6% Deck, Crystals, Metal Cleaning- Rust Removal, Wood Stain Remover and More! – FLALAB – CHEMICALS AND TEETH WHITENING PRODUCTS, my only warning is that it really gets the driveway clean, so you might have to do the whole thing to make it look even.

I was going to try CLR but it says not to use on porous material. Snowcap takes too long and leaves a white residue. The cutting wheel is the fastest or you can try a wire brush.

I have noticed this randomly even at the pools on the deck tiles, oftentimes where no chairs are. It would seem unlikely that fertilizer granules are getting in there. When we moved in, we had a few rust spots on the front porch and lanai from previous owners furniture and used Wink rust stain remover (often sold in laundry section of grocery store). Did not damage painted finish at all.